Description
Book SynopsisThe Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was created in a surge of revolutionary self-determination that rejected both the free-market-Capitalism of Europe, and the bureaucratic-Socialism of the Soviet Union. Yet this early experimentation and dynamism ultimately gave way to the same sclerotic state-system its creators were trying to avoid. In this engaging treatise, Suvin seeks out the source of this failure.
Trade ReviewSuvin's Splendour, Misery and Possibilities is a landmark contribution to the scholarship on the socialist experiments of the twentieth century that should be of particular interest to all those unconvinced by the "a priori tenet of Cold War ideology...that a plebian communist revolution must necessarily end in catastrophe." -- Victor Strazzeri * Socialism and Democracy *
Table of ContentsList of Tables and Figures Acknowledgements Preface: Pro Doma Sua PART 1: FUNDAMENTS: FREEDOM AND ACCUMULATION 1: Radical Emancipation and Yugoslavia: On the Founding Singularities of SFRY 2: Accumulation and Its Discontents PART 2: CLASS INTERESTS AND POLITICS AS SFRY DOMINANTS 3: On Class Relationships in Yugoslavia 4: On a Hidden Ruling Class and Central Conflict 5: What Has Been and What Could Have Been 6: 15 Theses about Communism and Yugoslavia, Or the Two-Headed Janus of Emancipation through the State (Metamorphoses and Anamorphoses of ‘On The Jewish Question’ by Marx) 7: The Communist Party of Yugoslavia PART 3: SELF-GOVERNMENT VS. ALIENATION: A TRACTATE ON YUGOSLAV ECONOMICS AND POLITICS Part 3.1: On Self-management In S.F.R. Yugoslavia: A Critical Stock-Taking (1945-72) 8: Anatomy: Macro-Political Economics, Or the View from Above 9: Anatomy: Micro-Political Economics, Or the View from the Workers 10: Physiology: The Interests and Stakes behind the Macro-Events Part 3.2: On the Horizon of Disalienation in S.F.R. Yugoslavia: Self-Government and Plebeian Democracy 11: On the Politics of Disalienation, Inside and Outside Economic Production 12: In Production: Rise and Fall of Self-management 13: In Civic Life: Dis/Alienation and Oligarchy Monolithism 14: Conclusion: On Failures and Potentialities APPENDICES Appendix 1: Bureaucracy: A Term and Concept in the Socialist Discourse about State Power (Upstream of Yugoslavia) Appendix 2: The Discourse about Bureaucracy and State Power in Post-Revolutionary Yugoslavia 1945–72 References
