The point of departure of Heide Gerstenberger's path-breaking work is a critique of structural-functionalist theory of the state, in both its modernisation theory and materialist variants. Prof. Gerstenberger opposes to these a historical-theoretical explanation that proceeds from the long-term structuring effect of concrete social practice. This is elucidated by detailed investigation of the development of bourgeois state power in the two key examples of England and France. The different complexions that the bourgeois state assumed are presented as the results of processes of social and...

This volume, originally published in French under the title Que faire du Capital?, offers a new interpretation of Marx's great work. It shows how the novelty and lasting interest of Marx's theory arises from the fact that, as against the project of a 'pure' economics, it is formulated in concepts that have simultaneously an economic and a political aspect, neither of these being separable from the other. Jacques Bidet conducts an unprecedented investigation of Marx's work in the spirit of the history of science, exploring it as a process of theoretical development. Traditional...

Paul Levi remains one of the most interesting and controversial figures in the early history of the Communist movement. As leader of the KPD after the murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, he successfully built up a party of a third of a million members, but by 1921 Comintern pressure for 'Bolshevisation' forced Levi's resignation and expulsion. Until his early death in 1930 he remained 'a revolutionary socialist of the Rosa Luxemburg school' (Carl von Ossietsky), and was described by Albert Einstein as 'one of the wisest, most just and courageous persons I have come across'. The...

Paul Frölich was a key figure in the formative years of German Communism. From a working-class family, he was active in the Social Democratic Party from the late 1890s, a left radical opposed to the First World War, and a founder member of the KPD. His previously unpublished memoir, only recently discovered, casts valuable new light on a key period, particularly the Comintern intervention that led to the disastrous ‘March action’ of 1921. The text on which the present, slightly abridged edition is based was originally published in German as Im radikalen Lager: Politische...