SOCIALISM SINCE MARX

by Robert Kilroy-Silk ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 4, 1973

In this tidy, high-schoolish skimming of every movement in the world that called itself, or was labeled, Socialist, Kilroy-Silk is either soporific or appalling, depending on one's interest in the subject. Poorly digested snippets of other writers follow each other: on Marx's theories, the European socialist movement, left movements in Asia, Africa and Latin America, the New Left, and so forth. Marx is said to have condemned capitalism for using division of labor and surplus value was a myth developed to ""aid the struggle,"" -- to note only two of the hackneyed misrepresentations the book casually tosses off. Then the debates within the pre-World War I Social Democratic Party of Germany: Bernstein said. . . Luxemburg said. . . (and she certainly said nothing so silly about ""the general strike""); Britain, France, Belgium and the U.S. get a few pages and we return to the Anglo-European reformists. Then we have Lenin -- you remember his theory of democratic centralism, and Trotsky, who differed with Stalin. In the '50's there was the Soviet doctrine of Peaceful Coexistence, while the ""warm-hearted pragmatism"" of European Social Democrats persisted and to the east nationalist socialism arose in China, Vietnam, North Korea, etc. And then there was Castro and African socialism and the welfare state and Marcuse. The conclusion is that ""Socialism is not dead, just dormant."" Stunned perhaps by Kilroy-Silk's inanity.

Pub Date: May 4, 1973

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Taplinger

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1973

Categories: NONFICTION