The Formation of the Soviet Union


Book Description

Here is the history of the disintegration of the Russian Empire, and the emergence of a multinational Communist state. Pipes tells how the Communists exploited the new nationalism of the peoples of the Ukraine, Belorussia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Volga-Ural area—first to seize power and then to expand into the borderlands.




The Liberation Movement in Russia 1900-1905


Book Description

The story of Russian liberalism's failure to present an effective alternative to Tsarism and Bolshevism.




From Mission to Microchip


Book Description

There is no better time than now to consider the labor history of the Golden State. While other states face declining union enrollment rates and the rollback of workersÕ rights, California unions are embracing working immigrants, and voters are protecting core worker rights. WhatÕs the difference? California has held an exceptional place in the imagination of Americans and immigrants since the Gold Rush, which saw the first of many waves of working people moving to the state to find work. From Mission to Microchip unearths the hidden stories of these people throughout CaliforniaÕs history. The difficult task of the stateÕs labor movement has been to overcome perceived barriers such as race, national origin, and language to unite newcomers and natives in their shared interest. As chronicled in this comprehensive history, workers have creatively used collective bargaining, politics, strikes, and varied organizing strategies to find common ground among CaliforniaÕs diverse communities and achieve a measure of economic fairness and social justice. This is an indispensible book for students and scholars of labor history and history of the West, as well as labor activists and organizers.Ê




The Union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar


Book Description

The author looks at how the union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar was formed to create the new nation of Tanzania. He contends that Anglo-American geopolitical interests in the context of the Cold War were not the driving force behind the merger but the initiatives taken by the leaders of Tanganyika and Zanzibar to unite their countries. He also states that the leaders who played the biggest role in forming the union were President Julius Nyerere of Tanganyika, Tanganyika's minister of foreign affairs, Oscar Kambona; President Abeid Karume of Zanzibar, and Zanzibar's vice president Abdallah Kassim Hanga - but especially Nyerere and Kambona because of the decisions they made and implemented to lay the foundation and facilitate the merger. He cites various sources to document his study. The work is a counter-thesis to the argument that the leaders of the United States and Britain, including their diplomats in the two East African countries, conceived and facilitated formation of the union to protect Western interests in the region. It is argued that they did so in order to neutralise communist influence in Zanzibar because the island nation was in danger of becoming a communist satellite controlled by the Soviets or the Chinese if it came under the leadership of Zanzibar's minister of foreign affairs, Abdulrahman Mohamed Babu, who was considered to be pro-Chinese, or Kassim Hanga who was considered to be pro-Soviet. That would have provided a base for the Soviets or the Chinese and their allies to spread communism and undermine Western interests in the region and in Africa as a whole if indeed, as it was feared by the West, Zanzibar became "the Cuba of Africa." The author also looks at the challenges the union faced when it was being formed and the other challenges it has faced and continues to face since then. The work is an updated version of the author's previous books on the formation of Tanzania, the first and only union of independent states ever formed on the continent since the end of colonial rule.




Who Rules America Now?


Book Description

The author is convinced that there is a ruling class in America today. He examines the American power structure as it has developed in the 1980s. He presents systematic, empirical evidence that a fixed group of privileged people dominates the American economy and government. The book demonstrates that an upper class comprising only one-half of one percent of the population occupies key positions within the corporate community. It shows how leaders within this "power elite" reach government and dominate it through processes of special-interest lobbying, policy planning and candidate selection. It is written not to promote any political ideology, but to analyze our society with accuracy.




Basic Guide to the National Labor Relations Act


Book Description




Empire of Nations


Book Description

When the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917, they set themselves the task of building socialism in the vast landscape of the former Russian Empire, a territory populated by hundreds of different peoples belonging to a multitude of linguistic, religious, and ethnic groups. Before 1917, the Bolsheviks had called for the national self-determination of all peoples and had condemned all forms of colonization as exploitative. After attaining power, however, they began to express concern that it would not be possible for Soviet Russia to survive without the cotton of Turkestan and the oil of the Caucasus. In an effort to reconcile their anti-imperialist position with their desire to hold on to as much territory as possible, the Bolsheviks integrated the national idea into the administrative-territorial structure of the new Soviet state. In Empire of Nations, Francine Hirsch examines the ways in which former imperial ethnographers and local elites provided the Bolsheviks with ethnographic knowledge that shaped the very formation of the new Soviet Union. The ethnographers—who drew inspiration from the Western European colonial context—produced all-union censuses, assisted government commissions charged with delimiting the USSR's internal borders, led expeditions to study "the human being as a productive force," and created ethnographic exhibits about the "Peoples of the USSR." In the 1930s, they would lead the Soviet campaign against Nazi race theories . Hirsch illuminates the pervasive tension between the colonial-economic and ethnographic definitions of Soviet territory; this tension informed Soviet social, economic, and administrative structures. A major contribution to the history of Russia and the Soviet Union, Empire of Nations also offers new insights into the connection between ethnography and empire.




Rebuilding Labor


Book Description

In Rebuilding Labor Ruth Milkman and Kim Voss bring together established researchers and a new generation of labor scholars to assess the current state of labor organizing and its relationship to union revitalization. Throughout this collection, the focus is on the formidable challenges unions face today and on how they may be overcome.-publisher description.




The Cambridge History of South Africa: Volume 2, 1885-1994


Book Description

This book surveys South African history from the discovery of gold in the Witwatersrand in the late nineteenth century to the first democratic elections in 1994. Written by many of the leading historians of the country, it pulls together four decades of scholarship to present a detailed overview of South Africa during the twentieth century. It covers political, economic, social, and intellectual developments and their interconnections in a clear and objective manner. This book, the second of two volumes, represents an important reassessment of all the major historical events, developments, and records of South Africa and will be an important new tool for students and professors of African history worldwide, as well as the basis for further development and research.