Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction
1. Does Trade Unionism have a Future?
2. Beyond Identities
3. The Third Left or the Third Socialism
Notes
Index
Introduction: Pride and Protest
1. Does trade unionism have a future?
The crisis of unionism
The post-Soviet trade unions
South Korean activism
South African militancy
Third World workers form fighting unions
New social unionism in Europe
Changing the concept of unionism
2. Beyond Identities
Changing fashions
Identity politics
Discoursive struggles
Feminism: from protest to career politics
Individualist mass movements
Moving East
The real differences
The Marxist approach
Hegemony and postmodernist strategy
Universalism and democracy
Affirmative action
From defensive struggles to corporatism
Leftist strategies
Non-governmental organizations
Class politics comes back
3. The Third Left or the Third Socialism
"The third left"
The third socialism
The Zapatistas
Return to the arms
Protests and programs
Rifondazione in Italy
Party of Democratic Socialism in Germany
The Workers Party in Brazil
Struggles in Eastern Europe
Pluralist left
Between resistance and 'constructive work'
From networking to challenging the system
Conclusion: The Stage we are in

About the Author

Boris Kagarlitsky is a Russian Marxist theoretician and sociologist who has been a political dissident in the former Soviet Union and the Russian Federation. He is the author of many books, his latest being The Long Retreat: Strategies to Reverse the Decline of the Left. In 2023 he was detained under Putin’s regime for speaking out against the war in Ukraine, and in February 2024 he was sentenced to five years in a penal colony. Since then, the Daniel Singer Foundation designated him as the recipient of its 2024 Prisoner of Conscience Award.

Reviews

'This ambitious trilogy offers an intriguing diagnosis of the plight of the Left at a moment when its fortunes may be starting to change for the better'
*Times Literary Suplement*