Marxism and British socialism

Marxism and Actually Existing Socialism

I recently visited the Soviet Union. I was there for only one week, as a tourist: time to get only a very limited and superficial impression of life there. Nevertheless, it was a sobering and thought-provoking experience. For even such a brief visit forces one to confront the problems raised by the evidently unideal character of the Soviet Union and other ̀ actually existing' socialist societies...

Marxism in the Works of Erich Fromm and the Crisis of Socialism

The crisis of socialism, in the light of the historical events that have provoked its downfall in Eastern Europe, had already been discussed in our Fromm Institute in Bologna, at the end of 1989. Romano Biancoli maintained that Fromm had been proved right in his vision of Marxism and of real socialism. I realized that, if Fromm were still alive he would not be surprised by this turn of events, ...

Marxism and the Spirit of Socialism: Cultural Origins of Anti-capitalism (1982)

Ignazio Silone, one of the founders of the Italian Communist Party, has written strikingly about the role of moral commitment in radical theory. ‘The more Socialist theories claim to be “scientifi c”’, he suggests, ‘the more transitory they are; but Socialist values are permanent. The distinction between theories and values is not suffi ciently recognized, but it is fundamental. On a group of t...

Marxism and Method

Marxism, Gender, and Mediated Memories of National Socialism: the Paradoxical Case of Christa Wolf’s Kindheitsmuster (1976) Katherine Stone

This article explores ambivalences in the representation of women's participation in the Third Reich in Christa Wolf's Kindheitsmuster (1976). Its thematic and aesthetic departure from the GDR's official stance towards National Socialism is well-noted. As this article demonstrates, however, Wolf's subversive feminine and moral perspective on the Nazi past also relies on an ideal of human intera...