Looking to the Future without Addressing the Past
Lessons from Post-Soviet Marxists
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Among Russia’s “New Left”, a school is emerging whose members describe themselves as post-Soviet Marxists. They represent different views on the failure of Soviet socialism. They largely agree that worldwide protest movements will force a future communist society liberated from all constraints. They already see this in the “people's republics” of the Donbass. However, they are unable to offer a political system that prevents the seizure of power by new dictators or an economic model for this future socialism. While they attract interest in Russia’s academic circles, which are nostalgic for the Soviet era, their influence in the West is marginal. There, the theses of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri for a future harmonious world community stir more attention.
(Osteuropa 7/2014, pp. 69–84)