"The ideas of capitalism's most vigorous and eloquent enemy have been enlightening in every era, the author contends, and our current historical situation of free-market extremes suggests that reading Marx may be more important now than ever. Hobsbawm begins with a consideration of how we should think about Marxism in the post-communist era, observing that the features we most associate with Soviet and related regimes--command economies, intrusive bureaucratic structures, and an economic and political condition of permanent was--are neither derived from Marx's ideas nor unique to socialist states. Further chapters discuss pre-Marxian socialists and Marx's radical break with them, Marx's political milieu, and the influence of his writings on the anti-fascist decades, the Cold War, and the post--Cold War period. Sweeping, provocative, and full of brilliant insights, How to Change the World challenges us to reconsider Marx and reassess his significance in the history of ideas."--Publisher's website.

The Cuban Revolution of 1959 was a benchmark of triumph and a harbinger of tragedy to come. Rather than herald a new era of Cuba joining the world community of nations as a paragon of democracy as many fervently hoped and believed it would, it became instead a new stage in authoritarian rule in the Western hemisphere. For more than a half century since then Cuba has been defined by the capacity of a single family to command and determine the fate of a nation--and to do so with a minimum of opposition. Incredibly, even those professing adhesion to democratic norms have been ready to forgive the dictator his excesses. This volume explains the theory and practice of this absence of internal opposition and the persistence of external support for the Castro family and its entourage. "The Long Night of Dark Intent" is chronological in order, with the author indicating major points in each of the five decades covered. The volume covers five centers of system analysis: economics, politics, society, military, and ideology. Who or what "determines" events and decisions is the stuff of real history. It is precisely due to variability in causal chains in society that we have huge variance in levels of predictability. The course of the Cuban Revolution gives strong support for such an approach to the Castro Era. This is a unique, unflinching account with a strong emphasis on the importance of U.S. policy decisions over time.

Born in 1879, Eugen Varga became the most prominent Marxist economist in the Soviet Union, referred to as 'Stalin's economist.' As the official theorist of the early USSR, Varga was easily one of the most influential economists of the 20th century, yet his ideas are largely unknown in the West. By selecting and translating--often for the first time--some of his most important works, this volume aims to correct the record. Selected Political and Economic Writings offers a wide and representative selection of his works, dating from his entry into the Hungarian Communist Party in 1919 through to his criticisms of John Maynard Keynes in the 1950s. It also includes the entire text of his Economic Problems of the Proletarian Dictatorship, cited by Lenin as the best work on the collapse of the revolutionary government in Hungary. A detailed critical introduction by Varga's biographer, André Mommen, supplies valuable background detail on the circumstances of Varga's work, contextualising it in relation to political events and the development of orthodox economic theory in the USSR.