Philip Cunliffe

China Mieville. October: The Story of the Russian Revolution. London: Verso, 2017; Tariq Ali. The Dilemmas of Lenin: Terrorism, War, Empire, Love, Revolution. London: Verso, 2017. IN AN INTERVIEW HE GAVE to discuss his new book, October, China Mieville observed that to his surprise, there has been comparatively little published on the centenary of the Russian Revolution. This means that public commentary and reflection on the revolution is inevitably poorer as a result, and that more expectation is piled onto those books that have come out. [Read More]

THERE IS A FAIR AMOUNT one could take issue with in James Heartfield’s review of Andrew Kliman’s The Failure of Capitalist Production – not least the redundant polemical sideswipes that generate heat but do not shed light. But rather than arbitrating between Kliman and Heartfield, I want to focus instead on the main contradiction in Heartfield’s argument, as it is Heartfield’s argument that has the most far-reaching implications for how we might think about capitalism and the prospects for social change. [Read More]