Overview

What became of the working class after the fall of the Soviet Union? In Looking East Leftwards, David Mandel?renowned labour scholar and co-founder of the School for Worker Democracy in Moscow?brings together a powerful collection of essays that explores the lives, struggles, and political possibilities of workers in Russia, Poland, Hungary, China, and Cuba. BR>With sharp insight and grounded reporting, Mandel documents the voices and experiences of trade union activists across the former Eastern Bloc, capturing a rare and vital snapshot of working-class consciousness in the turbulent 1990s. His own contributions, which make up half the book, are a deeply informed and meticulous account of workers? realities in post-Soviet Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine?part travel diary, part political anthropology, and entirely indispensable. Threaded through the volume is a shared critical perspective on both Stalinism and contemporary capitalism. Far from dismissing the socialist past, Mandel and his co-authors engage it with nuance?recognizing its failures while defending the transformative aspirations it once carried. One standout essay by Lyudmila Bulavka offers a stunning politico-cultural critique of the film Burnt by the Sun, linking the contradictions in its narrative to the legacies of Stalinism and the fractured Russian intelligentsia. Blending first-hand observation with theoretical depth, Looking East Leftwards is a vital contribution to debates on socialism, democracy, and workers? power. For activists, scholars, and anyone grappling with the legacy of the 20th century's great political experiments, this book is an essential guide to the unfinished struggles of the global Left.

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9781551640990

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David Mandel teaches political science at the University of Quebec, Montreal. He is co-founder of the School for Worker Democracy, which conducts rank-and-file labour education in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, and has written extensively on labour, past and present, in the region. He is active in the socialist and trade-union movements in Canada.

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