Since beginning publication in1964, The Socialist Register has been one of the most important sources of engaged, critical, and influential theoretical interventions on the socialist left. Released as an annual with a focus on publishing rigorous, sustained pieces that take up particular themes, it has always been committed to developing an independent, nonsectarian relationship with Marxism.

This volume—the Register’s first-ever reader—grapples with the question of whether political organization is a necessary part of the struggle by the working-class to overthrow capitalism. In pieces published over the course of publication’s entire history contributors, from Ralph Miliband to Jean-Paul Satre, examine various aspects of this theme.

Includes:

Class, Party, Revolution: An Introduction

Reform and Revolution by André Gorz

The May Events and Revolution in the West by Lucio Magri

Marx and Engels and the Concept of the Party by Monty Johnstone

The Principle of Self-Emancipation in Marx and Engels by Hal Draper

Lenin’s The State and Revolution by Ralph Miliband

Some Problems Concerning Revolutionary

Consciousness by Harold Wolpe

Theory and Practice in Gramsci’s Marxism by John Merrington

Gramsci and Lenin 1917–1922 by Alastair Davidson

Class and Party by Rossana Rossanda

Masses, Spontaneity, Party by Jean-Paul Sartre

Marx and Engels on the Revolutionary Party by August H. Nimtz

Class, Party, and the Challenge of State Transformation by Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin