Irving Howe

Essential Works of Socialism

Essential Works of Socialism is the most authoritative one-volume collection of major socialist writings to appear in English. Edited by Irving Howe, the well-known social historian and literary critic, it not only includes classic statements by Marx, Engels, Bukharin, Plekhanov, Lenin, Luxemburg, and Trotsky, but also analysis, polemic, and re-evaluations from such varied figures as Djilas, Silone, Ricoeur, Lichtheim, Orwell, Buber, Kolakowski, Cole, and Harrington. Howe's Introduction emphasizes that this is an anthology of socialist thought, not of Marxism. Marxism has, of course, been the most influential strand of thought in the development of modern socialism, but non-Marxist socialism is also well represented in this volume. Howe has managed to avoid the inclusion of esoteric and internal socialist controversies; the debates that are anthologized here, as with the assault Trotsky launched against Stalinism, or Plekhanov's anticipation of revolution leading to a new Asiatic despotism, have lost none of their relevance. Right-wing and left-wing socialists are both present, as well as the many who fit neither label, but the Essential Works of Socialism has been edited out of a conviction that no compromise is possible between democratic socialists and the various defenders of authoritarian and totalitarian despotism, who have appropriated the name of socialism.