Red Racisms Racism in Communist and Post-Communist Contexts

Racism in the Soviet Union and in other Communist contexts has frequently been denied and ignored. This is the first book to provide an analysis of racism and racialization in Communist and post-Communist contexts. It opens up debates about both the relationship between racism and communism and the racial logics at work, how they have come into being and how they have changed in the contemporary world. This is a major advancement in our understanding of processes of global racialization and this book includes new analysis and evidence on the battle to challenge the racist underground in the Russian Federation, the postwar experiences of the Roma in Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, new Afro-Cuban movements and on Tibetan struggles against Chinese domination.

Ian Law is Professor of Racism and Ethnicity Studies in the School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leeds, UK, and founding Director of the Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies, UK. His major books include Ethnicity and Education in England and Europe (2011, with Sarah Swann); Racism and Ethnicity: Global Debates, Dilemmas, Directions (2010); Racism, Postcolonialism and Europe (2009, edited with Graham Huggan); Institutional Racism in Higher Education (2004, edited with Laura Turney and Deborah Phillips), Race in the News (2002); Racism, Ethnicity and Social Policy (1996); Local Government and Thatcherism (1990, edited with Hugh Butcher, Robert Leach and Maurice Mullard) and The Local Politics of Race (1986, with Gideon Ben-Tovim, John Gabriel and Kathy Stredder).

'To date there has been no comprehensive account of racial order and the structural and experiential conditions of racism in communist and post-communit societies. Ian Law's Red Racisms offers a unique comparative and relational analysis of race and racism in the former Soviet Union and in the contemporary Russian Federation, in East European communist satellites and their post-communist aftermaths, and in Cuba. He demonstrates accordingly that though communist states were formally committed to excising racial discrimination, racial formation and racist experience remained constitutive features of modern state arrangement both in their communist and post-communist forms. The compelling account Law offers in Red Racisms fills a major gap in studies of race and racism. It will serve as an important source as much for those working on communist and post-communist states as it significantly advances our understanding of racial states and racisms.' - David Theo Goldberg, Director and Professor, University of California, Humanities Research Institute