The Decline of the American Communist Party.
A History of the Communist Party of the United States Since 1945.
By David A. Shannon.

Reviewed by T. Clark.

Although the book is written from a liberal anti-communist standpoint, Shannon strives for a certain degree of objectivity. What results is an interesting, even colourful account of American communist politics in the early post-war years.

T. Clark summarises and assesses the work.

The Enemy Within.
The rise and fall of the
British Communist Party.
By Francis Beckett.

Reviewed by T. Clark.

Francis Beckett traces the rise, decline and fall of the former British Communist Party. The final (dissolution) meeting of the party was held at the TUC central London headquarters in November 1991.

T. Clark assesses the work and summarises the history.

The Silent Takeover.
Global Capitalism and the
Death of Democracy.
By Noreena Hertz.

Reviewed by T. Clark.

This book is about how the big corporations are invading all aspects of capitalist social and political life in face of the retreat of the State.

But it is hard to determine what Hertz, who prefaces her criticisms with praise, actually understands by 'capitalism'. For example:

Hertz does not notice that the international conglomerates are all based on highly socialised production and are directed by a plan; that society has therefore outgrown capitalist ownership of the means of production; that global capitalism represents immense wealth based on socialised production side by side with abject poverty, even in the richest capitalist country, USA.

Trotsky's Analysis of
Soviet Bureaucratisation.
By David W. Lovell.

Reviewed by T. Clark.

Lovell emphasises that Trotsky's contribution to the debate on the nature of the Soviet Union after Lenin was fundamentally of a moral character.

Trotsky failed to see the obvious: if the nature of the bureaucracy was contradictory, attaching the label of 'counterrevolutionary' to it was inappropriate.

Stalin's Antibureaucrat Scenario.
By Lars T. Lih.

Reviewed by T. Clark.

 This is a review of the introduction by Lars T. Lih to Stalin's Letters to Molotov.