The Red and the Black

The Russian Revolution and the Black Atlantic

David Featherstone editor Christian Høgsbjerg editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Manchester University Press

Published:10th Aug '21

Should be back in stock very soon

The Red and the Black cover

The Russian Revolution of 1917 was not just a world-historical event in its own right, but also struck powerful blows against racism and imperialism, and so inspired many black radicals internationally. This edited collection explores the implications of the creation of the Soviet Union and the Communist International for black and colonial liberation struggles across the African diaspora. It examines the critical intellectual influence of Marxism and Bolshevism on the current of revolutionary ‘black internationalism’ and analyses how ‘Red October’ was viewed within the contested articulations of different struggles against racism and colonialism.

Challenging European-centred understandings of the Russian Revolution and the global left, The Red and the Black offers new insights on the relations between Communism, various lefts and anti-colonialisms across the Black Atlantic – including Garveyism and various other strands of Pan-Africanism. The volume makes a major and original intellectual contribution by making the relations between the Russian Revolution and the Black Atlantic central to debates on questions relating to racism, resistance and social change.

'This ideologically diverse collection is uniformly well-written and exceedingly informative. The inescapable and unavoidable conclusion it renders is that the Russian Revolution of 1917 delivered a mighty blow against colonialism, imperialism and forms of apartheid alike. Simultaneously, by implication it blazes the trail and illuminates the way forward for those seeking to create a better world.'
Gerald Horne, author of Paul Robeson: The Artist as Revolutionary

'
Featherstone and Høgsbjerg must be credited with putting together a fantastic edited collection which makes both an important contribution to keeping alive, and shedding new light on, herstories and histories of Black radical rebellion. In doing so, they have further reminded us of the struggles that have, in different ways, been central to the Black Lives Matter movement in recent times, as well as wider transnational (and interconnected) opposition to neo-imperialism.'
Stephen D. Ashe, University of Durham, Ethnic and Racial Studies

ISBN: 9781526144300

Dimensions: 234mm x 156mm x 21mm

Weight: 644g

304 pages