This little book addresses the challenges facing socialists today by analyzing in historical and theoretical perspective the recent shift from protest to politics on the left. After assessing the expression of this through the Sanders electoral insurgency in the USA, and especially through the Syriza experience in Greece, the book turns to closely examining the limits and possibilities for class, party and state transformation in the context of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party in Britain.
We wish to thank Tony Zurbrugg of Merlin Press for encouraging us to considerably expand our essay ‘Class, party and the challenge of state transformation’ in the Socialist Register 2017: Rethinking Revolution into this book, as well as thank Adrian Howe for so quickly and expertly preparing it for publication. The analysis offered of both Syriza and the Labour Party owes much to our conversations with too many friends and comrades – a good number themselves political actors as well as observers in Greece and Britain – to mention here. But we especially want to acknowledge the value of our interactions with Max Shanly in relation to following developments in the Labour Party. We dedicate this book to him as well as to his great political mentor, Tony Benn.