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mothmans_mum 's review for:
Western Marxism and the Soviet Union: A Survey of Critical Theories and Debates Since 1917
by Marcel van der Linden
Marcel van der Linden's broad but terribly shallow catalogue of "Western Marxist" theories of the nature of the Soviet Union is thoroughly pointless book.
He is clearly far more interested in collecting theories by obscure academics which never had an impact on the world than he is in actually providing any insight into the theories he is surveying. There is no attempt to understand the way in which the changes in the material reality in Russia and the Eastern block, and the class struggles going on there and in the West, affected the development of the theories. He provides no information about the different political currents which took up any of the theories or the way in which those theories shaped the class struggle.
He has split the history of the Soviet Union into time periods, and at the start of each provides a brief overview of that time period, but the level of the overview is always in terms of Big P politics, rather than class struggle.
There is not even any attempt to provide factual information to allow the reader to ascertain the veracity of any claim made by any of the theories. It is clear that the way that van der Linden sees the world is purely idealistic--the contest between two theories is carried out by two academics writing at each other, not by checking to see if one or the other theory can actually explain the material world.
It is clear that while van der Linden is mostly interested in making a butterfly collection of obscure academic theories, he is also politically motivated. He pays much more attention to, and is far less critical of, theories of bureaucratic collectivism, while being dismissive of Cliff's theory of state capitalism, and providing large swathes of criticism of that theory. He is, however, too cowardly to ever spell out exactly what his own political analysis of the Soviet Union is, hiding behind a facade of dispassionate academia.
It's a shame, because a work which actually carried out the task this work purports to would actually be an extremely interesting and useful reference.
He is clearly far more interested in collecting theories by obscure academics which never had an impact on the world than he is in actually providing any insight into the theories he is surveying. There is no attempt to understand the way in which the changes in the material reality in Russia and the Eastern block, and the class struggles going on there and in the West, affected the development of the theories. He provides no information about the different political currents which took up any of the theories or the way in which those theories shaped the class struggle.
He has split the history of the Soviet Union into time periods, and at the start of each provides a brief overview of that time period, but the level of the overview is always in terms of Big P politics, rather than class struggle.
There is not even any attempt to provide factual information to allow the reader to ascertain the veracity of any claim made by any of the theories. It is clear that the way that van der Linden sees the world is purely idealistic--the contest between two theories is carried out by two academics writing at each other, not by checking to see if one or the other theory can actually explain the material world.
It is clear that while van der Linden is mostly interested in making a butterfly collection of obscure academic theories, he is also politically motivated. He pays much more attention to, and is far less critical of, theories of bureaucratic collectivism, while being dismissive of Cliff's theory of state capitalism, and providing large swathes of criticism of that theory. He is, however, too cowardly to ever spell out exactly what his own political analysis of the Soviet Union is, hiding behind a facade of dispassionate academia.
It's a shame, because a work which actually carried out the task this work purports to would actually be an extremely interesting and useful reference.