In 1995 I moved to St. Petersburg and lived there for ten years. Although my antennas were always up for signals of a socialist spirit, or even just the memory of one, they registered none. My reaction was to dive deeper into the history of the 1917 revolution, and I began noticing things about it that were out of sync with my reading of Marx and Engels.

At Berkeley, while in his mid-40s, Michael Burawoy would deliver his talks wearing the same red shirt. He would walk briskly across the podium full of passion for what he was about to discuss. On his office door, he proudly displayed the logo that marked the relaunching of the South African Communist Party in 1990, a testament to his unwavering commitment to social change.

The unfolding climate catastrophe, growing inequality, the disintegration of the country’s social safety net, and the rise of profoundly reactionary yet increasingly viable political forces at home and abroad make it imperative for Canadian socialists to develop strategies to begin to substantively challenge Canadian elites at the national scale.

Marxism is in the throes of a great intellectual renewal worldwide reinforced by the ongoing capitalist crisis and the intellectual and political exhaustion of liberalism, neoliberalism, postmodernism and even cultural studies. But now in the face of the rise of China and the world capitalist crisis Marxism and Marxists are being forced to reconsider their own history.

When I am freed, I will not be able to thank him, hear his voice again, or learn from his opinion on the latest pressing issue. As time passes, we all become more isolated, losing beloved conversationalists, teachers, and respected colleagues. And we must rely on ourselves. But we still have students, followers, and comrades. Fred had many of them.

Capitalism’s profit focus has often held back the distribution of products to drive up their prices. Patents and trademarks of profit-seeking businesses effectively slow the distribution of all sorts of products. We cannot know whether capitalism’s incentive effects outweigh its slowing effects. Claims that capitalism promotes rather than slows progress are pure ideological assertions.

Renowned legal scholar Harry Glasbeek unpacks how law has been used to ensure that workers’ aspirations are kept in check. In this excerpt from his new book, Law at Work, he uncovers how the legal system, through its structures and mechanisms, protects capitalists by legitimizing and reinforcing the exploitation of workers.

The Boris Kagarlitsky international solidarity campaign aims to build so much support that it becomes impossible for politicians who are in dialogue with the Russian government to ignore it, which would bring pressure to bear for Kagarlitsky’s liberation. The campaign also seeks to draw attention to the plight of Russian political prisoners, the vast majority of whom are imprisoned on baseless charges.

The cult of personality that the Soviet authorities built around Lenin after his death was fully justified. The revolution of November 1917 really was Lenin’s revolution, and the communist system really was Lenin’s creation. Great impersonal forces matter. But so too does individual agency. The life of Vladimir Lenin proves the point. For good or evil, he changed the path of history.

One thing that should be clear to anyone who has read this book thoughtfully is that socialism cannot be refuted by easy talking points about the Gulag, the “nanny state” or any other such rhetorical excuses for thoughtlessness. To say that socialism is dead is wishful thinking on the part of its enemies.