Medvedev seems to write like a book a month. I just picked up his latest, "Sotsializm v Rossii?" (Socialism in Russia), which is about, well, socialism in Russia. He's a joy to translate, so I decided to translate some parts of it into English -- if I don't, know one else will! Would anybody like me to send them the translations? I'm going to translate his overview of theories on the character of the USSR this weekend. Here's his short forward:
In the book that lies before the reader, I would like to discuss with like-minded people and opponents some of the problems related to the hard fate of the socialist idea and socialist practice in Russia. This is not my first book on the problems of socialism. At the beginning of the 1970s my book “Sotsializm i demokratiya,” which was written at the end of the 1960s and contained an analysis of the problems of Soviet society from the point of view of an independent democrat and socialist, was published in many countries. That book was published in Russian in 1972 by the Hertsen Foundation in Amsterdam under the title “Kniga o sotsialisticheskoi demokratii.” In 1981 my book “Leninism and Western Socialism,” in which I continued the analysis of a number of problems of Soviet socialism, was published in London in English. In my present book, I continue this attempt, but this time taking into account the dramatic events connected with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the CPSU. I prepared the first version of this book back in 1996 for a narrow circle of activists in the Socialist Party of Laborers (SPL), of which I was one of seven delegates. All in all, 150 copies were distributed among friends. I prepared the second version of the book for Chinese comrades after having participated in a large International Conference on the problems of socialism that was held by the University of Beijing in January 2002. The book was published in China in 2003 in Chinese under the title “The Historical Fate of Socialism in Russia.” I have now prepared a third version of the book, which is, to a large extent, a survey of the events that have occurred in the USSR and Russia, and also, in general, our Moscow discussions on the problems of socialism. We do not possess sufficient knowledge of the enormous and multifaceted experience accumulated during the 20th century by socialists, social democrats, and communists in tens of countries, which in many areas turned out more successful than our Soviet and Russian experience, for a deeper investigation of the problems of socialism. Socialism, in various forms, is appearing today from all sides, and it is impossible to effectively overcome the dangers, difficulties, and threats arising before all mankind with developed technology, science, and economies and with the arising of new contradictions between different regions and civilizations without using the ideas and methods developed and proposed by socialists of different countries and different inclinations. Socialism and the socialist idea are relevant today not only for Russia, which is seeking its path and its new place in the world, but also for the post-Soviet space. The Communist leaders of earlier decades pretended to lecture to everyone about the “correct,” “genuine,” and “only reliable” doctrine about socialism. Their defeat does not, however, mean that we should veer away from the great and noble ideas of justice, solidarity, freedom, and societal well-being that lie at the basis of the socialist idea. It was such concerns with which I was occupied while I was working on my book.
March 6, 2005 Moscow
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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