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Books

Australian Marxist Review #50 – November 2009

$3 (+ p&h) – you can fill out online form to get a subscription.

The AMR is the CPA’s periodical magazine of ideas, theory, policies, experience and discussion. Subscription rates within Australia is $16 for four issues. Please contact us for quotes on international subscriptions (see contact details below).

Current and back issues of AMR are also available free online here.

Millions, if not billions of words have been written about the current economic crisis, especially its financial component, triggered by the collapse of the US sub-prime mortgage market, yet few if any can match the insightfulness and clarity found in Low-Wage Capitalism, a recent book by American Marxist political-economist Fred Goldstein. Most bourgeois commentators restrict their analyses to the financial crisis, completely ignoring the more fundamental capitalist crisis of overproduction. Indeed, many are blissfully unaware of it.

This issue
  • Individual rights vs collective rights
  • The new old atheists
  • Why the Soviet Union collapsed
  • Historical path of separatist politics in Sri Lanka

Slipped Through the Net – The story of Melrose Desmond Donley

$25 (incl p&h within au) Soft cover – 158 pages.

by Elly Inta

Taken from his mother at the age of six months, Des Donley became a ward of state, in and out of foster homes and then on to a Salvation Army Orphanage. At 15 he was farmed out to a family as virtual slave labour, working from 3.30 in the morning until 9 at night, sleeping in shed with a prickly straw pillow. Only at the age of 18, he ended his isolation, entered the paid workforce, found girls, dancing, music and had a few drinks. He became a union delegate, joined the Communist Party and spent a life fighting for others. The fair skinned Des was in his 60s when he learnt of his Aboriginality. He is still fighting, at the age of 94, for his stolen wages.


For a Better World: Excerpts from the classics

$18 (+ p&h) Soft cover – 130 pages.

Marx, Engels, Lenin
Edited by Danny Rubin

  • A handy reference on the views of Marx, Engels, or Lenin in various fields.
  • Use for couses, study groups, or self-study guide on Marxism.
  • From start to finish, read great political, economic, historical, and philosophic wisdom, containing myriad insights useful to any reader.

"The path to a democratic, humane, efficient socialism must begin with the strategic effort to build a broad labor-led people's coalition to politically curb and defeat the ultra-right. ... So much has changed, and yet these concepts, we could only begin to excerpt, are as vital today as ever when applied as a guide to action in the particular circumstances of the struggle in the USA for progress and socialism." – Danny Rubin, 2004


The Traeger Kid

$6 (+ p&h) Soft cover – 108 pages.

Margaret Sharpe

A novel about the adventures of some children who attend a school in Central Australia where Aboriginals are in a majority.

Click here for more info.

 


Elitist Revolution or Revolution of the Masses?

$6 (+ p&h) Soft cover – 205 pages.

Mikhail Gavlin & Liliya Kazakova

The book analyses current American and British theories of social revolution. It subjects to criticism the treatment by bourgeois authors of the essence and nature of social revolution and their significance in the process of society. The authors reveal the class bias of bourgeois theories, their continuity and connection with old conceptions and the general task of bourgeois social revolutions.

First published 1980, English version 1988.


Reader in Marxist Philosophy – from the writings of Marx, Engels and Lenin

$25 (+ p&h) Soft cover – 384 pages.

Selected and Edited by Howard Selsam and Harry Martel

Designed to provide a coherent and systematic presentation of the Marxist world outlook as given by the great exponents themselves. It is devoted exclusively to their philosophical writings, many of which have been scattered throughout innumerable works.


Germany: Revolution & Counter-Revolution

$15 (+ p&h) Soft cover – 155 pages.

by Frederick Engels
with the collaboration of Karl Marx
Edited by Eleanor Marx

Originally apearing as a series of articles in the New York Tribune, these writings were later collected and edited by Marx's daughter Eleanor. The book has since become a classic on the German Revolution of 1848, and remains a model of the Marxist interpretation of history. It was written with the active collaboration of Marx, under whose name the articles first appeared. The present edition includes Eleanor Marx's introduction to the original English edition.


Harvest Time and other poems

$15 (+ p&h) Soft cover – 81 pages.

by Vic Williams

Vic Williams was brought up on a farm. As a boy, he enjoyed working with his father, blowing the forge, harnessing and feeding horses. With his dog he hunted and trapped rabbits, and roamed the bush. His father gave him books of Australian bush poets writing at the time, Lawson, Ogilvie, Patterson and he felt that poetry was close to the life he led.


Clara Zetkin: Selected Writings

$20 (+ p&h) Soft cover – 206 pages.

edited by Philip S Foner

"In January, 1915, the British journal Labour Woman wrote of Clara Zetkin:

'She is Socialist in her very fibre, and she is a fighter ready to face death rather than give way in any issue of import in the people 's struggle.'

Through her journal Gleichheit (Equality), with a circulation in 1914 of 125,000 ... she was able to exert a powerful influence in the formation of socialist and communist policy on the woman question, and on the policy of a number of trade unions toward women workers ... "

Clara Zetkin called upon "the workers to throw their whole power into the struggle against imperialist wars without the slightest hesitation or reserve."

From the introduction by Philip S Foner.


Five Plays

$12 (+ p&h) Soft cover – 164 pages.

by Michelene Wandor

As well as being a playwright for stage, radio and television, Michelene Wandor is also a poet and critic. She was Poetry Editor for Time Out from 1971-1982, and reviewed plays and books for various newspapers and journals. Her other publications include Upbeat (poems and stories, Journeyman), Understudies (on theatre and sexual politics, Methuen), and, as editor, On anthologies of plays by women, published annually.

The plays are:

  • To Die Among Friends
  • The Old Wives' Tale
  • Whores d'Oeuvres
  • Scissors
  • Aid Thy Neighbour

Basics for Peace, Democracy & Social Progress

$12 (+ p&h) Soft cover – 329 pages.

by Gus Hall

Problems need not only clarifying analysis but also workable solutions, and the writings in this book by Gus Hall, General Secretary of the communist Party, USA, meet both criteria. The reader will meet a brilliant working-class intellect combining with a vast store of militant experience.

For an extract of the book see Issue 1412 of The Guardian - "But is that enough?".


But now we want the land back

Special price $5 (+ p&h) Soft cover – 202 pages.

by Dr Hannah Middleton

This is the first Marxist analysis of the history of the Australian Aborigines. It is a partisan book, carefully documented but also human and moving. The Aborigines have lived in Australia for at least 60,000 years; white people for 220. In the book the balanced and cooperative nature of Aboriginal traditional society, the brutal and tragic story of white colonisation and the growth of organised black resistance to discrimination and exploitation are analysed. In the final section the place of the Aboriginal national minority in the Australian nation is shown and the role of the capitalist establishment, the media and ultra radical ideology in destroying the crucial land rights campaign and in splitting the Aborigines from their white working class allies is exposed. It ends with an assessment of the future for the first Australians and an appeal for unity in the struggle for their rights. This book is essential reading for anyone committed to justice and equality for the Aboriginal people of Australia.


Cuba - Beyond Our Dreams

$20 (+ p&h) Soft cover – 422 pages.

by Silvia Martinez Puentes

This is the most comprehensive coverage of the Cuban revolution to be published. It covers all the main issues that people want to know – the story of the revolution, the economy, the unity of society, scientists, employment in Cuba international solidarity, health, education, sport, human rights and much more.


Finding the Threads

$15 (+ p&h) Soft cover – 54 pages.

by Tricia Bowen

In October 2005, Feltex Carpets retrenched 165 workers from its Braybrooks site. Some had worked there for 40 years.

These are their stories - stories of shared lifetimes, families, food, friendship, injuries, jokes, fights, strikes and struggle and of many languages and cultures forging a community.

Finding the threads captures the comradeship, the wisdom and the connections of this group of retrenched Feltex workers.


Cold tea for Brandy - A Tale of Protest, Painting and Politics

$35 (+ p&h) Soft cover – 432 pages.

by Joan Coxsedge

Joan did not grow up on easy street. She started life in the Depression years in Ballarat and knows what it is to be evicted and to go without. Alcohol and gambling ate up the meagre family income. This personal, lively account of her early days is a reminder to older readers of those tough times and for younger readers a powerful picture of those days and how much has been achieved since then by the labour, women’s and other social movements.


Manifesto - Three classic essays on how to change the world

$25 (+ p&h) Soft cover – 168 pages.

by Che Guevara, Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels

If you are curious and open to the life around you, if you are troubled as to why, how and by whom political power is held and used, if you sense there must be good intellectual reasons for your unease, if your curiosity and openness drive you towards wishing to act with others, to “do something”, you already have much in common with the writers of the three essays in this book.

Adrienne Rich, Preface to Manifesto.


Talking about the future – Is Mankind Heading for a Raw Material Crisis?

$6 (+ p&h) Soft cover – 184 pages.

In the 1970s, the world community was once again confronted with the questions: is mankind threatened by a raw materials crisis?, will the world economy be able to cope with this problem in the future? There is no simple answer to these questions. The prospects for the development of the world resource situation are dependent on a vast range of objective factors and potential limitations. The efficient and mutually beneficial use of the planet's materials and resources base in the interests of the entire human race, the application of promising technologies and the exploitation of non-traditional sources of energy are the avenues that would allow mankind to view the road ahead with optimism.

Progress Publishers 1989


The Class Struggles in France 1848 to 1850

$4 (+ p&h) Soft cover – 144 pages.

by Marx

This body of work appeared first as a series of articles in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung between December 1849 and November 1850. Engels "repackaged" them into a more complete book in 1895, a dozen years after Marx's passing.

In highlighting the importance of this work in the development of Marx's thought, Engels wrote: "The work here republished was Marx's first attempt to explain a section of contemporary history by means of his materialist conception, on the basis of the given economic situation. In the Communist Manifesto, the theory was applied in broad outline to the whole of modern history ... Here, on the other hand, the question was to demonstrate the inner causal connection in the course of a development which extended over some years ... to trace political events back to effects of what were, in the final analysis, economic causes."


The April Theses

$4 (+ p&h) Soft cover – 75 pages.

Lenin

The April Theses formed a programme developed by Lenin during the 1917 Russian Revolution. In these Lenin called for Soviet control of the state. When published the theses contributed to the July Days rising and to the subsequent coup d'etat of October 1917, bringing the Bolsheviks to power.


Articles and Speeches on Anniversaries of the October Revolution

$4 (+ p&h) Soft cover – 98 pages.

by Lenin

A collection of speeches given by Lenin between 1918 to 1922, taken from his Collected Works (Corrections in accordance with Fifth Russian edition).

Speeches include:

  • The Chief Task of Our Day
  • What is Soviet Power?
  • Sovient Power and the Status of Women
  • Fourth Anniversary of the October Revolution

The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky

$4 (+ p&h) Soft cover – 112 pages.

by Lenin

A collection of articles by Lenin taken from his Collected Works (Corrections in accordance with Fifth Russian edition).

Articles include:

  • How Kautsky Turned Marx into a Common Liberal
  • Bourgeois and Proletarian Democracy
  • Can There Be Equality Between the Exploited and the Exploiter?

Against Imperialist War

$10 (+ p&h) Hard cover – 397 pages.

by Lenin

In this collection of articles and speeches, Lenin examines the nature, causes and consequences of imperialist wars.

He shows how wars were not "in defence of the fatherland", as the imperialist rulers told their people, but between preditors redividing their spoils.

 


Against Dogmatism and Sectarianism in the Working-Class Movement

$10 (+ p&h) Hard cover – 215 pages.

by Lenin

A collection of articles by Lenin taken from his Collected Works (Corrections in accordance with Fifth Russian edition).

Articles include:

  • In What Sense We Can Speak of the International Significance of the Russian Revolution
  • An Essential Condition of the Bolshevik's Success
  • Guerrilla Warfare (extract)
  • Marxism and Revisionism (extract)
  • Childishness and the Petty-Bourgeois Mentality

First Print 1965.


Marxist – Leninist Philosophy

$5 (+ p&h) Hard cover – 494 pages.

by A P Sheptulin

An introduction to Marxist-Leninist philosophy. Here is a list of just some of the chapters:

  • The Role of Philosophy in Society
  • The Struggle of Materialism Against Idealism in a Pre-Marxian Philosophy
  • The Revolutionary Upheaval in Philosophy Made by Marx
  • Matter and Consciousness
  • The Subject-Matter of Historical Materialism
  • Society and Nature
  • Material Production as the Basis of Society's Existance and Development
  • The Role of the Masses and the Individual in History

 


Reminiscences of Lenin

$8 (+ p&h) Soft cover – 553 pages.

by N K Krupskaya

Written by his wife and comrade, this is by far the outstanding biography of Lenin. Krupskaya, an active Bolshevik in her own right, came to know Lenin during the 1890s in St. Petersburg (now Leningrad), where both were arrested and then exiled to Siberia. Later, during intermittent years of exile in Europe, and through the revolutionary years of 1905 and 1917 in Russia, she was his constant companion. Her life, as well as Lenin's, was so intermingled with revolutionary activity and politics that it is impossible to separate the personal from the political. Her biography is both a history of the most important revolutionary movement of the period and the story of the genius who led it to victory. These recollections were written at different times, but the present volume has her complete memoirs, including the last part dealing with the years after the October Revolution. This biography is indispensible for understanding Lenin's life and work. Fully illustrated.


Marshal of the Soviet Union – G Zhukov

$8 (+ p&h) for single volume, $14 (+ p&h) for both volumes.
Hard cover – Volume 1: 454 pages, Volume 2: 486 pages.

Sub Title: Reminisences and Refectiions – Volume 1 & 2

At all stages of the war, in strategic, tactical and organisational matters, Zhukov was already clearheaded and sharp, bold in his decisions, skilled in finding his bearings, in anticipating developements and picking the right instant for a decisive stroke. Making the most fateful decisions, he was astoundingly cool and level headed. He was a man of extrordinary courage and self-possession. I have never seen him flustered or depressed – not even at critical moments. On the contrary, at moments like that he was only more forceful, more resolute, and more concentrated.

A.M. Vasilevsky
from back cover Volume 2.


Materialism and Empirio-criticism

$10 (+ p&h) Hard cover – 382 pages.

by Lenin

In this book Lenin examines those who are hostile towards dialectical materialism:
"All these people could not have been ignorant of the fact that Marx and Engels scores of times termed their philosphical views dialectic materialism. Yet all these people, who, despite the sharp divergence of their political views, are united in their hostility towards dialectical materialism, at the same time claim to be Marxist in philosophy!"

"... the task I have set myself in these comments is to find out what was the stumbling-block to these people who under the guise of Marxism are offering something incredibly muddled, confused and reactionary."

First Print 1947.


The "American Model" on the Scales of History

$10 (+ p&h) Soft cover – 232 pages.

by Andrei Kortunov & Alexander Nikitin

The main questions of which the authors consider are whether the American recipes for economic, social and political development can be applied to other countries and societies; whether America can serve as an example and instructor for them; whether or not the "American model" meets the requirements of social progress; and whether it is applicable to other countries at all, or is it in need of serious reconsideration within itself.

 


The Thousand Best Short Stories

$10 for 10 Double Volumes (+ p&h) Hard cover – approx 700 pages each double volume.

"It is doubtful if any other form of art has so long, interesting, and picturesque a history as the Short Story. It is one of the most important elements in the fabric of human life. It is the medium of the highest spiritual gospel: it is the chief weapon of all great reformers since at least the days of the Buddha: it is the source from which Shakespeare drew much of his inspiration; and though it changes in outward fashion from age to age, the art of the short story will not vanish until man does. For it is as perennial as life itself. To trace its origin, we should have to go back to the time when some strange, curious, ape-like creatures came down from the shelter of the forest trees and began to communicate with each other in articulate speech."

 


Blacks in United States History

$4 (+ p&h) Hard cover – 270 pages.

by Robert Ivanov

As per back cover:
The problems of the American Blacks runs all through US history. The author Robert Ivanov, a well-known Soviet scholar and professor with a doctorate in history, focuses attention on the revolutionary stages in US history: the War for Independence, the Civil War and Reconstruction, and the so-called Negro(sic) revolution of the 1960s. Relying on an abundant of historical material, he proves that the black people made their chief gains in bitter struggle and during revolutionary upheavals.

Progress Publishers Moscow 1985


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