Reflections on the Centenary of the Russian Revolution

ABSTRACT

It is said that Soviet communism was a failure. Although there were horrific and brutal aspects of soviet society, its record was not solely negative. What it showed is that there can be an alternative to free market capitalism. Capitalism is now in crisis; the idea of alternatives to capitalism is back on the agenda. Recent responses to this situation by Badiou and Streeck are discussed and criticised.

KEYWORDS:

• Russian revolution
• Soviet communism
• F. Fukuyama
• A. Badiou
• W. Streeck

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to contributors to the discussion on www.academia.edu of a draft of this paper for their comments and criticisms.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on Contributor

Sean Sayers is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kent, Canterbury, and Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Peking University. His books include Marx and Alienation (2011), Marxism and Human Nature (1998, paperback 2007), Plato’s Republic (1999), Reality and Reason (1990), and Hegel, Marx and Dialectic (with Richard Norman, 1985). He was one of the founders of Radical Philosophy, and is founder and editor of the online Marx and Philosophy Review of Books.

Notes on Contributor

Sean Sayers is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kent, Canterbury, and Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Peking University. His books include Marx and Alienation (2011), Marxism and Human Nature (1998, paperback 2007), Plato’s Republic (1999), Reality and Reason (1990), and Hegel, Marx and Dialectic (with Richard Norman, 1985). He was one of the founders of Radical Philosophy, and is founder and editor of the online Marx and Philosophy Review of Books.

Notes

1 It is usually thought that Zhou Enlai was referring to the French Revolution of 1789. It has recently been suggested that he may have been talking about the student uprising of 1968, but why spoil such a memorable line? (https://mediamythalert.wordpress.com/2011/06/14/too-early-to-say-zhou-was-speaking-about-1968-not-1789/).

2 Socialist, state capitalist, totalitarian, etc.

3 This sort of view has been particularly influential in recent French philosophy: it is put forward, in one form or another also by Foucault, Deleuze, Lyotard, and in relation to Marxism, particularly by Althusser.

4 For example, the events of May 1968 in France were part of a much larger series of movements for change that was growing throughout the 1960s, culminating eventually in “events,” not just in France, but in a global convulsion that came to a head in that year, with mass protests all over the capitalist world, and massive upheavals in the non-capitalist world as well: the Cultural Revolution in China, the “Prague Spring,” etc.