Geography Archives: Soviet Union (USSR)

  Vincent Geoghegan.  Utopianism and Marxism.  Oxford et al: Peter Lang, 2008.  pp. 189.  ISBN: 3039101374. In his contribution to Lenin Reloaded: Toward a Politics of Truth, Alain Badiou forcefully argues that the century, “between 1917 and the end of the 1970s, is not at all a century of ideologies, or the imaginary or of […]

John Maynard Keynes, though bourgeois in his outlook, was a remarkably insightful economist, whose book Economic Consequences of the Peace was copiously quoted by Lenin at the Second Congress of the Communist International to argue that conditions had ripened for the world revolution.  But even Keynes’ insights could not fully comprehend the paradox that is […]

  Michael Lebowitz.  The Socialist Alternative: Real Human Development.  New York: Monthly Review Press, 2010. It is probably fair to say that revolutionary socialism does not come naturally to everyone.  Some of the young and curious pick up a grimy, twenty-page manifesto in a second-hand bookstore and never look back, but for myself it was […]

  The 2010 Edward Said Memorial Lecture, the Palestine Center, Washington, DC, 7 October 2010 Thank you all for coming today, and, to those of you who are watching, thank you for viewing this talk.  Those of you who live in Washington, who are subjected to the American media, will probably be relieved to hear […]

The opening section of this note dealing with the most important issue in the current political situation—’the Maoist’ or the Naxal issue—sets the context for the argument that follows, which deals with issues involved in understanding and acting in this situation. I reproduce some key passages, marginally modified and compressed in one case, from my 2008 T. Nagi Reddy Memorial Lecture—now available as Indian Politics Today published by Aakar Books, New Delhi—touching upon these issues; a little reason and ability to interconnect is all that is needed to recognise the issue involved. I conclude with a brief summing up of the argument.

  Summary: In 1989, services comprised no more than 10 per cent of Cuba’s export revenues, with sugar accounting for over 70 per cent.  In 2007, by contrast, it was sugar that made up 10 per cent of overseas earnings while services accounted for 70 per cent.  The article provides an overview of this drastic […]

  Part 1 Aijaz Ahmad: Israel, which is completely isolated in the region, is very unhappy about the fact that Turkey is rising as a power which is establishing very productive and extensive contacts in the region.  Israel was very happy when both of them were completely isolated in the region: Turkey was in the […]

  As’ad AbuKhalil, or Angry Arab as he is more commonly known after his blog The Angry Arab News Service, is in real life a most friendly and forthcoming man.  A Lebanese-born author of four books on the Middle East, he is professor of political science at California State University and is visiting professor at […]

Jean Bricmont is professor of theoretical physics at the University of Louvain, Belgium, and is a member of the Brussels Tribunal.  He is the author of Humanitarian Imperialism and co-author, with Alan Sokal, of Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals’ Abuse of Science.  He has written critically about ‘humanitarian interventionism’ since the Kosovo war in 1999.  In […]

I feel embarrassed to be unaware of the subject, one that I have not even heard mentioned before. On the contrary, I would have understood much earlier that the risks of a nuclear war were far more serious than I imagined. I assumed that the planet would be able to withstand the explosion of hundreds […]

THE days are passing by. One after another, they are going by rapidly. Some people are getting anxious. I, on the other hand, am calm. I share with our workers the results they are achieving in their work, in the midst of the blockade and other accumulated necessities.

Much has been written on the subject of the capitalist State in the era of neo-liberalism.  Two features of the “neo-liberal State” in particular have been highlighted.1  One relates to the change in the nature of the State, from being an entity apparently standing above society and intervening in its economic functioning in the interests […]

  Jean-Paul Sartre & Simone de Beauvoir, directed by Max Cacopardo, 1967.  Director First Run/ Icarus Films, Brooklyn, NY, 1967.  Video and DVD, 60 mins., b/w. A “time capsule” was how Simone de Beauvoir described Max Cacopardo’s documentary about her and Sartre, made for Canadian television in 1967 and re-issued in 2005.  She was certainly […]

  The editors of Aneek have asked us to present, in brief, our stand regarding what we think is “the correct path” towards equality, cooperation, community, and human solidarity, that is, socialism in India.  The struggle for socialism is going to be long, hard, and violent, and I, for one, cannot imagine a socialist India […]

Artavazd Peleshian, born in 1938, is an Armenian filmmaker.  USSR: Yerevan Film Studio, 1982.  Cf. “One of the central motifs is the rhythm of the 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 countdown that leads up to the launch of the rockets.  Often, this rhythm dissolves into the sound of a heartbeat.  […]

Joyce Appleby.  The Relentless Revolution: A History of Capitalism.  New York: W.W. Norton, 2010.  $29.95.  Pp. xii, 494. Joyce Appleby, who taught U.S. history for many years at UCLA, presided over both the Organization of American Historians and American Historical Association, and served her term as professor-in-exile among the Brits at Oxford, comes to the […]

Artavazd Peleshian, born in 1938, is an Armenian filmmaker.  USSR: Yerevan Film Studio, 1975. | Print

The issue of “blood diamonds” has once again made the news: Farai Maguwu, Director of Zimbabwe’s Mutare-based Centre for Research and Development (CRD), languishes under the long arm of Zimbabwe’s laws on alleged charges related to his research on Zimbabwe’s Marange mines.  According to a confidential 44-page report produced by investigators mandated by the Kimberley […]

Artavazd Peleshian, born in 1938, is an Armenian filmmaker.  USSR: Minsk Film Studio, 1970.  About Inhabitants, Peleshian said: “Many people were offended or insulted by We.  After that experience, I was mad at mankind and decided to make a film about animals.  Animals don’t get upset, but at the same time, by focusing on them, […]

Artavazd Peleshian, born in 1938, is an Armenian filmmaker.  We was produced by the Yerevan Film Studio and released in 1969 in the USSR.  About the film, Peleshian said: “If I had meant only the Armenian people, I would not have had the guts to call it We.  The Armenian people are a ‘we’ that […]