Monthly Review

Was Folk Music a Commie Plot?

2021-04-01T01:04:01-04:00

The revival of folk music—music derived from rural southern sources, unamplified, and, to a large extent, comprised of old songs of anonymous origin—was more than just another fad. Folk music encapsulated longings for an idyllic past, for a time before crass commercialism turned music into a commodity, and for relationships between musicians and audiences that were egalitarian and holistic.

Socialist Practice and Transition

2021-04-01T01:01:57-04:00

In Socialist Practice, a collection of essays on leftist theory and experiences, Victor Wallis adheres to the view that the achievement of socialism is a drawn out, nonlinear process consisting of episodes that in many cases have a mixed impact on the revolutionary cause. He analyzes several, ranging from the seven decades of Soviet rule to the New Left of the 1960s. His main thesis is that over the last century pure socialism has never existed and that on all fronts socialist movements and governments have contained elements of the old—namely, capitalism.

These Brothers Chose Well

2021-04-01T00:59:11-04:00

Writer, editor, and prison activist Susie Day has written a beautiful, heartrending, and inspiring account of the friendship between Paul Coates and Eddie Conway. Both were born in the late 1940s and grew up in Black communities—Paul in Philadelphia and Eddie in Baltimore. Both were members of the Black Panther Party in the late 1960s and early '70s, and both were harassed by police for their radical activities as Party members. Eddie was wrongfully convicted of killing a Baltimore policeman and spent forty-four years in prison. Through it all, Paul was his steadfast friend and supporter, as well as partner in their political development and commitment to the liberation of Black people in the United States.

Engels's Ecologically Indispensable if Incomplete Dialectics of Nature

2021-04-01T00:55:44-04:00

Engels was neither a reductionist nor a positivist, and, far from being a political fatalist, he embraced a form of interventionist politics that was underpinned by a historically emergent ethics. It was this standpoint that he aimed to philosophically ground in Dialectics of Nature.

What Sort of Kinetic Materialism Did Marx Find in Epicurus?

2021-04-01T00:53:04-04:00

In his Theses on Feuerbach, Karl Marx suggests that the main flaw of all previous materialism has been to uncritically accept and champion a notion of matter that has its proper place in a dualistic framework, where matter is passive and the mind is active. If this is so, true materialism will conceive of matter as an active principle, and of material beings as perfectly capable of conscious sensation and agency.

I wake to the possible

2021-04-01T00:51:25-04:00

A new poem by Marge Piercy.

History comes in bad cycles

2021-04-01T00:47:08-04:00

A new poem by Marge Piercy.

Building Communities of Solidarity

2021-04-01T00:44:02-04:00

Bill Fletcher Jr. and Bill Gallegos interview Fernando Gapasin on race, class, and building communities of solidarity.

Repairing the Soil Carbon Rift

2021-04-01T00:42:07-04:00

To create and preserve a permanent thriving agriculture for untold generations to come, it is essential to manage and care for soils using practices that build and maintain healthy soils.

Notes from the Editors, April 2021

2021-04-01T00:39:02-04:00

buy this issue

Many factors are involved in COVID-19 mortality rates. Nevertheless, it is clear that the more socialist-oriented countries—by prioritizing social needs and public health, plus aggressive testing, tracing, and enlisting the aid of their populations—have generally been more effective in limiting the effects of the disease on their societies. The failure of the wealthier capitalist countries to do so is largely a result of their prioritization of profits over people.