Online research in philosophy

Colonial encounters in the 1850s: the European impact on India, Indonesia, and China -- Russia and Poland: the relationship of national emancipation to revolution -- Race, class, and slavery: the Civil War as a second American revolution -- Ireland: nationalism, class, and the labor movement -- From the Grundrisse to Capital: multilinear themes -- Late writings on non-western and precapitalist societies -- Conclusion -- Appendix: the vicissitudes of the Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe from the 1920s to today.

Colonial encounters in the 1850s: the European impact on India, Indonesia, and China -- Russia and Poland: the relationship of national emancipation to revolution -- Race, class, and slavery: the Civil War as a second American revolution -- Ireland: nationalism, class, and the labor movement -- From the Grundrisse to Capital: multilinear themes -- Late writings on non-western and precapitalist societies -- Conclusion -- Appendix: the vicissitudes of the Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe from the 1920s to today.

Marx supposedly represents a radical break from liberal individualist property oriented thinking. In fact, Marx represents an integration of the best points of a variety of liberal individualists, notably Locke and Rousseau, but also to a lesser extent Aristotle and even Plato. Marx is an extension of, not a break from, mainstream thinkers in Western political and economic thought: all Marx's main ideas can be traced to one canonical scholar or another. Understanding analytical tools common to both Liberalism and Marxism contextualizes their divergences and allows one to better understand both the successes and failures of Marxism as a critique in practice of liberal state theory.

I present the scope andcharacteristics of Marx''s interest in Russiaand review its evolution. Initially, Marx''sattitudes were marked by russophobia,pronounced anti-panslavism, assessments ofRussia as an outpost of European reaction andcounterrevolution, and even as the head of aconspiracy to block the world revolution. Withtime, however, Marx came to consider Russia asthe country in which the outbreak of theRevolution was most likely. In his research forsucessive volumes of Capital, he readRussian theoretical works by, among others, V.Bervi-Flerovskij and A. Koshelev. Marx''sattitudes to the anticipated peasant revolutionin Russia remained ambivalent; to a certaindegree he feared its occurrence suspecting thatit could take on an `asiatic'' hue.

It has often been said that Marx never achieved a comprehensive treatment of the specifically political area, but in fact there is far more, and far more coherent, material on the topic in his writings than has been assumed. This book brings together everything in Marx's work which bears on politics and treats his approach as a living, evolving theory. For every stage of his career it examines the theory he held, what were its inner tensions and weaknesses, how these were brought out in actual events and how Marx reacted to his successes and failures. A particular virtue of the book's approach is that Marx's views on, for example, the French Revolution or the events of 1848 are set against what historians now tell us of these events and the adequacy of Marx's accounts is assessed. This is an important book because of the exceptional combination of historical and theoretical perspectives Dr Maguire brings to the examination of Marx's theory of politics. Although he does not attempt to solve all the problems of applying Marxism to the twentieth century, he has provided a clear and comprehensive account of Marx's approach in, and to, his own time.

Introduction -- Marx and postwar French philosophy -- A writer full of affects : Marx through Lyotard -- Messianic without messianism : Marx through Derrida -- The history of the present : Marx through Foucault -- Becoming revolutionary : Marx through Deleuze -- Marx through post-structuralism.

The aims of this essay are (A) to examine the extent to which Marx, Engels and Lenin believed in revolution by peaceful means and what was their attitude towards the phenomenon of war, and (B) to reflect on the different interpretations of their writings, discerning between three schools of thought. It is argued that Marx and Engels considered violence only as an instrument of secondary importance and desirable insofar as there is no other alternative to change the system. It is further contended that while they, in the course of years, adopted a more moderate position regarding the use of violence, Lenin's viewpoint radicalized as the possibility of a revolution in Russia became real. As years went by Lenin affirmed not only the use of violence but also the resort to terrorist activities. Unlike Marx and Engels he became an ardent supporter of all types of terror.

This book is quite simply the best study of the "young Marx" (pre-1848) and his immediate predecessors I have ever read. For supporters of the ancient régime in the first half of the nineteenth century, the failure of the French Revolution meant that everything could now go back to “normal.” But for the thinkers Kouvelakis examines — Kant, Hegel, Heine, Hess, Engels, and Marx — the Revolution’s promise of emancipation was merely deferred, not defeated. What exactly did that mean? Answers differed greatly.