Seagull Books
Price: $15.00
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TARIQ ALI
expounds on
The Idea of Communism
Harvard Book Store is pleased to welcome writer and political activist TARIQ ALI as he discusses the historical implementations and alternate versions of communism and his new book, The Idea of Communism. November 9, 2009 marks twenty years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the monumental event that signaled the beginning of the end of communism in the former Soviet Union. Yet, why was this collapse of communism considered final, but the many failures of capitalism are considered temporary and episodic? In The Idea of Communism, Tariq Ali addresses this very question. The idea of communism, argues Ali, was simple and noble. The Communist Manifesto, which advocated the creation of a society based on the principle of “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” rather than a system based on greed and profit, appealed to millions all over the globe. However, Ali argues that the vision of society adumbrated by the founders of communism was a far cry from what became known as actually existing socialism in the Soviet Union and China. The communist system that developed ignored Engels’s belief that a workers’ movement and its victory were inconceivable without freedom of the press and assembly. This freedom, Engels insisted, “is the air it needs to breathe."
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Tariq Ali is a writer, filmmaker, and a long-time political activist and
campaigner. He has written over a dozen books on world history and
politics—including The Clash of Fundamentalisms, Bush in Babylon, Rough Music, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Axis of Hope—as well as five novels and scripts for both stage and screen.
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