Lenin150 (Samizdat) aims to contribute to the re-kindling of the communist attractor by engaging, in the spirit of critical solidarity, with Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov in the year of his 150th anniversary. Conceived out of the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan, the book brings together contributions from all continents, ranging in style from the academic to the lyrical. As such, these compelling, and in some cases absolutely urgent, appropriations of (the spectre of) Lenin aspire to be of considerable use-value for the struggles ahead.

A lively, accessible and wide-ranging account of one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century. Through a brief but stimulating and penetrating account of his life and chief ideas the study examines how 'Leninism' emerged and became a global force.

This Encyclopaedia of Marxism and Education showcases the explanatory power of Marxist educational theory and practice.

"Brilliantly researched, impeccably sourced, the story is told in an engaging style and with great analytical acuity. Here is a dire warning against the slide into authoritarianism..." WILLIAM I. ROBINSON, Distinguished Prof. of Sociology, UC-Santa Barbara Ever since large parts of the world were placed in lockdown in March 2020 in the name of public health, there has been a growing public suspicion that some sort of global seizure of power and social transformation is being implemented under guise of the extraordinary suspension of democracy and unprecedented restrictions of basic freedoms occurring in so many countries at the same time. This book contends that since the financial collapse of 2008, populations in many countries have become restive in the face of extreme inequality and diminishing life chances. In a digital economy, one to two billion people will soon be superfluous, but they are not likely to remain sitting on their hands; in many parts of the world their resistance has begun. The Western capitalist elites have lost the capacity to engage their respective peoples in an equitable social contract and have resorted to stoking fear -- from the terrorism scare and the Russian threat to the COVID infliction, with more variants coming on line -- as a formula for curtailing protest and maintaining power. It analyses the social forces driving this process: the US national security state and its intelligence apparatus, the IT giants spun off from it, and the large media conglomerates that have joined forces to create a comprehensive surveillance system of Orwellian dimensions The production of disease threats is amplified by the Gates Foundation and other public international organizations including the WHO, along with the pharmaceutical industries, foresee unprecedented profit in plans to inoculate the world population with experimental gene therapies sold as vaccines. Ideas on using a pandemic to initiate a worldwide state of siege have matured until the need for collective intervention -- the threat of a new financial meltdown and the need to remove Trump -- prompted global elites to seize the day. The virus threat may not be an idle one, given the Pentagon's biowarfare infrastructure which for decades has been producing gain-of-function viruses in laboratories the world over, as have a wide range of countries. The book is the first to offer an extensively documented, comprehensive analysis of all aspects of this real and embellished threat

The concept of the 'dangerous classes' was born in a rapidly urbanizing and industrializing nineteenth century Europe. It described all those who had fallen out of the working classes into the lower depths of the new societies, surviving by their wits or various amoral, disreputable or criminal strategies. This included beggars and vagrants, swindlers, pickpockets and burglars, prostitutes and pimps, ex-soldiers, ex-prisoners, tricksters, drug-dealers, the unemployed or unemployable, indeed every type of the criminal and marginal. This book examines the 'dangerous classes' in the Middle East and North Africa, their lives and the strategies they used to avoid, evade, cheat, placate or, occasionally, resist, the authorities. Chapters cover the narratives of their lives; their relationship with 'respectable' society; their political inclinations and their role in shaping systems and institutions of discipline and control and their representation in literature and in popular culture. The book demonstrates the liminality of the 'dangerous classes' and their capacity for re-invention. It also indicates the sharpening relevance of the concept to a Middle East and North Africa now in the grip of an almost permanent sense of crisis, its younger generations crippled by a pervasive sense of hopelessness, prone to petty crime and vulnerable to induction as foot soldiers into drug and people smuggling, petty gangsterism and jihadism.

Confronted with the powerful forces of huge corporations and governments, many people involved in social action feel pessimistic. This call for values-led action and radical social change elaborates a framework for human action and learning.

While the Civil Rights Movement is remembered for efforts to end segregation and secure the rights of African Americans, the larger economic vision that animated much of the movement is often overlooked today. That vision sought economic justice for every person in the United States, regardless of race. It favored production for social use instead of profit; social ownership; and democratic control over major economic decisions. The document that best captured this vision was the Freedom Budget for All Americans: Budgeting Our Resources, 1966-1975, To Achieve Freedom from Want published by the A. Philip Randolph Institute and endorsed by a virtual ‘who’s who’ of U.S. left liberalism and radicalism. Now, two of today’s leading socialist thinkers return to the Freedom Budget and its program for economic justice. Paul Le Blanc and Michael D. Yates explain the origins of the Freedom Budget, how it sought to achieve “freedom from want” for all people, and how it might be reimagined for our current moment. Combining historical perspective with clear-sighted economic proposals, the authors make a concrete case for reviving the spirit of the Civil Rights Movement and building the society of economic security and democratic control envisioned by the movement’s leaders—a struggle that continues to this day.