 Revolutions: a twenty-first-century perspectiveRadhika Desai and Henry Heller Third World Quarterly, 2020, vol. 41, issue 8, 1261-1271 Abstract: We held the ‘Revolutions’ conference in 2017 to commemorate the Russian Revolution and redeem the actual record of revolutions in the Third World for the left. A quarter-century after the demise of the USSR, we found liberal capitalist triumphalism unwarranted. Two of the most important expectations to which it gave rise – that the world had become ‘unipolar’ and that it would enjoy a ‘peace dividend’ – remained unfulfilled. Instead, the world became multipolar and the West, led by the United States, engaged in unprecedented economic and military aggression against countries that contested its power. If this were not enough, social unrest and explosions in the First World as well as the Third underlined the relevance of revolutions. To trace their lineage, we recall capitalism’s intimate relation with revolution. It has needed revolutions to usher it into history and to usher it out. In addition to revolutions against developed capitalism, we also underline how important and necessary revolutions against nascent capitalism in various parts of the world have been. The contributions in this volume explore different parts of this lineage and vivify revolutions for our time. Date: 2020 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:ctwqxx:v:41:y:2020:i:8:p:1261-1271 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2020.1779053 Access Statistics for this article Third World Quarterly is currently edited by Shahid Qadir More articles in Third World Quarterly from Taylor & Francis Journals |
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