Looking East Leftwards

John Stanley is a policy advisor at the Ontario Ministry of Colleges and
Universities.

Looking East Leftwards is the second in a series of books on the
countries of the former Communist bloc. This volume focuses primarily on
the labor movement of the former Soviet Union, with side glances to
Poland, Hungary, China, and Cuba. Its contents range from David
Mandel’s diary of two trips in 1996 to Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus;
to interviews with, and short articles by, labor leaders; to analyses by
Marxist scholars. Mandel, a professor of political science at the
Université du Québec, not only planned the volume but also translated
the materials from Russian or French into English.

Of greatest interest are Mandel’s travel diaries. Conducting research
into the post-Soviet labor movement and participating in union seminars
and conferences gave Mandel numerous opportunities to observe labor
developments in the topsy-turvy post–Soviet world. His travel diaries
are interspersed with mini-essays on the role of women; the differences
between the foreign models being offered by French, American, and
Canadian union advisers; and even the difficulties traveling between the
newly independent states. Vladimir Shimanovic’s article on the
political crisis in Belarus is also of particular interest, since there
is so little of substance available in English, let alone from a
participant in the struggle to instil democratic politics in the
smallest East Slavic state.

The collection overall is something of a grab bag. While two-thirds of
the volume is devoted to the former Soviet Union, essays range far
afield to such topics as women in Poland’s labor market, the current
role of solidarity in Polish politics, the alphabet soup of contemporary
Hungarian trade unionism, contemporary Chinese politics from a Marxist
perspective, and the social contradictions of contemporary Cuba. Its
lack of a common genre or theme makes this a book that can be dipped
into.