Stalin, in his struggle with the Joint Opposition in 1926–27, relied on the support of the ‘Rightists’ – Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky. This alliance came under mounting stress; the grain crisis of 1927 posed the question of the viability of the NEP as a policy that could deliver rapid industrial growth; the defeat of the British General Strike and the suppression of the Chinese Communist Party represented two major setbacks in foreign policy in 1926. The Politburo leadership was taken unawares by these developments. It was vigorously attacked by the Joint Opposition for its lack of foresight. Stalin responded with the ‘left turn’ on domestic and foreign policy, returning to the class warfare rhetoric of the early Soviet period. This abrupt policy change surprised his allies and caused deep division within the Politburo. Trotsky's prediction that the defeat of the Joint Opposition would precipitate a new split between Stalin and Bukharin proved prescient. On this basis, the Stalin group was constituted. The struggle between the Stalinist group and the Rightists was a battle not only to control key institutions, but also to control the economy and to construct a new developmental strategy that went beyond the confines of NEP.

Kaganovich's role in this period casts light on the formation of the Stalin group, its policies and tactics. Its strategy accorded priority to the expansion of heavy industry, which involved turning the terms of trade against the peasantry and procuring grain at low prices, by compulsion where necessary.

Overview

In this era of globalization and international competitiveness, sustainable socioeconomic development and poverty reduction cannot be achieved without adequate and efficient infrastructure. Several studies have examined the relationship between infrastructure and economic growth in Indonesia. For example, Mawardi (2004) showed that infrastructure had a positive impact on Indonesia's economic growth. A recent empirical study by Mustajab (2009) estimated that a 1% increase in infrastructure investment contributes 0.3% to Indonesia's gross domestic product (GDP). This supports the contention that adequate infrastructure is a major driver of sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction in Indonesia.

However, the current state of Indonesia's infrastructure is far from encouraging, and it came as no surprise that the business community identified inadequate infrastructure (in terms of both quantity and quality) as the second biggest impediment to doing business (compared with 10th in Malaysia and Thailand). The slow pace of infrastructure development and its poor quality are attributable to the low level of investment by both the public and private sectors in Indonesia. The situation has deteriorated since the 1997 Asian financial crisis—current investment in infrastructure is about 3.5% of GDP versus the pre-crisis level of approximately 8% in 1997 (Figure 7.1).

Foreign direct investment (FDI) is an important source of financing for the infrastructure sector. Like domestic private investment, FDI flows have been recovering slowly in recent years but remain lower than the precrisis level.

With the defeat of the Right Opposition, Stalin, Molotov and Kaganovich, constituting a form of triumvirate, assumed full control of the party-state machine. In January 1930 the policy of all-out collectivization and dekulakization was launched. The ‘revolution from above’ placed the party Secretariat, under Kaganovich and Molotov, at the centre of the drive to mobilize the party, to assign cadres and to enforce policy. Industrial policy was shaped by Gosplan, Vesenkha and officials of CCC-Rabkrin, which, under the leadership of Ordzhonikidze, took over Vesenkha in November 1930. The economic commissariats responsible for the management of the NEP, especially the People's Commissariat of Agriculture and the People's Commissariat of Finance, were downgraded. The cause of industrialization was advanced by the strong regional lobbies of Ukraine and the Urals. Stalin, at the XVI Party Congress dismissed the Trotskyists as ‘the most extreme minimalists and the most wretched capitulators’ on industrial tempos and continued to indulge in the wildest fantasies regarding economic growth. These ideological and institutional pressures led to an extraordinary radicalization of policies in which the whole of the ruling group was caught up, which carried serious implications for the economy and for the future of the regime itself.

The collectivization of agriculture was a long-term goal of the Bolsheviks. In 1917 it was abandoned, as the peasant revolution in the countryside destroyed the large landed estates. The system of small peasant holdings that thereafter dominated was inefficient and technically backward.

The current global economic crisis, which originated in the West, has triggered a revival of interest in Marxism on a scale which was quite unthinkable even very recently. At the same time there remains the tremendous intellectual apathy for doctrinaire Marxism, associated normally with the practitioners of the mainstream Left. This prompted me to work on this select volume of 16 essays, written over a period of about three decades. The essays are reflective of different moods, times and situations, as they have witnessed both the closure of an old order in the last century and the birth of the new millennium. Despite thematic diversities, the essays question the ontological claims of the kind of Marxism which has dominated the mindset of the common man for decades, resulting in a complete disillusionment after the fall of the Soviet bloc. In its place, a case is made through the essays for an alternative perspective and an understanding marked by the spirit of pluralism, democracy and humanism. That times have changed and that the new century makes new demands—and that it is imperative to take a stock of the history of Marxism afresh, without being trapped in dogmatism—constitutes the central focus of the essays.

Most of the essays have been published previously. However, some of them are being published here for the first time. In the case of the published essays the year of publication has been mentioned at the end of the article.

The Russian Empire in which Lazar Kaganovich grew up was convulsed by upheavals which threatened the very survival of the state. Under Nicholas II, the autocracy sought to transform itself into a modernizing state. The industrialization drive, directed by finance minister Sergei Witte in the 1890s, had a profound impact on the whole country. The defeat of the imperial navy and army by Japan in the Far East in 1904–5 administered a major shock to the state. Peasant resentments and working-class protests ignited the abortive 1905 revolution. The dynasty's claims to legitimacy were seriously compromised. The tsar's gestures toward constitutional reform by means of the October Manifesto were followed by a new repression under Piotr Stolypin combined with an attempt to reform agriculture. From 1909 onward, the rearmament drive stimulated economic recovery. The tsarist regime was beset by the dilemma of promoting industrial development while dealing with the backwardness of agriculture, and preserving Russia's standing as a major power while addressing the demands for domestic reform.

The autocracy was heavily dependent on the support of privileged society and of the backing provided by the state administration, the police and the armed forces. The advocates of constitutional reform drew on a narrow base of middle-class support. Peasant radicalism posed a direct threat to the existence of landed interests. The working class, although numerically small, was characterized by its radical temper.

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) composed her ‘verbal still lifes’ in Tender Buttons in explicit dialogue with the Post-Impressionist – particularly Cubist – uses of the still life. The utter obviousness and universal givenness of its referents have made it the genre least requiring exegesis or special attention. This leanness best explains the fascination it exerted upon the Modernists: devoid of subjective intrusions and emptied of traditional symbolic associations, it was best suited to express the ‘pure’ and fundamental components of visual composition. But even in its most abstract and formalist moments, the still life continues to harbour the disruptive plenitude of the non-human as that which provides the ground for the appearance of the human. I argue that Stein's Tender Buttons designates the still life as a space for alternative and possible forms of being human. Rather than being deliberately nonsensical or opposed to subjectivity as such, Tender Buttons remains cognizant of the inevitability of a subject whose every act of interpretation and inscription also constitutes self-interpretation and self-inscription. At the same time, it explores the possibility that the realm of things – rendered objects by the positing of the subject – might in fact offer the most congenial space for the recuperation of what is not yet or no longer human.

Still lifes tend to accommodate both strangeness and familiarity in equal measure. The objects depicted are types rather than unique individuals, and their commonness makes them easy to replicate and possess.

With an early Whig proclivity and seniority among nineteenth-century reviews, the Edinburgh probed the journalism of numerous societies. Some of its strongest language was on the freedom of and taxes on the press.

1. “Lichtenberg's Miscellaneous Works.” 3 (1803–04): 343–54.

Review of George C. Lichtenberg's book on German literature revealed that he penned for almanacs, reviews, and magazines that “had an extensive circulation through the whole German empire for thirty-six years.”

2. [Jeffrey, Francis]. “Correspondence and Memoirs of John Wilkes.” 5 (1804–05): 477–89.

Denied that John Wilkes extended “private liberty.”

3. “Journal des Mines.” 8 (1806): 78–86; 9 (1806–07): 67–83.

Headlined a French periodical that dealt with minerals.

4. [?Mill, James]. “Filangieri on the Science of Legislation.” 9 (1806–07): 354–73.

Review of Gaetano Filangieri's book emphasized that liberty of the press was “the most inestimable security…of a people, because it gives that tone to the public feelings on which all liberty must ultimately rest.” Yet press freedom existed not by law but by “connivance.” See 18: 98.

5. [Allen, John]. “Mercurio Peruano.” 9 (1806–07): 433–58.

Plumbed a Lima periodical, 1791–94, published by a private society, Amantes de Lima, until its sponsors returned to Spain. Its goal was to present criticism and information. Aside on the Peruvian Guia, an annual.

6. “Janson's Stranger in America.” 10 (1807): 103–16.

Review of Charles W. Janson's book referred to its chapter on American newspaper advertisements, no more measures of taste than the ‘eccentric’ ones in London and country papers.

Succeeding the Rambler, the sophisticated Home and Foreign spoke about the intersection of religion and journalism.

1. [Acton, J. D., Richard Simpson, and T. F. Wetherell]. “Cardinal Wiseman and the Home and Foreign Review.” 1 (1862): 501–20.

Worried that Nicholas Wiseman's address (5 August 1862) to Catholic clergy, in which he referred to the Home and Foreign, could “paralyse one of the few organs of Catholic opinion in England.” Although committed to Catholicism, the Review, like the Rambler, addressed a general, not a religious audience. Essays on politics and science would open minds, not threaten faith.

2. [Simpson, Richard]. “Thackeray.” 4 (1864): 476–511.

Flipped through W. M. Thackeray's “Snob Papers” in Punch, pointing out that he admired the styles of Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, and Jonathan Swift.

3. Acton, J. D. “Conflicts with Rome.” 4 (1864): 667–90.

Explained that the Home and Foreign, which never pretended to represent the Catholic majority but to speak for science and religion, could not continue as a Catholic journal in the face of papal opposition to the Review.

There are a growing number of self-described “Christian” companies in China today which are owned by both overseas and local Chinese Christians. These companies have declared their conviction to operate with an explicitly evangelical Christian corporate ethos, a phenomenon which is surprising given that China is ruled by an atheist government with a long history of hostility toward Christianity. To a certain extent, these Christian bosses' efforts, in particular those of the Overseas Chinese, can be seen as influenced by a new and worldwide mission movement which emphasizes that business in and of itself is a ministry and instrument of God. The core idea is about motivating “the entrepreneurs and business professionals within the church to transform the world through their business activities” (“Business as Mission” 2004).

Intriguingly, if we refer to The Protestant Ethic, Weber focuses on individuals and not on business firms. His book has more to do with the spirit or mentality of the atomic economic actors than with the concrete organization of society. Certainly, Weber's methodological individualism, the idea that sociology begins its analysis with the individual along with the meaning that the individual attaches to his or her behavior, has contributed significantly to his approach in The Protestant Ethic.

Howitt's Journal, launched by Mary and William Howitt, soon engaged in a journalistic war with their former partner and then competitor, John Saunders.

1. [Howitt, William and Mary]. “Address to Their Friends and Readers.” 1 (1847): 1–2.

Planned Howitt's for “entertainment” and “advancement.”

2. [Howitt, William]. “Author versus Critic.” 1 (1847): 109–12.

Loathed anonymous criticism because it was cowardly, leaving a critic's victim no means to retaliate. Editors of weeklies, such as the Athenaeum, should not hire “nameless and irresponsible agents of critical injustice.”

3. “George Sand.” 1 (1847): 128–30.

Divulged that Sand co-owned the Revue Indépendante and wrote regularly for the Monde.

4. Charles, C. M. “The Movements of the Italian Refugees.” 1 (1847): after 154.

Bruited that Italians living in Britain published the Eco di Savonarola, a cheap but “well got up” organ for Italian “Reformed Christians.”

5. “William Lovett.” 1 (1847): 254–57.

Acclaimed Lovett, the publisher of Howitt's and earlier of the Poor Man's Guardian. He set up a “victim's fund” for those prosecuted for selling the unstamped paper, not unusual in the 1830s when government jailed about 500 people for opposing the stamp duty.

6. “Félicité [de] Lamennais.” 2 (1847): 18–22.

Probed Lamennais' work for the Avenir in association with Count C. de Montalembert and J. B. Lacordaire. After the pope suppressed the Avenir, Lammenais became “a principal writer” and coconductor, with George Sand, of the Revue Indépendante.

Background

Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago, has over 17,000 islands and is home to 230 million people or 3.4% of the world's population. Despite its abundant resources, Indonesia is among the lower middle-income countries, with only $2,254 per capita income in 2008 (World Bank 2009b, 2009c). Since the 1997 Asian financial crisis, efforts to protect the poor through targeted social safety nets for health, education, and rice consumption as well as the newly introduced community and microenterprise empowerment programs have demonstrated Indonesia's development policy agenda. However, Indonesia's progress toward achieving some of the Millennium Development Goals has not been consistent; issues are especially apparent with goals 1–5 and 6C, for reducing multidimensional poverty, covering extreme poverty, food consumption, universal 9-year education, gender equality, maternal and neonatal health and child survival, and malaria and other communicable diseases.

In the National Medium-Term Development Plan (Rencana Pembangunan Jangkah Menengah Nasional—RPJMN) of 2004–2009, the Yudhoyono administration targeted reducing the proportion of Indonesians living below the poverty line from 17.42% in 2004 to 8.20% in 2009, a 9.22 percentage point decrease in 5 years. The 2009 data, however, show that 14.15% of the population, or 32.53 million people, still live below the national poverty line, which is 5.95 percentage points under the government's target. The newly launched RPJMN 2010–2014 has targeted a poverty rate of 8% in 2014, working toward integrated and inclusive development that accommodates issues of localities, geography and equality in the distribution of infrastructure and economic development to foster equality in human development (Bappenas 2009).

With the opening of the Comintern archives in Moscow, it is now an acknowledged fact that the Third International, generally known as the Communist International (Comintern) (1919–43), holds the key to an objective understanding of the history of international communism in the twentieth century. It is also undeniable that it prefigured the destiny of the communist parties in different parts of the world not only in the inter-war period but also in the years to come. As long as the Moscow archives remained closed to the scholars, it was impossible to arrive at a proper, authentic understanding of what actually happened and how things happened in history. This was precipitated by the fact that for all communist parties affiliated to the Comintern, it was simply forbidden to write anything critical about it, as the Comintern, ironically, emerged as a contradictory structure from the very beginning. At one level, theoretically, it proclaimed the principle of equality of all communist parties, while, at another level, conditioned by the given historical situation, it soon established the pre-eminence of the VKP(b), since the Soviet Union became the refuge of all exiled communists, representing the parties affiliated to the Comintern, in the period between the victory of the Russian Revolution and World War II.

Writing at birth for aristocratic Tory buyers and springing from the same firm as Murray's Magazine, the Quarterly was nevertheless ecumenical in its remarks on the press. They indicated its numerous manifestations, often accompanied by attempts to limit its clout, and its practitioners.

1. [Jacob, William]. “Travels in Brazil.” 31 (1824–25): 1–26.

Toured Brazil where the “few journals had a very limited circulation” and the chief news interest was trade.

2. [Blunt, J. J.]. “Tour in Germany.” 31 (1824–25): 174–97.

Exclaimed that “Dresden is perhaps the only respectable capital in Europe where no newspaper is published.” People either had “no political appetite” or had enough information from Leipzig and French and British gazettes, such as The Times and Morning Chronicle.

3. [Southey, Robert]. “Lisbon.” 31 (1824–25): 378–90.

Communicated that Lisbon had “no literary journals.”

4. [Barrow, John]. “South America.” 32 (1825): 125–52.

Registered that the press was relatively free in Brazil, and “several gazettes or newspapers are published and respectably conducted in Buenos Aires.”

5. [Barrow, John]. “The Australian Colonies.” 32 (1825): 311–42.

Introduced the Sydney press as the Australian Magazine, Australian Newspaper, and Sydney Gazette.

6. [Croker, J. W.]. “Pichot's Literary Tour.” 32 (1825): 342–55.

Review of A. Pichot's Voyage Historique et Litteraire en Angleterre et en Europe laughed at his notion that the Morning Post was the best newspaper for “regular, reasoned, literary criticism.”

According to Weber, the early Protestantism in America increased economic productivity in two ways. One direct way was through inculcating in its believers a more rational lifestyle, a more ethical working discipline and a stronger motivation to accumulate economic capital, an issue that we discussed in the previous chapters. The other way, which is more indirect, was through the formation of universal trust, norms and regulations which were built on what Weber called a “superior community of faith” such as the Puritan sects in the West. Weber's essay on “The Protestant Sects and the Spirit of Capitalism” ([1906] 1946b), the companion piece to The Protestant Ethic, is useful for an understanding of this. Weber highlights the way in which membership in a voluntary organization provides a guarantee of moral qualification and therefore, of credit. Moreover, networks as such provide “a means of contact, a source of mutual assistance and information” (Martin 1995, 341). This chapter will deal with the formation and outcome of these communities of faith. It will highlight how religious faith helps generate networks for its believers and will also outline the effects of religious communities in shaping values and inducing moral obligations for the believers.

How Religious Community Affects Economic Behaviors: Networking and Mutual Accountability

In recent decades, social scientists have become interested in the important role of personal networks in the economic arena.

Of Free Church and Scottish parentage, the North British assigned space to secular reviews and foreign as well as domestic newspapers.

1. [Moncrieff, James]. “Lord Jeffrey's Contributions to the Edinburgh Review.” 1 (1844): 252–84.

Construed Francis Jeffrey's articles in the Edinburgh as “parts of a great and gradually matured system of criticism” unlike those of others of its reviewers, among them T. B. Macaulay. Jeffrey was also effective as the Review 's editor. That position required being “a mark for every disappointed friend or foe to fling at – daily devoured by the petulance of authors – the jealousies and intolerable delays of contributors, and the grumblings of publishers.”

The goal of the Edinburgh was “to induce on the public mind habits of calm and just thinking, and a spirit of unprejudiced inquiry after truth and justice in politics.” It succeeded because of talented scribes who extended its influence without the severity often attributed to them. In other serials of the day, such as the New Monthly Magazine, there was too much information to notice good writing.

2. [Moncrieff, James]. “Recent Novels.” 1 (1844): 545–79.

Conceded that periodicals in 1844 had a “better tone” than before even though “a flood of nonsense, childishness, false morals, and infidelity…flows from this copious fountain.”

3. [Cunningham, William]. “The United States of North America.” 2 (1844–45): 136–74.

Announced that every small town in the United States had a newspaper, which everyone read. Large towns usually had two dailies, a respectable penny and disreputable halfpenny.