This paper first appeared in a collection of essays from the Cavtat Conference in Yugoslavia, Socialism on the Threshold of the Twenty-First Century, Milos Nicolic, ed., London 1985.
1983: Emancipation, science and politics in Karl Marx
23 May 2020, byOriginally published in: Ossip K. Flechtheim (ed.), ’Marx Heute. Pro und Contra’ (Hamburg, 1983). This translation is based on the version published in Ernest Mandel, Karl Marx–Die Aktualität seines Werks (Frankfurt am Main, 1984).
1971: On the dialectic of nation and class struggle
23 May 2020, byOnly by starting from the centrality of class struggle can we explain the development of nationalism. However, that the theory of historical materialism gives class struggle a primary place in history does not mean class struggle is the only factor in history. In fact, at different times in history other factors can become primary. But whenever we ask why other factors can become primary, we are lead back to the question of class struggle. The development of nationalism is a case in point.
1970: Althusser corrects Marx
23 May 2020, byWriting in the aftermath of May 68, this was a discussion that for Mandel had direct political implications.
1990: “Material, social and ideological preconditions for the Nazi genocide”
27 January 2020, byThis is the text of Ernest Mandel’s contribution to a symposium on the Nazi genocide held in Brussels in 1988. It was first published in French in Yannis Thanassekos and Heinz Wismann, eds., Révision de l’Histoire: Totalitarisme, crimes et génocides nazis, Editions du Cerf, Paris 1990, pp. 169-74.
The English translation was published in Gilbert Achcar. ed., The Legacy of Ernest Mandel, Verso, London 1999, pp. 225 - 232.
1980 - Historical Materialism and the Capitalist State
12 July 2011, by“Historical materialism elevates the principle of the dialectical relationship between the particular and the general, which reveals the essence of phenomena, to the theoretical foundation of the dialectical understanding of history.”- Leo Kofler, Geschichte und Dialektik
1993: The nature of social-democratic reformism
28 August 2005, byErnest Mandel wrote this study of the nature of social democracy twelve years ago. Many of the references in it are a little dated, but the article gives valuable insights into the basic character of reformism.
1976 - Trotskyists and Resistance in the Second World War
31 May 2005, byDuring the Second World War, revolutionary socialists argued, in the face of huge repression, that the German-Japanese ‘Axis’ and the US-British ‘Allies’ were fighting an imperialist war; and that working people should support neither side.
1990 - Communism
31 December 2003, byErnest Mandel outlines the orthodox Marxist view of the stages of transition after the fall of capitalism.