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Friedrich Engels's Ludwig Feuerbach and the Outcome of Classical German Philosophy is one of the most important texts in the classical Marxist canon. Written in 1886, three years after Marx's death, Engels takes up the suggestion from the editors of Die Neue Zeit, the theoretical journal of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, to write a reply to C. N. Starcke’s recently published book on Ludwig Feuerbach. Similar to his book Anti-Dühring, the opportunity is used to flesh out, in an unprecedented manner, his and Marx's views on the influence of G. W. F. Hegel and Ludwig Feuerbach's philosophy on their development of the dialectical materialist worldview–the Marxist outlook. In the present text, Dr. Thomas Riggins provides an illuminating exegesis of this seminal work, explaining with unmatched lucidity Engels' arguments and their philosophical context. In addition to Dr. Riggins’s detailed interpretation and the original Engels text, this book also includes a collection of three other important articles from Dr. Riggins on Engels's contributions to Marxism.
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In The Purity Fetish and the Crisis of Western Marxism, Carlos L. Garrido provides a comprehensive development of his concept of the purity fetish, tracing the outlook to the Eleatic school of Ancient Greek philosophy, and showing how it has appeared in 20th century Western Marxism and in contemporary U.S. socialism. In every form the purity fetish takes in Western Marxism's politics, one finds not only the failure to obtain truth, but the inability to create a revolutionary movement Endorsements: "This book will soon become a must-read for anyone who is serious about the socialist road and the goal of communism."- Roland Boer "This book is a healthy antidote to the widespread infantile leftism that infects the American left." - Thomas Riggins "This book—a clarion call for the collective project of building socialism—should be widely read and discussed!"- Gabriel Rockhill "In adroitly dissecting the philosophical underpinnings of what passes for Marxism in the academy... Carlos Garrido demonstrates the importance of theoretical education in dialectical materialism for the class struggle in the contemporary conjuncture."- Helmut-Harry Loewen "Garrido’s accessible philosophical discussion is indispensable for understanding much of the Western left’s inability to think dialectically, to truly follow Hegel and Marx rather than just invoke them, to understand the struggle for socialism as it is, rather than as it might be in the politically juvenile imaginations of so many." - Radhika Desai "Garrido's book is a valuable tool in the struggle to build a symbiotic relationship of solidarity, comradeship, respect and mutual learning between the Western left and the socialist world." - Carlos Martinez |
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Carlos Martinez is an independent researcher and political activist from London, Britain. He is the co-founder of No Cold War and Friends of Socialist China, and the author of The End of the Beginning: Lessons of the Soviet Collapse (LeftWord Books, 2019).
In No Great Wall: On the Continuities of the Chinese Revolution, Martinez concisely traces the history of the Chinese revolution from the formation of the Communist Party of China in 1919, to the current Xi Jinping era. Contrary to those who argue there was a betrayal of the revolution in 1978 with Deng Xiaoping's Reform and Opening Up, Martinez lucidly shows how the Chinese revolution has been a continuous process, adjusting its governance in accord to changes in national and geopolitical contexts. This collection also includes the essay "Will China Suffer the Same Fate as the Soviet Union?" which relates the development of the Chinese revolution to the Soviet, and "The CPC: The Most Successful Political Party in History," which reflects on the successes of the Chinese revolution following the 20th National Congress of the CPC. |
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Eurocommunism: A Critical Reading of Santiago Carrillo and Eurocommunist Revisionism critically examines the theoretical foundations behind Santiago Carrillo's development of Eurocommunism and explores how the Eurocommunist parties ended, and how certain supposed anti-Eurocommunist parties in the West have come to accept some of Eurocommunism's central tenets.
In this text, Dr. Thomas Riggins richly juxtaposes Eurocommunist revisionism to traditional Marxism/Marxism-Leninism, and embeds this theoretical discussion within the historical and political context of the influence of Eurocommunism within the international communist movement, both before and after the collapse of the Soviet Union. |
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There are few if any really good anthologies devoted to the topic of philosophical Marxism (Dialectical and Historical Materialism) which so thoroughly cover the dialectical method as the selections in this anthology.
Carlos L. Garrido, a philosophy instructor, PhD candidate at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, an activist in the struggle for socialism in the U.S., and a co-founder and editor of Midwestern Marx, a Marxist educational Institute, and the Journal of American Socialist Studies, has scoured the literature of both the classic Marxist thinkers (Marx, Engels, Lenin), two of their most influential followers who came to power by means of major revolutions (Stalin and Mao), as well as some of the most important thinkers whose work was informed by this classical tradition (Plekhanov, Bukharin, Bernal, Haldane, Olgin and Ilyenkov). Additionally, he has provided an exceptional systematization of the dialectical materialist worldview in his introduction to the anthology. These selections present the heart of the philosophy of Dialectical Materialism and aim to help students get to the essence of this view of reality in order to apply practically its lessons to contemporary political, economic and social problems. It is not intended for those who just want to read about reality, but for those who want, as Marx insisted, to change it as well. |
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Thomas Riggins is a retired philosophy and humanities teacher (NYU, The New School of Social Research, among others) who received a PhD in philosophy from the CUNY Graduate Center (1983). He has been active in the civil rights and peace movements since the 1960s when he was chairman of the Young People's Socialist League at Florida State University and also worked for CORE in voter registration in north Florida (Leon County). He has written for many online publications such as People's World and Political Affairs where he was an associate editor. Thomas is currently a Chief Editorial Counselor at Midwestern Marx and an editor for the Journal of American Socialist Studies. He also served on the board of the Bertrand Russell Society and was president of the Corliss Lamont chapter in New York City of the American Humanist Association.
Thomas Riggins' Reading the Classical Texts of Marxism provides commentary and social, scientific, and philosophical contextualization to classical texts in the Marxist canon such as Friedrich Engels' Anti-Dühring and V. I. Lenin's Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, State and Revolution, and Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder. For the beginner to readings in the Marxist tradition, this book will help break down and explain with a plethora of rich and contextual examples even the most complex of philosophical, scientific, and economic concepts in Marxism. The seasoned reader in the Marxist tradition will find that this text provides the contextualization and critiques necessary to sustain the theoretical relevance of Marxism into the 21st century. As more and more people are looking for alternatives to the existing order, Thomas Riggins' Reading the Classical Texts of Marxism provides a lucid and necessary account of the Marxist ideas which have haunted capitalism for the last nearly two centuries. |
