Li Hanjun's views on socialism

This article examines Li Hanjun's views on socialism. Li Hanjun was one of the main founders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and expressed his vision and ideas of socialism during the 1920s. Like many other Communists in the early CCP, he was convinced that China should take a socialist road. Yet, in respect to how to realise socialism and what kind of socialist society should be built, Li held a view different from most of them. In his opinion, the governing institutions in a socialist society should be democratic and autonomous rather than centralist and bureaucratic; production and distribution should be administered and managed by an association of free and equal producers in the form of cooperatives instead of by the state and its officials. These views were quite distinct from the Soviet centralised state socialism and the dictatorship by a ruling elite. However, his ideas and designs of the economic and political institutions in socialist society were consonant with Marx on many points. Besides examining Li Hanjun's socialist views, this research also attempts to explore his philosophical inclinations and political orientation, in order to explain why he could conceive such special ideas of a socialist fabric.     

The Italian Left in search of ideas: the rediscovery of the political ideas of the Action Party

In the wake of the collapse of 'really-existing' socialism and against a background of the growing influence of neo-liberal political thought, European socialist parties - and especially the former communist parties - have found it crucially important to reassert their liberal credentials. This explains the interest displayed by the Italian Left in liberal socialism, Dahrendorf 's New Liberalism and American liberalism, and especially in what is now called the 'Third Way'. In Italy, these developments have resulted in a genuine example of 'history's revenge'. The political ideas associated with the Action Party (PdA), which long played a Cinderella role in Italian politics and culture, have moved back to centre stage. This article examines how Italian leftist parties like the Democrats of the Left (DS) have been realigned to take into account the ideas of liberal socialism proposed by thinkers like Carlo Rosselli. It also explores how,since 1989, parties of the Italian Left have tried to appropriate the Actionist past and its mission, and why,after a long period of deliberate neglect, the Actionist agenda has again become the subject of lively debate.     

Between ideology and pragmatism: the ČSSR,the GDR and West European companies in the 1970s and 1980s

The article deals with Czechoslovakia's and East Germany's relations with West European enterprises and private businessmen in the 1970s and 1980s, and explores more specifically their licensing agreements and credit policy. The author shows their importance for technological modernisation and the realisation of so-called consumer socialism in both countries. It focuses on the political and business elites of both countries, and devotes special attention to the question of the ideological versus technocratic approach of the politicians and company directors as well as their impact on economic planning.     

新中国党的经济理论和思想发展的回顾与评析

新中国建立以来,党的经济理论总的来说是既以马克思主义为指导,又从中国实际出发,不断摆脱教条主义与本本主义,在许多方面发展了马克思主义的经济理论,如毛泽东的《论十大关系》便是对马克思主义经济学的新发展,同时他还强调商品生产的必要性和价值规律的客观必炼性;党的十一届三中全会以后社会主义初级阶段理论的提出与发展,从理论上弄清了什么是社会主义和如何建设社会主义的问题,提出和实践了社会主义市场经济理论并取得了令世界瞩目的成就,与此同时,在社会主义建设过程中也曾出现过经济理论方面的失误。     

Social,economic and political dilemmas of reform in Yugoslavia

All of the communist party‐ruled states of Eastern Europe, from the elder brother of the ‘socialist family’, the Soviet Union, to non‐aligned, sui generis Yugoslavia, are in some degree of economic crisis. Gone are the once loudly trumpeted assurances that the socialist ‘economic formation’ by its very nature — its centrally planned and directed economy, its leadership by a communist party armed with the ‘scientific’ social and economic theory of Marxism‐Leninism and its foundation on the principles of proletarian social justice — excluded the possibility of economic ailments such as sluggish growth rates, inflation, social inequality and unemployment. It is now admitted that precisely these problems currently threaten virtually all communist systems. The principal issue for the political elites in these countries (with the perhaps temporary exception of relatively prosperous East Germany and Czechoslovakia and perennially contrary Romania) is not whether radical reform is necessary, but how to implement the requisite economic, social and quasi‐political reforms without undermining the foundations of ‘socialism’ and of the communist party's domination that they identify with it Yugoslavia is a valuable test case of the general project of reform in communist systems, since it consciously undertook to dismantle the of Stalinist system it had been establishing under Soviet tutelage at the end of World War II in response to Stalin's ostracism of Tito in June 1948. From its inception the Yugoslav reform process was informed by a commitment to return to the sources of Marxian social and economic theory in order to build an authentic socialist system untrammeled by the structures and immoral practices of Stalinist ‘etatism’. Worker self‐management, ‘market socialism’, the decentralisation of political and economic decision‐making, periodic rotation in office, and a number of other formally democratic, participatory socio‐political processes, most of which Gorbachev and his supporters have been discussing under the rubric of perestroika, glasnost’ and demokratizatsiia, have all been tried in one form or another in Yugoslavia during the past four decades.     

毛泽东商品经济与社会主义关系思想探微

毛泽东在商品经济与社会主义关系问题上提出了许多闪光的思想观点:商品生产的命运,最终和社会生产力的水平有密切关系;要有计划地大大发展社会主义商品生产;生产资料在我们还有一部分是商品;改革计划经济体制,扩大地方和企业的权限;区分社会主义商品生产和资本主义商品生产;价值法则是一个伟大的学校;所有企业都要利用价值规律作为经济核算的工具,等等。这些弥足珍贵的思想观点,超越了斯大林,为邓小平理论在社会主义市场经济方面的创新积累了丰富的经验。     

Struggles for the Folk. Politics of Culture in Czechoslovak Ethnography, 1940s–1950s

Focusing on politics of culture in early socialist era, this article explores struggles for imposing particular visions of “folk” during the revolutionary zeal characterizing the post-1948 period's development in the discipline of Czechoslovak ethnography. It examines the self-proclaimed turn from previous ethnographic traditions, accused of bourgeois nationalism, to socialist orientation towards studying “true folk”. By tracing struggles around the re-conceptualization of constitutive criteria and boundaries defining the essential object of ethnographic inquiry, the socialist ethnographers readjusted to the changes by focusing on more “progressive” traditions and shifted towards the “working-class” seen as possessing revolutionary spirit and the true authentic essence of the nation. The article argues that the new ethnographic wave ultimately re-inscribed the essentialist categories they virtually combatted by embedding them within the same structural framework rooted in the national order of things.     

With the face to the future: The kibbutz in recent literary works

The kibbutz, which was considered one of the greatest successes of the socialist dream, failed to survive history, which replaced socialism with both capitalism and globalization. Numerous texts, literary, documentary, and scholarly, have tried to comprehend the social developments that took place in the kibbutz during the period of its demise, especially over the 1980s and the 1990s. This article focuses on two works – Habayta (Home, Assaf Inbari, 2009) and Bein haverim (Between friends, Amos Oz, 2012) – both of which refrain from solely addressing the rift that the kibbutz underwent, but rather attempt to see in the moment of the kibbutz's disintegration a stage in a historical process that will ultimately enable creation of new values on the ruins of the old ones. Both works triggered powerful response from literary critics and from the general public, and contributed to shaping a new perspective on the history of the kibbutz.     

A Liberal Ghost? The Left,Liberal Democracy and the Legacy of Harold Laski’s Teaching

ABSTRACT

This article explores the ways in which British socialism may have supported and strengthened liberal ideas held by postcolonial leaders who were educated in Britain. It attempts to do so by examining the role of liberalism in Harold Laski’s teaching at the London School of Economics and Political Science (1920–50), with particular attention to his Indian students. Laski, a self-declared Marxist, promoted socialism in his voluminous writings, frequent speeches, and in his lectures, which were attended by many future post-colonial leaders. Although often rigid in its adhesion to socialist dogma, Laski’s thought nevertheless reflected the malleability of political ideologies, incorporating liberal and pluralist elements in its makeup, which were in turn conveyed to students. This article focuses on how two former pupils, G.L. Mehta and Renuka Ray, responded to Laski’s thinking in the context of early Nehruvian India. Drawing on students’ lecture notes, political writings and assessments of their former professor, I suggest that Laski, and British socialism more generally, served to both radicalise students’ desire for economic planning while moderating their understanding of how to generate political change by reinforcing liberal norms, including a belief in constitutionalism and representative government.     

Socialism and democratic strategy in Italy’s Biennio Rosso: Gramsci contra Treves

This article examines the divisions in Italian socialism between revolutionaries and reformists against the backdrop of the Biennio Rosso (1919–20), taking the writings of Antonio Gramsci and Claudio Treves respectively as characteristic of the two traditions. The central focus is on their opposing accounts of how the socialist movement should organize the masses to achieve its objectives – referred to here as its ‘democratic strategy.’ I demonstrate how the key strategic elements of Gramsci’s and Treves’s positions developed in a dialogue centered on the place that violence, (il)legality, soviets, parliaments and compromise should play in effectively mobilizing the masses for socialism. The article concludes by arguing that in retrospect Treves’s reformism has been a more successful approach, and Gramsci himself conceded something to it in his prison writings. However, I also maintain that the popular character of Gramsci’s radical democratic strategy – first fashioned in the Biennio Rosso – can still contribute to debates on socialism and social democracy today.     

从老股票看20世纪50年代的股份制企业

从已搜集到的20世纪50年代上海市的几种老股票来看,新中国成立初期的股份制企业至少存在三种类型。旧社会承继下来的资本主义性质的股份制企业是接受社会主义改造的重点对象和主角,通过实行“定息”,以“赎买”的方式,切断了所有制与经营者之间的联系,此时的股票与债券无异,股东与企业的关系是债权债务关系;农村的供销合作社和城市中的街道办股份制企业,与真正意义上的股份制企业相比都有很大的不同,它们的目的都是在抵制资本主义复辟和改变小生产方式的前提下发展社会生产力,目标是建成生产资料公有制的社会主义计划经济。     

中国社会主义现代化与市场化有机耦合的历史分析

中国社会主义市场经济模式的创新,不仅在于社会主义基本制度与市场经济的结合,而且还在于社会主义现代化与市场经济的有机耦合,这一结合是通过两者的互动逐步实现的。决定这一互动演变过程的主要因素是由世界新科技革命引起的中国现代化双重使命与传统计划经济体制的矛盾和冲突的发展,实现社会主义初级阶段现代化的双重使命始终成为贯穿着这一矛盾运动过程中的主导方面。世界新科技革命引发的当代中国先进生产力的发展要求,则是中国社会主义现代化与市场化日益有机耦合的最深刻的根源和纽带。两者的有机结合,使我国终于找到了一条既符合本国国情又顺应世界潮流的现代化建设道路。     

Postmodernism and the Revival of Socialism as Critique

Socialism as a political philosophy confronts many theoretical and empirical challenges in our contemporary world. Some thinkers consider it obsolete and others aspire to reformulate it by couching it in a more pragmatist idiom. My aim here is to show that the salient features of socialism, those that are worth preserving, presuppose the indispensability of critique and reflective subjectivity in a sense that goes beyond pragmatism. To develop my argument for a socialist theory that can benefit from postmodern challenges without surrendering its critical force, I review some recent ideas in the socialist discourse and I contrast them with Cornelius Castoriades's theory of socialism. I conclude by defending the possibility for a new articulation of the socialist project, one that takes into account past failures as well as the shortcomings of current socialist trends.     

The political economy of socialism: A Marxist social theory

Talmon's treatment of nationalism varies in his different writings. This study will try to characterize his views as expressed in his final work, The Myth of the Nation and the Vision of Revolution. Through most of the book Talmon's preference for dealing with the vision of revolution, its prophets and bearers is very conspicuous. Their total devotion to restructuring and refashioning the whole world in accordance with the socialist ideology fascinated Talmon before it provoked him into analyzing it to death. Nationalism, on the other hand, appears at best as a natural feeling of loyalty and at worst as a hateful, aggressive, and racist obsession. One of his outstanding interests in that book is in the internal debate among socialists about nationalism as a value and as a strategy, and in the tremendous prominence of Jews in this process. It is only towards the end of the book that Talmon presents his main thesis, the confrontation between the two totalitarian ideologies, Bolshevism and Fascism as deriving from socialism and nationalism, and embodying two kinds of determinism, economic and biological. Nationalism appears as an irrational phantasy, which had developed throughout the nineteenth century to its pivotal culmination in Nazism. This highly problematic thesis, though brilliantly expressed by captivating metaphors, should I think be explained and revised.     

我国社会主义建设中的公共性偏离与回归

凸现公共性是社会主义的应有之义和本质要求,然而,在社会主义建设过程中,公共性问题往往会被忽视或扭曲。文章指出了我国社会主义建设中的公共性偏多,认为社会主义公共性的回归要从国家、社会和公民三个层面展开。在国家层面,要凸现公共性,重构国家共同体认同;在社会层面,要培植公民领域,重构国家与社会的关系;在公民层面,要培育公民公共精神,构建公正有序的公共秩序。     

国家资本及其国有企业是新中国工业化的基础和主干

中国20世纪50年代以来形成的国家资本,是对前半个世纪官僚资本的否定,是社会主义公有制的初级形式。它并不是什么人幻想的产物,也并非机械地照搬“苏联模式”的恶果,而是中国经济、政治、文化矛盾演化的必然。国家资本及其国有企业奠定了中国工业化的基础,是中国工业化的主干。     

‘The dilemmas and paradoxes of public bodies performing commercial tasks’: The rhetoric of rationality and the rejection of traditional labor philosophy on the role of the state.

Traditionally a commitment to an active public sector has been a centrepiece of Labor's official thinking. Rhetorical conflict between Labor and non‐Labor has always focused upon the role of the State. The most recent instance of this was the debate between Labor and non‐Labor over the Fraser Government's Review of Commonwealth Functions (commonly known as the ‘Razor Gang').

Traditions have been changing and developing on both sides. The changes made by E. G. Whitlam have been widely discussed. Three years and as many months after the election of the first Hawke Government Labor traditions themselves are being rewritten.

In this paper I shall use the policy area of the function and administration of public sector enterprises in order to demonstrate the depth and significance of this change. It has been said also that the Hawke Government has reduced politics to pronouncements from the Kirribilli Cabinet and non‐productive factional squabbling. The ‘fourth graders’ of the Hawke Government, which apparently includes members of the outer Cabinet as well as the backbenchers, have been excluded from the policy‐making process. This is notwithstanding the firm intentions of the Report of Task Force on Government Administration.

The public sector area can be used to demonstrate shifts along four axes, (i) Significant frontbenchers have been bent upon changing the rhetoric, so that the activities of public sector enterprises are assessed in terms like ‘efficiency’ and ‘dollar rationality’. Change in rhetoric is part of a wider tendency to reject appeals to traditional Labor imagery (such as equality, welfare, the public sector as a good in its own right and other social as opposed to economic goals).

(ii) This, in turn, is related to a rejection of the traditional Labor practices whereby the Labor Party Platform (which could broadly be seen as a pro‐public enterprise document) is no longer seen by significant members of the Labor front‐bench as the most important guide to policy, (iii) Other sources of policy have become more salient, in the case of public sector enterprises, the rhetoric and ideas of the Department of Finance have become prominent (iv) The changing tone of the rhetoric has reflected to a small extent changes being made to official party theology as expressed in the Party Platform. Key individuals have successfully opposed left‐wing challenges to maintain and to shore up the role of the public sector and of public sector enterprises. To the extent that the Platform will retain its traditional symbolic role these activities are significant.

Policy‐making has been about domination from above and the ‘crowding out’ of traditional ideas and their sources. Control, however, has not always been successful. Sources of objection have included the Left Faction of Caucus, key Ministerial Departments (viz. Transport and Communications) dealing with public sector enterprises, and the Ministers themselves.     

20世纪50年代上海的妇女解放与参加集体生产

在国家的主导与大力推动下,以"为社会主义添砖加瓦"为口号的妇女解放运动使20世纪50年代后期的上海家庭妇女纷纷走出家门,进入企业和里弄工厂(场),成为发展社会主义经济的重要劳动力量。然而,此时的社会性解放却是以性别差异的忽略与"男主外、女主内"的传统模式的延续为前提的,因此,走出家庭的妇女不得不同时面临工作、家庭的双重压力。后来随着"大跃进"、城市人民公社化运动的失败,许多已经走出家庭的妇女在别无选择的情况下重回家庭。但是,50年代后期上海家庭妇女走出家庭的经历为她们再次走出家庭并最终走向全面解放奠定了初步基础。     

The Women's Emancipation Union and Radical‐Feminist Politics in Britain, 1891–99

This paper considers the ideals and activism of the fin de siècle feminist organisation, the Women's Emancipation Union (WEU). Active between 1891 and 1899, the WEU held a prophetic vision of the future and an appraisal of women's subjection more comprehensive than any contemporary feminist group. Members were the first to link the possession by women of their bodily autonomy directly to the acquisition of the parliamentary vote, and thus redefined the terms upon which citizenship was constructed. One member raised the matter of armed insurrection in support of the women's franchise, an issue which would have serious implications for the future of suffragist campaigns. The political roots of WEU members lay chiefly within the utopian‐socialist and Radical‐liberal traditions, but it was an organisation which resisted party‐political allegiance to become anchored in the Progressive movement. Adopting what has been defined as the ‘muckraking’ tradition associated with Progressive authorship, the WEU suffragists constructed a rhetoric of resistance to women's subjection from social, sexual, economic and political standpoints. Many points they raised, including for a woman's right to consent to maternity to be enshrined in law, were to become the bedrock of the philosophy of the militant suffragette movement.     

Michael Walzer,Arguing About War

Abstract

The Banquet Speech to the North American Paul Tillich Society was given in Philadelphia, PA on November 18, 2005. It emphasized their personal friendship even if neither would have claimed the other as best friend, and detailed their practical partnership as an alliance. They cooperated together in: anti-Nazi and World War II efforts, their pro-Zionist stance regarding Israel, disagreement with the government over plans to use nuclear weapons, progressive politics and anti-right-wing political activities, and socialism, although Tillich continued a socialist hope after Niebuhr had moved away from socialist commitments.