Over sixty years ago, C.L.R. James and a small circle of collaborators making up the radical left Johnson-Forest Tendency reached the conclusion that there was no true socialist society existing anywhere in the world. Written in collaboration with Raya Dunayevskaya and Grace Lee Boggs, this is another pioneering critique of Lenin and Trotsky, and reclamation of Marx, from the West Indian scholar and activist, C.L.R. James. Originally published in 1950, this definitive edition includes the original preface from Martin Glaberman to the third edition, C.L.R. James' original introductions to three previous editions and a new introduction from James' biographer Paul Buhle.
About the AuthorC. L. R. James was known and honored as a historic pioneer of the black movement and is generally regarded as one of the major figures in Pan-Africanism, as well as a leader in developing a current within Marxism that was democratic, revolutionary, and internationalist. He is the author of
Beyond a Boundary,
Every Cook can Govern, and
Revolution.
Raya Dunayevskaya was a highly respected and influential philosopher, political activist, and feminist. She was the founder of Marxist Humanism in the United States and the author of
Marxism and Freedom and
The Power of Negativity.
Grace Lee Boggs is an author, lifelong social activist, and feminist. She is known for her years of political collaboration with C. L. R. James and Raya Dunayevskaya. She is the author of
The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century. She lives in Detroit, Michigan.
Martin Glaberman was an influential American Marxist, teacher, and autoworker.
Paul Buhle is a retired senior lecturer at Brown University and author or editor of 35 volumes, including histories of radicalism in the U.S. and the Caribbean, studies of popular culture, and a series of nonfiction comic art volumes. He was founding editor of the journal
Radical America, Cultural Correspondence, the director of the Oral History of the American Left archive at New York University, one of the founding figures of the new Students for a Democratic Society, and a leader of the Movement for a Democratic Society. He is the author of
The Beats, and
Living for Change. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin.
