After the Fall: The Failure of Communism and the Future of Socialism

The fall of Communism has been an epoch-making event. The distinguished contributors to After the Fall explain to us the meaning of Communism's meteoric trajectory - and explore the rational grounds for socialist endeavour and commitment in a world which remains dangerous and divided.The contributors include the Italian political philosopher Norberta Bobbio, the British historian Eric Hobsbawm, the French economist Andre Gorz, and the German social theorist Jurgen Habermas. Eduardo Galeano explains how the world now looks from the South, Diane Elson explores how the market might be socialized. Ralph Miliband writes on the harshness of Leninism. Hans Magnus Enzensberger argues that the capitalist 'bad fairy' granted the Left's wishes in disconcerting ways. Lynne Segal looking at the condition of women sees no reason to abandon her libertarian, feminist and socialist convictions, while Maxine Molyneux considers the implications for women of the fall of Communism. Giovanni Arrighi asks whether Marxism understood the 'American Century', Fredric Jameson pursues a conversation on the new world order. Ivan Szelemyi explains who will be the new rulers in Eastern Europe. and Robin Blackburn reflects on the history of socialist programmes. with the benefit of hindsight. Fred Halliday and Edward Thompson disagree about how Communism ended but share worries about what is in store for the postCommunist countries. Alexander Cockburn regrets the death of the Soviet Union. And Goran Therborn eloquently proves that it is still possible to imagine a future beyond capitalism . .. and beyond socialism?

Cuba's economy, strangled by foreign debt, is overdependent on sugar exports of declining value. Increasing waste and muddle of the bureaucracy, growing inequality between workers' and managers' wages, high absenteeism and greater rationing of basic goods all point to a severe crisis in Cuba's socialist experiment, according to French leftist Habel. Her prescription for change includes political democracy, freedom of speech and action, granting of decision-making power to workers and letting "the whole of society take control of its own development." Habel, who has visited Cuba regularly since 1962, writes as a disillusioned follower of Castro's revolution, which makes her heavily footnoted tract dull and plodding, at times an apologia. Chapters cover Cuba's militant foreign policy, the government's alleged involvement in drug trafficking and its strained relations with Gorbachev, who refused to cancel Cuba's debt.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This timely work analyzes a question on the mind of all observers of the international political scene: will Cuba be the next to shed its socialist leadership? The author, a French activist sympathetic to the Revolution who has visited the island since 1962, rightly praises and criticizes Cuban development. She lays the primary blame for the failures of the Revolution on a bureaucratic state and argues that it is not too late to institute democratic socialism. Although Castro receives his fair share of the blame, many critics would consider her too generous on his human rights record and personally motivated vengeance, while also questioning whether Cuba indeed became economically independent. Recommended for most libraries.
- Roderic A. Camp, Central Coll., Pella, Ia.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.