Articles

The Return of the State? Anticapitalist Politics in a New Ecological Landscape

Current Events

Sunday 28th March

Communist opposition in the USSR – early 1930s: the Verkhne-Uralsk Document

The Editorial Board of Historical Materialism: Research in Critical Marxist Theory support conferences across the globe, recognising the importance of coming together and engaging in discussion and debate over questions of theory and politics, and promoting links and the sharing of perspectives and expertise amongst Marxists and the Marxist influenced radical left. Covid 19 has disrupted that as much as it has disrupted other aspects of communication, solidarity and everyday life.

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Introduction

Brazil has returned to world headlines. This time because Jair Bolsonaro, a grotesque and until now marginal, far-right politician, won 55.7 percent of the vote in the second round general elections in October 2018. Perhaps most striking about this latest triumph of reaction is that it took place in the world’s fifth largest country by area and population, and sixth largest economy. What is more, Bolsonaro’s ascent comes on the heels of 14 years of rule by the Workers Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, PT) – one of the most mature and institutionalized social democratic parties of the twenty-first century. With this symposium, Historical materialism historically and theoretically situates the current Brazilian conjuncture and contributes to the debate within the left on the international impact of these events, inviting further reflection on the moment of danger opening up before us.

This article was originally published at https://readingsofcapital.com/[1]

       **For a reply to this article by John Marot, go here.**

How to write with open possibility when one knows the ending?

1. Andrew Ryder

A Forum on the Teachers Rebellion in the United States

ISSUE 26(2): IDENTITY POLITICS

Identity politics has come to the fore as the dominant battleground of contemporary Left politics. However, what is meant by ‘identity politics’ is often poorly defined and politically contentious. I contend that the meanings and uses of identity politics have shifted from the New Social Movement era, which has led to a theoretical confusion as to how we understand identity-based organising. On the one hand, the concept of ‘identity politics’ has been tarred with the brush of essentialism, particularism and cultural determinism.[1] This can be seen as an acknowledgement of the failures of identity-politics movements to be attentive of intragroup difference, thereby unwittingly reproducing structures of dominance within the movements themselves. On the other hand, identity as ‘experience’ has become a commonly-accepted litmus test for political legitimacy in activist circles; it is a commonly accepted claim on the Left that the oppressed have a better understanding of reality because it is grounded in their identities, in their experience of oppression. Paradoxically, the simultaneous prevalence of these two seemingly-opposed claims has resulted in a confused terrain, where ‘identity politics’ is derided even as the central political importance of identity is affirmed.