Translated by Giuliano Vivaldi<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Introduction by Tony Wood<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What happened to the left in Russia?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Ilya Budraitskis, one of Russia\u2019s most prominent leftist political commentators, explores the strange fusion of free-market ideology and postmodern nationalism that now prevails in Russia, and describes the post-Soviet evolution of its left. Reviews<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIlya Budraitskis is a gifted writer\u2014non-conformist, insightful, sharp and polemical. Essays collected in this volume succeed to challenge both liberal and illiberal clich\u00e9s about Putin\u2019s Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2013 Ivan Krastev, author of Is It Tomorrow Yet?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIlya Budraitskis brings immense historical knowledge, moral clarity, and political insight into these crucial essays on twenty-first century Russia. From his critical analyses of Russian culture wars and the \u2018geopoliticization of Russia\u2019 to his path-breaking history of socialist dissidence and contemporary Left discontent, Budraitskis proves an adroit guide through the post-Soviet landscape. He directs us not simply to persistent authoritarianism and reaction but also to the unrealized political alternatives that remain to be activated by Left anti-capitalists today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Budraitskis makes an invaluable contribution by reconstructing the forgotten history of the USSR\u2019s dissident left, mapping an entire alternative tradition of heterodox Marxist and socialist thought from Khrushchev\u2019s Thaw to Gorbachev\u2019s perestroika<\/em>. Doubly outsiders, within an intelligentsia dominated by liberal humanists, they offer a potential way out of the impasse between condemnations of the entire Soviet era and blanket nostalgia for Communist Party rule\u2014suggesting new paths for the left to explore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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