} Boris Yulyevich Kagarlitsky (; born 29 August 1958) is a Russian

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

theoretician and sociologist who has been a political dissident in the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

and the

Russian Federation Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. He is an associate of the Transnational Institute. Kagarlitsky is the director of Institute of Globalisation Studies and Social Movements (IGSO) and editor in chief of ''Levaya Politika'' (''Left Politics'') quarterly in Moscow. Kagarlitsky founded online platform Rabkor which has a

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

channel and an online newspaper of the same name.

Political activities

Soviet Union

In the 1970s, he studied theatre criticism at the State Institute of Theatrical Art (GITIS), before being expelled for dissident activities in 1980. His editorship of the '' samizdat'' journal ''Levy Povorot'' (''Left Turn'') from 1978 to 1982, and contributions to the ''samizdat'' journal ''Varianty'' (''Variants'') during the same period, led to his arrest for 'anti-Soviet' activities in 1982. He was pardoned and released in 1983. In 1988 he published his book, ''Thinking Reed: Intellectuals and the Soviet State from 1917 to the Present'', which won the Deutscher Memorial Prize. In 1988, after the rise of

Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet and Russian politician who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...

and

perestroika ''Perestroika'' ( ; rus, перестройка, r=perestrojka, p=pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə, a=ru-perestroika.ogg, links=no) was a political reform movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s, widely associ ...

, he was permitted to resume his studies at the GITIS, graduating in the same year, and became coordinator of the . In 1990, he was elected to the Moscow City Soviet and to the Executive of the .

Russian Federation

He co-founded the in October 1992. In October 1993, the former Soviet dissident was arrested, with two other members of his party, for his opposition to President

Boris Yeltsin Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin (1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician and statesman who served as President of Russia from 1991 to 1999. He was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) from 1961 to ...

during the September–October constitutional crisis, but was released the next day after international protests. Later that year, his job and the Moscow City Soviet were abolished under Yeltsin's new constitution. He documents the events and his experiences during this period in his book ''Square Wheels: How Russian Democracy Got Derailed''. His 2005 historical essay ''Marxism: Not Recommended for Teaching'' was criticized by Mikhail Vasilyevich Popov. Kagarlitsky supported the

Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation In February and March 2014, Russia invaded the Crimea, Crimean Peninsula, part of Ukraine, and then annexed it. This took place in the relative power vacuum immediately following the Revolution of Dignity. It marked the beginning of the Russ ...

(calling it "little but victorious war") and the creation of the separatist republics in Donbas (condemning the wrapping up the "Novorossiya project"), however in 2022 he condemned the

Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

. In 2022, Russian authorities designated Kagarlitsky as a

foreign agent A foreign agent is any person or entity actively carrying out the interests of a foreign principal while located in another host country, generally outside the Diplomatic immunity, protections offered to those working in their official capacity fo ...

. On 25 July 2023, Russia's

Federal Security Service The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation �СБ, ФСБ России (FSB) is the principal security agency of Russia and the main successor agency to the Soviet Union's KGB; its immediate predecessor was the Federal Counterin ...

opened a criminal case against Kagarlitsky. He was arrested on charges of "justifying terrorism" on 26 July 2023 according to Russian state agencies, as part of a wider crackdown on outspoken critics of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. In December 2023, he was charged 600,000 rubles fine on this charge. In February 2024, his sentence was changed to five years' detention in a prison colony. After his arrest in 2023 the ''Kagarlitsky Solidarity Committee'' was formed and signed by public and political figures around the world: Jean-Luc Mélenchon,

Jeremy Corbyn Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (; born 26 May 1949) is a British politician who has been Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) for Islington North (UK Parliament constituency), Islington North since 1983. Now an Independent ...

Slavoj Žižek Slavoj Žižek ( ; ; born 21 March 1949) is a Slovenian Marxist philosopher, cultural theorist and public intellectual. He is the international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London, Global Distin ...

, Nadya Tolokonnikova and many others.

Academic career

From 1994 to 2002, he was a senior research fellow at the Institute for Comparative Political Studies of the

Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation; and additional scientific and social units such ...

(ISPRAN). He was awarded his Doctorate degree for his thesis, "Collective Actions and Labour Policies in Russia in the 90s," in 1995, and has taught political science at

Moscow State University Moscow State University (MSU), officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University,. is a public university, public research university in Moscow, Russia. The university includes 15 research institutes, 43 faculties, more than 300 departments, a ...

, the Moscow School for Social and Economic Sciences, and the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Rabkor

In 2008, Kagarlitsky was co-founder of the Russian online leftist media platform Rabkor, short for "Rabochiy Korrespondent" (Worker Correspondent). It is a Russian multimedia platform that advocates for progressive democratic views, and is characterised as an intersection between academic research and political activism. The platform encompasses a website, YouTube channel, and Telegram channel. Rabkor has been influential in uniting individuals with diverse left-wing and pro-democratic perspectives. Rabkor's stance on the Ukraine war shifted significantly over time. Initially, it supported Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the Donbas separatist movements, viewing them as progressive and anti-imperialist. However, after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Rabkor strongly opposed the war, criticizing Russia’s military actions and calling for anti-war agitation. This shift reflects a major ideological realignment in its editorial stance. In 2022, Kagarlitsky and Rabkor convened the Anti-War Round Table of the Left Forces, which unequivocally condemned the invasion and called for anti-war agitation among Russian citizens.

Personal life

According to Kagarlitsky, his paternal family descends from Ilya Kagarlitsky, a successful Jewish businessman from the city of Kaharlyk in Ukraine. His mother comes from an Orthodox Christian family. He has a daughter, Ksenia.

Books in English

* ''Thinking Reed: Intellectuals and the Soviet State from 1917 to the Present'',

Verso Books Verso Books (formerly New Left Books) is a publishing house based in London and New York City, founded in 1970 by the staff of ''New Left Review'' (NLR) and includes Tariq Ali and Perry Anderson on its board of directors. According to its webs ...

, 1989, * ''The Dialectic of Change'',

, 1990, * ''Farewell Perestroika: A Soviet Chronicle'',

, 1990, * ''The Disintegration of the Monolith'',

, 1993, * ''Square Wheels: How Russian Democracy Got Derailed'',

Monthly Review Press The ''Monthly Review'' is an independent Socialism, socialist magazine published monthly in New York City. Established in 1949, the publication is the longest continuously published socialist magazine in the United States. History Establishment ...

, 1994, * ''Mirage of Modernization'',

, 1995, * ''Restoration in Russia: Why Capitalism Failed'',

, 1995, * ''Globalization and Its Discontents: The Rise of Postmodern Socialisms'', co-edited with Roger Burbach and Orlando Nunez, Pluto Press, 1997, * ''New Realism, New Barbarism: Socialist Theory in the Era of Globalization'', Pluto Press, 1999, * ''The Return of Radicalism: Reshaping the Left Institutions'', Pluto Press, 1999, * ''The Twilight of Globalization: Property, State and Capitalism'', Pluto Press, 2000, * ''Russia Under Yeltsin and Putin: Neo-Liberal Autocracy'', Pluto Press, 2002, * ''The Politics of Empire: Globalisation in Crisis'', co-edited with Alan Freeman, Pluto Press, 2004, * ''Empire of the Periphery: Russia and the World System'', Pluto Press, 2007, * ''Back in the USSR (What Was Communism?)'', Seagull Books, 2009, * ''From Empires to Imperialism: The State and the Rise of Bourgeois Civilisation'',

Routledge Routledge ( ) is a British multinational corporation, multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, academic journals, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanit ...

, 2014, * ''Russia, Ukraine and Contemporary Imperialism'',

, 2019, * ''Between Class and Discourse: Left Intellectuals in Defence of Capitalism'',

, 2020, * ''The Long Retreat: Strategies to Reverse the Decline of the Left'', Pluto Press, 2024,

External links

Rabkor's official websiteRabkor's YouTube ChannelRabkor's Telegram

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kagarlitsky, Boris 1958 births Deutscher Memorial Prize winners Labor historians Libertarian Marxists Living people Marxist theorists People listed in Russia as media foreign agents Russian Academy of Theatre Arts alumni Russian activists against the Russian invasion of Ukraine Russian atheists Russian communists Russian dissidents Russian male bloggers Russian male journalists Russian Marxist historians Russian activists Russian political prisoners Russian political scientists Russian political writers Russian socialists Russian sociologists Russian video bloggers Russian YouTubers Soviet dissidents Soviet Marxists World system scholars Writers from Moscow