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.
