The Solidarity Economy in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia

Monday, February 12, 2024 - 1:00pm
CST
¡Aleksandr Buzgalin Presente!
Aleksandr Buzgalin & Ludmila Alexeevna

On October 18, 2023, the Center for Global Justice lost at dear friend--the reknowned Russian marxist scholar/activist Aleksandr Buzgalin. In commemoration of his life and legacy, the Center is rebroadcasting his last program with the Center-- "The Solidarity Economy in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia"--originally broadcast on May 30, 2022. Buzgalin, himself a left opponent of bureaucracy and authoritarianism, refutes in this talk a widespread myth about the former Soviet Union that depicts it as a monolithic totalitarian system devoid of social movements of any significance. Instead he presents a more nuanced picture by reviewing the little-known forms of workers’ democracy that existed in the USSR along with the general characteristic of post-soviet capitalism in Russia.

Aleksandr Buzglin was an economics professor at Moscow State University and Director of Modern Marxist Studies. He was a member of the Organizing Committee of the Russian Social Forums and the coordinator of a social movement called Alternatives and the chief editor of its quarterly journal. Alternatives has organized Marxist study groups in close to 30 cities across Russia and has sucessfully organized self-management in numerous factories.

Upcoming Events

Monday, August 11, 2025 - 1:30pm
CST
Vijay Prashad
Location:
La Biblioteca, Sala Quezal

We surely live in interesting times--from the deepening of U.S.-led militarism to existential ecological and economic crises to shifts in the world order ranging from a significant decline of the Global North along with the rise of the East and Global South. Vijay Prashad, executive director of the Tricontinental Institute for Social... Read more