Social documentary filmmaking cannot be undertaken in a theoretical void, regardless of the intentions of the filmmaker. Each film's textual, stylistic and aesthetic composition is dictated by the ideological intent of the filmmaker, either consciously or subconsciously. As a result, social documentary films are a product of either conservative or subversive filmmakers and can be viewed as cultural products of social control by the dominant capitalist ideology or as tools promoting class awareness, class struggle and revolutionary praxis by those sympathetic to Marxist doctrine. This dissertation examines how Marxist ideology, in particular theories relating to class structure and the class struggle, can be used by filmmakers to analyse social documentary films. It enables the construction of a methodological 'toolkit' for filmmakers from which they are able to determine if individual social documentary films can be regarded as Marxist or not. This 'toolkit' is comprised of the theories of Lenin, Comolli and Narboni, Brecht, Althusser, and Weber among others. Once a methodological framework is constructed, it is used to evaluate a number of social documentary case studies including 7-Up, Harlan County USA, Roger and Me, and my own film, A Shit of a Job (which was produced by myself for broadcast on SBS television), as to their adherence to the principles of Marxist aesthetics and allegiance to the proletarian cause of class awareness and the class struggle.

The relationship between party organisation, class consciousness and workers’ struggle has been a basic issue in Marxism since its foundation, and particularly since the rise of revisionism at the end of the last century. To the very limited that a “mainstream” literature on Lenin sought to locate him within the Marxist tradition that tradition was identified with a determinist interpretation of Marx developed by the revisionists and centrists. This approach has been countered by a generally sympathetic view of Lenin’s comments on party organisation, argued by a recent set of “critics” of the “mainstream” view. Yet despite their wish to make a comprehensive critique of the “mainstream”, most of the critics have failed to do so due a residual element of determinism in their understanding of the relation between workers’ struggle and the development of class consciousness.This thesis seeks to complete the critique of the “mainstream” through establishing the role of conscious intervention in realising the material possibilities for workers’ struggle. It does so through a case study of the labour movement in St. Petersburg between the “Emancipation” of 1861 and the “Stolypin Coup” of 3/6/1907. A pivotal point in the development of this movement was “Bloody Sunday” (9/1/1905), and the thesis is structured around that moment to show what changes, as well as what does not change, in the role of conscious intervention in periods of mass struggle relative to times of more limited protest.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1940. / Published also without thesis note. Bibliography: p. [209]-211.

My purpose is to analyses Forum för levande historias (FFLH) portrayal of the Soviet Union during the time period of 1918-1953. My reason for doing this is to find out what nuances of the Soviet Union FFLH finds important to present to the public, but also, to teachers and student in the Swedish education system. My source material consists of historian Klas- Göran Karlssons text Crimes against humanity during communist regimes and I’ve applied a critical discourse analysis, along with several marxist theories of how language, ideology and ideological reproduction manifests in society. However, since this is an essay focused on the didactical aspect of history, I’ve also used theories that explains how ideologies use, and reproduce history as a way to repress ideologies that doesn’t conform to a capitalist reproduction of a society. The questions that I’ve asked are: How are the periods in the Soviet Union during Lenin and Stalin’s chairmanship portrayed in the material? How does the material portray the historical processes in the Soviet Union? And: Which types of ideological naturalizations can be found in the text? I’ve come the conclusion that FFLHs text, focuses on: 1) A strong connection between Soviet politics and a discourse around “ethnic cleansings”, and that ethnic groups where persecuted by both Lenin and Stalin. 2) Soviet politics, and especially Stalin, is connected to a anti-Semitic and anti-Jewish ideology. 3) Soviet politics, in general, is portrayed as lacking “legal basis” and is often ridiculed or rejected without a proper explanation as to what the soviets wanted to achieve. 4) Historical processes and phenomenons are often portrayed without a context, and also without different sides arguments, choices and opinions. 5) The text is at some times prone to make speculative accusations, to enhance an ideological agenda. I’ve also concluded that, based on all of the remarks above, that FFLH material should be used cautiously in an educational situation, since the material is ideologically biased, leaves out certain aspects of the historical processes, and in doing so, to vilifies the soviets. Futhermore, I’ve concluded that the vilification of the soviet union, and the anticommunist agenda, has gone from a portrayal focused on “judeo-bolshevism”, where every communist is a Jew, and every Jew is a communist, to the exact opposite – now the bolsheviks are actively seeking out Jews in their midst, in order to persecute, and/or execute this specific ethnic group.

This thesis examines the relationship between practices of internationalism, patterns of racialisation, and the politics of anti-racism and anti-imperialism in the revolutionary Marxist left in Britain between 1899 and 1933. I focus on two organisations, the Social Democratic Federation and the Communist Party of Great Britain, examining how different racialised subaltern populations were represented in their publications and how this affected the anti-imperial advocacy and activism of these political groups. I am interested in how the writings of colonial nationalists, as well as the intervention of transnational activists, helped to shape this political praxis. The thesis begins with a study of how positive racialisations, developed by colonial activists as a discursive means to argue for the inapplicability of the ‘civilising mission’ to their respective societies, were drawn on by SDF activists and figureheads such as HM Hyndman to bolster their increasingly oppositional stance towards the British Empire. Further chapters demonstrate how groups of border-crossing racialised outsiders, be they Russian-born Jews in the SDF or Indian activists in the CPGB, utilised a strategic universalism to overcome their marginalisation within the ranks of the revolutionary Marxist left, and to gain support for their respective communal concerns. During the course of the time period covered within the thesis, the October Revolution, the rise of the Bolsheviks, and the foundation of the Comintern helped to reshape analyses of imperialism as well as practices and theories of internationalism on the British far-left. Particular attention is given to how activists either attempted to utilise or bypass this ‘official internationalism’ to promote their own international anti-imperial networks and discourse, and the efficacy of their efforts. It is my hope that this study will be able to shed light on international influences on the British Marxist left beyond the Continental, provide a greater nuance to histories of Marxism and race in Britain, and demonstrate the variety of models and practices of internationalism available to these activists in the early years of the twentieth century.

This thesis explores the relationship between capitalism and exploitation in wake of the 2007-08 global financial crisis and subsequent economic recessions among the world’s most advanced capitalist nations. Starting from the position that not enough theoretical work has been done, particularly within criminology, to analyze the harms caused by crises in capitalism, I argue that a structural-Marxist framework can help fill this gap in the literature. By building a theoretical model based on Karl Marx’s original work on crises in capitalism, the structuralism of Louis Althusser, and as the philosophical materialism of David Harvey, I examine the ways in which the global financial crisis is not the unexpected event mainstream narratives maintain, but rather one that has been over a century in the making. On an empirical level, drawing insight from the Greek financial crisis, the model proposed is deployed to analyze the role that international financial institutions have had in the recent crisis and draw a link between these patterns and the status of modern capitalism, suggesting that the economic trauma we face now is intimately linked to the predisposition of capital (re)production and accumulation. This thesis ultimately underlines the fact that while we are governed by this ‘new’, more aggressive capitalism, it is also ‘the same’ in that Marx’s insights regarding the contradictions of capital accumulation are equally applicable today as they were in his time.

This thesis asserts that the slave narratives are a significant resource for philosophers. Following Lewis Gordon, I argue that the slave narratives should not be understood merely as experiential evidence by which to validate Western thought. Instead, the narratives should be read as moments in which Black narrators shared their unique insights on the Western world. In line with Angela Davis, I argue that these critiques are still relevant to philosophers of this day and age. However, I argue that Davis' Marxist reading of Frederick Douglass' Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave is still vulnerable to Gordon's criticism. Using the narrative Olaudah Equiano, I demonstrate that by reading the slave narratives as expressing unique thoughts, philosophers can discover new resources to invigorate their philosophical inquiries.

PINHO, Maria Teresa Buonomo de. Ideologia e formação humana em Marx, Lukács e Mészáros. 2013. 196f. – Tese (Doutorado) – Universidade Federal do Ceará, Programa de Pós-graduação em Educação Brasileira, Fortaleza (CE), 2013. / Submitted by Márcia Araújo (marcia_m_bezerra@yahoo.com.br) on 2013-10-08T11:25:08Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2013-TESE-MTBPINHO.pdf: 1314418 bytes, checksum: 49e2f77c44b6394c9ca013d7f016471f (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Márcia Araújo(marcia_m_bezerra@yahoo.com.br) on 2013-10-08T11:57:25Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 2013-TESE-MTBPINHO.pdf: 1314418 bytes, checksum: 49e2f77c44b6394c9ca013d7f016471f (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-10-08T11:57:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2013-TESE-MTBPINHO.pdf: 1314418 bytes, checksum: 49e2f77c44b6394c9ca013d7f016471f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013 / The objective of this study is to define the category ‘ideology’ based on three authors (Marx, Lukács and Mészáros), and examine its role in the development of man, both the individuals and humankind as a whole. The three authors examine the category ‘ideology’ and its role in human development from an ontological point of view, which contrasts with the logical-gnoseological point of view prevailing in the reference literature in the fields of Philosophy and Education, both for Marxist and non-Marxist positions. From the ontological point of view, labor, an exclusively human activity, is seen as a central category, which shows the ability man has to change his subjectivity into the world’s objectivity. From the ontological point of view, the ‘ideologies’ are understood as types of consciousness, which sprout from the soil of man’s material life, and through which the human being becomes conscious of the social conflicts and makes the social praxis operational, which may change man’s subjectivity into objectivity in the human world. Ideologies are seen as rooted in material life, which means that the ideological inversions, typically found in class societies, correspond to material inversions of reality. The ontological approach considers the possibility to overcome the ideological inversions based on the possibility, placed in the historical setting by the capitalist means of production, to revolutionarily change society into communism, where, as far as human development is concerned, man will stop being a means of production in order to start fulfilling a broad and growing scope of human needs. / O objetivo deste trabalho é explicitar a categoria ideologia em três autores (Marx, Lukács e Mészáros) e examinar o seu papel na formação dos homens, tanto dos indivíduos humanos, quanto da humanidade como um todo. Os três autores examinam a categoria ideologia e o seu papel na formação humana de um prisma ontológico, que contrasta com o prisma lógico-gnosiológico dominante na literatura, tanto da filosofia quanto da educação, dentro e fora do marxismo. Do prisma ontológico o trabalho, atividade exclusivamente humana, é tomado como categoria central, o que permite ver a capacidade que o homem tem de fazer da sua subjetividade a objetividade do mundo. Da perspectiva ontológica as ideologias são compreendidas enquanto formas de consciência, que brotam do solo da vida material dos homens, através das quais os homens tomam consciência dos conflitos sociais e operacionalizam a práxis social, que pode converter a subjetividade do homem em objetividade do mundo humano. As ideologias são vistas como enraizadas na vida material, o que significa que as inversões ideológicas, muitas vezes presente nas sociedades de classes, correspondem a inversões materiais da realidade. A perspectiva ontológica vê a possibilidade da superação das inversões ideológicas a partir da possibilidade, posta no cenário histórico pelo modo de produção capitalista, de transformar revolucionariamente a sociedade em direção ao comunismo, onde, no que se refere à formação humana, o homem deixe de ser meio de produção da riqueza e satisfaça um leque ampliado e sempre crescente de necessidades humanas.

O objetivo geral desta dissertação é compreender como as variações da Taxa de Lucro dos EUA foram determinadas entre 1963 e 2008. Por isso faz-se necessário identificar as variáveis que afetam a Taxa de Lucro, buscar dados de variáveis proxy e especificar e estimar modelos econométricos. Por constatar-se causalidade mútua entre a Taxa de Lucro e as variáveis que a afetam, optou-se por estimar modelos VEC, os quais permitiram analisar os coeficientes de curto e longo prazo, o tempo necessário para ajuste completo das variáveis e as funções impulso-resposta para compreender as relações da Taxa de Lucro com as variáveis que a afetam. Os resultados do modelo VEC são novos em relação a Basu (2010), Shaikh (1991, 2010), Cockshott, Cottrell e Taraddinov (2009), e Duménil e Lévy (1993, 2002). / The overall objective of this dissertation is to understand the determinants of variations in the U.S. economy Rate of Profit between 1963 and 2008. Therefore, it is necessary to identify the variables that affect the rate of profit, select appropriate proxies, and specify and estimate suitable econometric models. Due to mutual causality between the profit rate and the variables that affect it, VEC models were estimated. This allowed analyzing the short and long term coefficients, the time required for full adjustment of the variables, and functions impulse-response in order to understand the relationships involving the Profit Rate and the variables that influence it. With basis on VEC models, some conclusions were inferred about the variations in the rate of profit, and these results were compared with known authors. In general, the results of VEC are new compared to Basu (2010), Shaikh (1991, 2010), Cockshott, Cottrell and Taraddinov (2009), and Duménil and Lévy (1993, 2002).

Este trabalho realiza uma revisão teórica e crítica dos debates marxistas relacionados à questão da mulher dentro de um escopo econômico, buscando identificar sua inserção acadêmica atual e sua possível capacidade de interpretação da posição econômica das mulheres. O trabalho apresenta um levantamento bibliográfico, apresentando as principais premissas e conceitos utilizados por essa vertente de pensamento e suas correntes internas, e um estudo de caso da Rússia Soviética desde o triunfo da revolução bolchevique até a década de 40 (período da chamada “contrarrevolução feminista”), a fim de verificar como alguns desses preceitos foram aplicados e como as experiências de socialismo real contribuíram para o desenvolvimento da teoria tanto internamente, quanto em relação ao seu prestígio perante as demais escolas de pensamento feministas. Conclui-se que houve um período de fértil debate no marxismo feminista nas décadas de 60 e 70, mas que seu desenvolvimento posterior rumou ou para a fusão entre a teoria marxista e outras correntes de pensamento, afastando-se da economia, ou para o debate interno relacionado à inclusão de um recorte de gênero aos conceitos marxianos. Atualmente, o feminismo marxista parece voltar sua atenção para o resgate à obra original de Marx, em uma tentativa de propôr uma nova teoria feminista anticapitalista metodologicamente ortodoxa. / This paper presents a theoretical and critical review of Marxist debates related to the woman’s question inside the economic scope, seeking to identify it's current academic status and it's capacity to interpret the economic situation of women. A literature review is exhibited in order to present the main assumptions and concepts used by this school of thought and its internal divisions, and a case study of the Soviet Russia since the triumph of the Bolshevik revolution until the 40s (the period of the "feminist counterrevolution") is presented in order to see how some of these principles were applied and how socialism experiences contributed to the development of the theory and to its prestige towards the other feminist schools of thought. It concludes that there was a period of fruitful discussion of feminist Marxism in the 60s and 70s, but it's further development headed or to the merge between Marxist theory and other currents of thought, moving away from the economic scope, or for the debate related to the inclusion of a gender approach to Marxian concepts. Currently, Marxist feminism seems to turn it's attention to the rescue of Marx's original work, in an attempt to propose a new anti capital feminist theory methodologically orthodox.