While recent scholarship has expanded our understanding of the Cold War by including the narratives of imperialism, decolonization, and Third World nationalism, the global left continues to be synonymous with Soviet socialism. The Leninist Stalinist model of one-party rule, authoritarian male leadership, state-sponsored development, and an obedient citizenry has subsumed the alternative genealogies and political visions within the global left.
In this talk, Professor Chatterjee discussed alternatives to the binary between Soviet socialism and liberal capitalism by analyzing Emma Goldman and M. N. Roy’s understanding of the dialectic of state power and selfhood. Goldman and Roy, risking ostracism and oblivion, developed an anarchist and humanist critique of liberal capitalism and state socialism that is well worth re-considering today.
This event was co-sponsored by the India Initiative, Mortara Center for International Studies, and Georgetown Institute for Global History.
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Choi Chatterjee is an assistant professor in the Department of History at California State University, Los Angeles. Chatterjee received a grant from the Wilson Center for her work on the evolution of International Women’s Day and Soviet conceptions of gender, Celebrating Women: The International Women’s Day in Russia and the Soviet Union, 1910-1939.