Suchergebnisse

Lenin's Electoral Strategy focuses on Lenin's approach to electoral politics and what he and other Marxists terms the institutions of bourgeois democracy, drawing on Bolshevik debates and Marx and Engel's own writings to show this to be a central feature of their revolutionary strategy.

1. Introduction -- 2. The European Spring, 1848-1851: Marx and Engels versus Tocqueville -- 3. The United States Civil War: Marx versus Mill -- 4. Two Takes on the Russian Revolution of 1905: Lenin versus Weber -- 5. The October Revolution and End of the 'Great War': Lenin versus Wilson -- 6. Conclusion

"This is the first book length study of the sorely neglected side of Lenin's politics - his use of the electoral arena to shape a revolution. This aspect of Leninist politics was intimately linked to his better known party-building project and writings on the peasantry, though few researchers have dedicated themselves to how Leninist ideology relates to the study of elections. In this book, August H. Nimtz details Lenin's efforts to lead the deputies of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in the Third and Fourth State Dumas, which was Russia's first experiment in representative democracy from 1907 to 19017 - from counterrevolution to the Revolution of October of 1917. This time period covered such challenges as whether to take part in the Dumas, how to combine legal and illegal work, how to ensure party leadership of its Duma deputies, how to employ the Duma to forge the worker-peasant alliance and most importantly, to implement anti-war actions when the First World War began. The answers Lenin provided increasingly put him at odds with Western European Social Democrats, foreshadowing the historic split in the international Marxist movement in 1914. Bolshevik success in 1917, the book argues, can be traced to what was learned in that more than decade-long experience - lessons for anyone interested in Leninism or today's modern protestor"--

This book explores the time in which Lenin initiated his use of the electorate, beginning with the Marxist roots of his politics, from his leadership of Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in the First and Second State Dumas to Russia's first experiment in representative democracy from 1906 to 1907

Focusing on the interplay of religion, society, and politics, August Nimtz examines the role of sufi tariqas (brotherhoods) in Tanzania, where he observed an African Muslim society at first hand. Nimtz opens this book with a historical account of Islam in East Africa, and in subsequent chapters analyzes the role of tariqas in Tanzania and, more specifically, in the coastal city of Bagamoyo. Using a conceptual framework derived from contemporary political theories on social cleavages and individual interests. Nimtz explains why the tariqa is important in the process of political change. The fundamental cleavage in Muslim East Africa, he notes, is that of "whites" versus blacks. Nimtz contends that the tariqas, in serving the interest of blacks (that is, Africans), became in turn vehicles for the mass mobilization of African Muslims during the anti-colonial struggle. In Bagamoyo he finds a similar process and, in addition, reveals that the tariqas have served African interests in opposition to those of "whites" because of the individual benefits they provide. At the same time, Nimtz concludes, the social structure of East African Muslim society has ensured that Africans would be particularly attracted to those benefits. This work will interest both observers of African political development and specialists in the Islamic studies

AbstractMarx's analysis, supplemented by that of Engels, of the US Civil War is as instructive, if not more, as any of their writings to illustrate their 'materialist conception of history'. Because the American experience figured significantly in the young Marx's path to communist conclusions, the outbreak of the War in 1861 obligated him to devote his full attention to its course. His application of their method allowed him to see more accurately the course of the War than his partner. Also, he was able to see what President Abraham Lincoln had to do, that is, to convert the War from one to end secession to one to overthrow slavery, before the President himself. Despite its contradictory outcome, Marx's expectation that the War would put the US working class on terra firma for the first time was justified.