Platform Publication 2, May - June 1979
Translated and abridged by Jairus Banaji from Henryk Grossmann Das Akkumulations - und Zusammenbruchsgesetz des kapitalistischen Systems (Zugleich eine Krisentheorie), (Hirschfeld, Leipzig, 1929)
Platform Publication 2, May - June 1979
Translated and abridged by Jairus Banaji from Henryk Grossmann Das Akkumulations - und Zusammenbruchsgesetz des kapitalistischen Systems (Zugleich eine Krisentheorie), (Hirschfeld, Leipzig, 1929)
For most of the Left today, the state is an externally existing ’instrument of the ruling class’, something that is used for enacting policies. This reactionary naivete betrays and imprisonment within the necessary appearances of modern society. The left does not see itself as movement to abolish this monstrous institution, but rather, wishes to ’capture the state power’, and refine it.
What was life like for prisoners and camp staff in the many “ordinary†camps, colonies, and special settlements of the Soviet Gulag? This is one of the key questions that Wilson Bell attempts to answer in The Gulag and Soviet Society in Western Siberia, 1929-1953. Western Siberia was the home to one of the Soviet Union’s most extensive prison camp complexes (Siblag) and its various successors and offshoots. It also included a mixture of “corrective labor camps†(ITLs), “corrective labor colonies†(ITKs) and “special settlements.â€
In Pakistan, the debate about women and the left has an added twist. It is sometimes pointed out that in recent history women have done better under the anti-politics, rhetorically liberal dictatorship of General Musharraf. The provision of 33 per cent seats in local bodies, the dilution of the Hudood ordinances, the promotion of education and media and culture (which arguably helps women to claim more public space) were all achieved under conditions when politics, or electoral politics, were in abeyance. This contention deserves detailed and nuanced debate.
Development should be a forerunner to the protection of people’s political, economic and social freedoms and rights. Till date, there has been little meaningful discussion or debate on the effectiveness of the scale and style of development unfolding in Hambantota, the lack of transparency and public access to information for the very people in whose backyards this development drive is taking place and the extent to which their priorities and aspirations are reflected in all of this.
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