The following is an excerpt from the forthcoming book, The Long Retreat: Strategies to Reverse the Decline of the Left, by sociologist Boris Kagarlitsky. As well as bringing Russian and Western thinkers into dialogue, Kagarlitsky draws upon his experiences as a Russian dissident since the latter days of the Soviet Union in this encyclopaedic analysis of leftist strategy.

Nothing will be different in Durban, but in the meantime all the worst tendencies in world capitalism have conjoined to prevent progress on the two main areas of COP17 decisions: financing and technology. University of Johannesburg professor Patrick Bond reports on the 2011 United Nations Climate Change Conference.