On October 18, 2023, the Center for Global Justice lost at dear friend — the renowned Russian marxist scholar/activist Aleksandr Buzgalin. In commemoration of his life and legacy, the Center is rebroadcasting his last program with the Center — "The Solidarity Economy in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia" — originally broadcast on May 30, 2022. Buzgalin, himself a left opponent of bureaucracy and authoritarianism, refutes in this talk a widespread myth about the former Soviet Union that depicts it as a monolithic totalitarian system devoid of social movements of any significance. Instead he presents a more nuanced picture by reviewing the little-known forms of workers’ democracy that existed in the USSR along with the general characteristic of post-soviet capitalism in Russia.
Aleksandr Buzglin was an economics professor at Moscow State University and Director of Modern Marxist Studies. He was a member of the Organizing Committee of the Russian Social Forums and the coordinator of a social movement called Alternatives and the chief editor of its quarterly journal. Alternatives has organized Marxist study groups in close to 30 cities across Russia and has sucessfully organized self-management in numerous factories.
Editor's note: Aleksandr's talk starts at 15:41
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