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Referred to by The Wall Street Journal in 1972 as “the ‘dean’ of radical economists,” Paul M. Sweezy was, in the words of John Kenneth Galbraith, “the most noted American Marxist scholar” of the second half of the twentieth century.1 Sweezy’s intellectual influence, which was global in its reach, lay chiefly in two areas: as a leading radical economist (and sociologist), and as the principal originator of a distinct North American brand of socialist thought in his position as co-founder and co-editor of Monthly Review magazine. Like both Marx and Schumpeter, to whose thought his work was closely related, Sweezy provided a historical analysis and crtique of capitalist economic development, encompassing a theory of the origins, development and eventual decline of the system.

This is not the article I started out to write. What I wanted to write about was the Patriot Act and the way this Federal statute was giving license to federal, state and local law enforcement to curtail our due process protections, by blurring the line, which is more fluid than ever, between what law enforcement can do in the name of foreign intelligence and what it can do in the name of a domestic criminal investigation

In this space we have followed as best we can the evolving revolutionary struggle in Nepal. Our most recent comment in February 2003 accompanied the presentation of an interesting article on women’s leadership in the revolutionary struggle. We then noted with relief and pleasure the ceasefire of January 29, 2003 that promised to bring an end to the brutality and bloodshed that had engulfed a beautiful people and a beautiful land

While we commemorate the 40th anniversary of the historic 1963 March on Washington, we should as well be commemorating another event. On the eve of the 1963 March on Washington, the life of one of the 20th century’s most brilliant individuals came to an end. W.E.B. Du Bois, scholar, Pan Africanist, political leader, champion of the struggle against white supremacy in the United States, died in Ghana, August 27, 1963

No doubt, Monthly Review will not want debate on John Saul’s contributions to continue indefinitely. At the same time, his recent response to Jeremy Cronin (Monthly Review, December 2002) contains certain allegations about my conduct, which deserve space for a response

On Saturday, May 3rd, 2003 Monthly Review and the University of Vermont co-sponsored “Imperialism Today,” a one-day conference in honor of Harry Magdoff. Invited speakers were asked to discuss the context and workings of the current U.S. global hegemony, the means by which control is exercised over resources and the global periphery, the maintenance of (and challenges to) ideological hegemony, and the prospects for anti-imperialism.

Genocide used to be a crime without a name. Although the most heinous of all crimes, the concept was not introduced into international language until after World War 2. Until then, military invasion and destruction of other peoples and cultures masqueraded under such slogans as progress and spreading civilisation

Diana Johnstone’s Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions (Monthly Review Press, 2002) is essential reading for anybody who wants to understand the causes, effects, and rights-and-wrongs of the Balkan wars of the past dozen years. The book should be priority reading for leftists, many of whom have been carried along by a NATO-power party line and propaganda barrage, believing that this was one case where Western intervention was well-intentioned and had beneficial results. An inference from this misconception, by “cruise missile leftists” and others, is that imperialism can be constructive and its power projections must be evaluated on their merits, case by case. But that the Western intervention in the Balkans constitutes a valid special case is false; the conventional and obvious truths on the Balkan wars that sustain such a view disintegrate on close inspection

In this space we have had occasion to provide some, we trust, interesting and important documents from the revolutionary forces in Nepal. The most recent was the letter we received on September 5th, 2002 from Dr. Baburam Bhattarai (https://monthlyreview.org/0902bhattarai.htm). In the intervening four months events have moved at a fast pace

They who advocate and enforce the neoliberal agenda have now lost intellectually, morally, even in terms of their own beloved market test. The neoliberal policies of the last decades have failed to bring about economic growth and financial stability, to say nothing of meeting the test of justice or of addressing the social costs and wrong headed quality of the growth the existing system does produce. It is now clear to a great many people around the world that the neoliberal agenda is bankrupt. The World Bank and the academic defenders of the so-called Washington Consensus have stopped defending it as before. Suddenly the need for “reform,” which has up to now meant the imposition of the Washington Consensus, is applied by them to the Washington Consensus itself. Of course these “reforms” are mostly aimed at disarming critics. “Dialogue” and “partnership” are on offer only so they can better pursue their unchanged agenda of domination

On September 5th, 2002 MR received a letter, that we believe from internal evidence to be authentic, from Dr. Baburam Bhattarai—who is one of the leaders of the revolutionary forces in the Nepalese civil war. In the nine months since the last communication from Dr. Bhattarai (https://monthlyreview.org/0102bhattarai.htm) was received, the civil war in Nepal has deepened both in scope and brutality. It now extends from one end of the country to the other. The Royal Nepal Army has executed many hundreds—perhaps thousands—of kids in the countryside in faked encounters, “disappearances” and in aerial bombing of civilian gatherings. In this atmosphere the remaining democratic political forces of all tendencies, including the majority faction of the right-wing Congress Party, refused in May to permit the legal extension of the state of emergency. The state of emergency suspends freedom of thought and expression, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, the right against preventive detention, the right to information, and any right to judicial review of acts committed by the armed forces. The dictatorship of the usurper King, exercised through a minority faction of the Congress party headed by Sher Bahadur Deuba, refused to accept this outcome. On May 27, 2002, parliament was dissolved, the state of emergency extended by decree, and an election called for November 13th

One thing about the CIA is that their playbook rarely changes. Take for example, the agency’s involvement in the recent abortive military coup against Venezuela’s democratically-elected President Hugo Chavez. The April 13 Washington Post reported that during the period leading up to the coup against Chavez, “members of the country’s diverse opposition had been visiting the U.S. Embassy…hoping to enlist U.S. help in toppling Chavez. The visitors included active and retired members of the military, media leaders and opposition politicians.”

Good evening, and thank you very much for inviting me to speak with you this evening. I am honored to be here this evening, and view this as a means of beginning a much needed dialogue between the NAACP and TransAfrica Forum

In his speech at the meeting celebrating the Eightieth Anniversary of the Founding of the Chinese Communist Party, Comrade Jiang Zemin openly called for admission of owners of private enterprises to membership of the Party

On July 1, 2001 Chinese Communist Party (CPC) general secretary Jiang Zemin delivered a speech recognized immediately to be of great importance. He advocated the admission of capitalists to the Chinese Communist Party

Dear Secretary General Jiang and the Party’s Central Committee:

We listened to your speech on July l, 2001 and have since then carefully read it again in the past few days. We have many opinions in regard to your “July First” remarks. According to the Party’s Basic Statute, as well as the sections on Democrat Centralism of your speech, we feel we should present our comments to you and the Central Committee as well

Three years ago, I wrote an article for Monthly Review entitled “The U.S. Economy in 1999: Goldilocks Meets a Big Bad Bear?” (March 1999).1 My answer to that question was yes, Goldilocks would soon meet a big bad bear, that is, the U.S. economy would fall into recession within a year or so. The recession came a little later than I thought, but, as is well known, the U.S. economy did indeed fall into recession in early 2001

I do not think it is necessary here to go over truths that are no longer questioned by anybody, such as the ever-increasing lack of credibility and the extreme politicization that today weigh down the work of the Human Rights Commission. Disrepute is growing, time is running out. It is essential that we democratize the methods of this Commission, reestablish with transparency its purpose and rules; in a word, set it up anew. We need a Commission at the service of everyone’s interests, and not hostage to the designs of a minority or, as becomes more obvious every day, to the whims of the mightiest

Annette T. Rubinstein—educator, author, activist—celebrated her ninety-fifth birthday three days early on April 9, at the Brecht Forum‘s new headquarters. At a gathering of more than two hundred of her devoted family, friends, colleagues, comrades, speakers regaled the audience with personal stories and memories of Annette’s fabulous life. John Mage, representing Monthly Review, suggested that she must have had previous lives because “the breadth of vision, the historical understanding, and the contents of the memory could not have been acquired in one lifetime—even hers.” Harry Magdoff, via a taped recording, reminded the audience that “Annette in personality, in her life of creativity, activity, and humanism, illustrates the ways of Socialist women and men.” He concluded by saying “I love you”—in Yiddish.