Leading left publications and publishers are lending their support to the global online conference in honour of imprisoned Russian dissident Boris Kagarlitsky on October 8.
Among them is Pluto Press, publisher of Kagarlitsky’s latest book, The Long Retreat: Strategies to Reverse the Decline of the Left. Editorial Director David Castle will address a session on Kagarlitsky’s much-anticipated meditation on contemporary left-wing politics, which appeared just months after the author was condemned to a five-year term on the sham charge of “justifying terrorism” in February.
Kagarlitsky is currently confined in Penal Colony 4, Torzhok, Tver Province, one of thousands of Russians to have fallen afoul of Putin’s repressive regime for criticising its war on Ukraine.
Other hosts include the University of Johannesburg’s Centre for Social Change and the Daniel Singer Foundation.
Kagarlitsky is this year’s recipient of the foundation’s inaugural Prisoner of Conscience Award. In awarding him the prize, the Daniel Singer Foundation affirmed: “In his writing, in his political organising and in his life, Boris Kagarlitsky displays a casual courage and easy wit that incenses authoritarians. This same grace and courage inspire others to fight on.”
The conference has also attracted an impressive list of sponsors, among them London-based publishing house Verso, British journal New Left Review, Spanish language magazine Jacobin America Latina, progressive US monthly The Nation, postsocialist region progressive platform LeftEast, and Australian ecosocialist newspaper Green Left.
Green Left editorial member Federico Fuentes said: “This is a major event that will bring together academics and activists from many countries and political currents to celebrate Kagarlitsky, a man of great courage who refuses to be silenced by Putin’s regime. Boris deserves our solidarity in his own right and as a symbol of the struggle for intellectual freedom, which is increasingly under threat globally.”
Other sponsors include: Critique Journal of Socialist Theory (Scotland), LINKS International Journal of Socialist Renewal (Australia), Against the Current (US), Transnational Institute (The Netherlands), Amandla! (South Africa), Canadian Dimension, Presse-toi à gauche ! (Quebec), International Socialism (Britain), Posiciones revista de debate estratégico (Chile), Historical Materialism (Britain), Znetwork (US), Counterpunch (US), Red Pepper (Britain), Вестник Бури (Russia), Rabkor (Russia) and Socialist Register (Canada).
Organised by the Boris Kagarlitsky International Solidarity Committee, conference registration is free and open to all at its website freeboris.info.
Despite the grim conditions in Russia’s penal system, Kagarlitsky continues to share reflections on various topics through letters to friends, supporters and Rabkor, which he helped establish. His latest missive, translated into English at LINKS, is an obituary for renowned Marxist literary critic Frederic Jameson. Remembering him as “down to earth”, Kagarlitsky praises Jameson as “one of the first to discuss postmodernism in philosophy and politics, showing the connection between intellectual reflections, changes in the discourse of political figures, and structural shifts in society.”