Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory is a Marxist

Marxism

Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...

 academic journal

Academic journal

An academic journal is a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as forums for the introduction and presentation for scrutiny of new research, and the critique of existing research...

 published by the Centre for the Study of Socialist Theory and Movements (University of Glasgow

University of Glasgow

The University of Glasgow is the fourth-oldest university in the English-speaking world and one of Scotland's four ancient universities. Located in Glasgow, the university was founded in 1451 and is presently one of seventeen British higher education institutions ranked amongst the top 100 of the...

). The journal was established in May 1973 by founding editor Hillel H. Ticktin

Hillel H. Ticktin

Hillel Ticktin is a Marxist theorist. He was born in South Africa in 1937 but had to leave to avoid arrest for political activism. He then lived and studied in the Soviet Union, where his PhD thesis, which was critical of official Communist Parties, was rejected. In 1965 he began teaching at...

 as Critique: Journal of Marxist Theory and Soviet Studies.

Originating as an anti-Stalinist

Stalinism

Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...

 Soviet Studies

Europe-Asia Studies

Europe-Asia Studies is an academic peer-reviewed journal published 10 times a year by Routledge on behalf of the Institute of Central and East European Studies, University of Glasgow, and continuing the journal Soviet Studies , which was renamed after the dissolution of the Soviet Union...

 journal, with the editor accepting the analysis of Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....

 as a corrective to the Stalinist distortion of Marxism

Marxism

Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...

, the initial aim of Critique was to analyze the empirical reality of Stalinism, while rejecting the empiricist method

Empiricism

Empiricism is a theory of knowledge that asserts that knowledge comes only or primarily via sensory experience. One of several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with rationalism, idealism and historicism, empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and evidence,...

, in order to discover the objective laws of motion of Stalinism. The journal accepted Trotsky’s 1936 prognosis that the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 under Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...

’s program of Socialism in One Country

Socialism in One Country

Socialism in One Country was a theory put forth by Joseph Stalin in 1924, elaborated by Nikolai Bukharin in 1925 and finally adopted as state policy by Stalin...

would fail and that the capitalist market system

Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...

 would be restored.

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union

Dissolution of the Soviet Union

The dissolution of the Soviet Union was the disintegration of the federal political structures and central government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , resulting in the independence of all fifteen republics of the Soviet Union between March 11, 1990 and December 25, 1991...

, Critique has become a more general journal of socialist theory covering political economy, philosophy, history and art, examining capitalist and non-capitalist societies and the instability of world capitalism after the Cold War

Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

. Critique is issued four times per year and has been published by Routledge

Routledge

Routledge is a British publishing house which has operated under a succession of company names and latterly as an academic imprint. Its origins may be traced back to the 19th-century London bookseller George Routledge...

 since April 2006. Notable contributors have included Hillel Ticktin, István Mészáros

István Mészáros

István Mészáros is a Hungarian Marxist philosopher, and Professor Emeritus at the University of Sussex. He held the Chair of Philosophy at Sussex for fifteen years and was earlier Professor of Philosophy and Social Science for four years at York University.He can be linked to the so-called...

, Bertell Ollman

Bertell Ollman

Bertell Ollman is a professor of politics at New York University. He teaches both dialectical methodology and socialist theory. He is the author of several academic works relating to Marxist theory ....

, Ernest Mandel

Ernest Mandel

Ernest Ezra Mandel, also known by various pseudonyms such as Ernest Germain, Pierre Gousset, Henri Vallin, Walter , was a revolutionary Marxist theorist.-Life:...

, James Petras

James Petras

James Petras is a retired Bartle Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York and adjunct professor at Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada who has published prolifically on Latin American and Middle Eastern political issues.-Academic and...

, Roman Rosdolsky

Roman Rosdolsky

Roman Rosdolsky was an important Marxian scholar and political activist. He was born in Lviv in Galicia, at that time in the Austro-Hungarian empire, now in Ukraine, and died in Detroit, MI...

 and Chris Arthur.

External links

• Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory Archive. Glasgow Caledonian University
  Glasgow Caledonian University
  Glasgow Caledonian University is a public university in Glasgow, Scotland.The university was constituted by an Act of Parliament on 1 April 1993 as a result of a merger between Glasgow Polytechnic and The Queen's College, Glasgow....
  
  
• Centre for the Study of Socialist Theory and Movements. University of Glasgow
• "The Life story of Hillel H. Ticktin: The Dilemma of Mandatory Retirement". 2004
• "Marxist Era Dawns in Glasgow". Times Higher Education Supplement. 31 March 2000