With rising global inequality, climate crisis, and the resurgence of authoritarian movements worldwide, many are questioning whether there is truly a viable alternative to capitalism. David Camfield’s new book Red Flags: A Reckoning with Communism for the Future of the Left (Fernwood Publishing, 2025) makes a vital contribution to this debate by systematically examining the societies that emerged in the Soviet Union, China, Cuba and elsewhere and arguing that these represented not progress toward human liberation, but new forms of class exploitation that tragically co-opted the language and symbols of genuine socialist revolution.
Neither capitalism nor “Communism” from above
Camfield’s core thesis challenges both mainstream anti-Communist narratives and contemporary “anti-anti-Communist” sentiment on the left. Writing from what he calls a “reconstructed historical materialist” perspective, he argues that what he calls “Actually Existing Socialism” societies were neither the totalitarian nightmares depicted by Cold War propaganda nor the flawed-but-progressive socialist experiments defended by many on today’s left. Instead, they represented something qualitatively different: class societies in which a new ruling class exploited workers and peasants while using the rhetoric of socialism to legitimize their rule.
This analysis places Camfield firmly within the “socialism from below” tradition that has long argued for working-class self-emancipation against both capitalism and Stalinism. Camfield’s view is that genuine communists must raise “red flags” about “Actually Existing Socialism” (AES) not from an anti-communist position, but from a commitment to authentic human liberation. As he writes: “None of the criticism of AES or its supporters in what follows should in any way be construed as justification of capitalism or as lending support to anti-Communism”. This disclaimer is necessary because Camfield’s critique is thorough and uncompromising.
Analyzing the Russian Revolution’s trajectory
Camfield’s historical analysis begins with the extraordinary achievement of the 1917 Russian Revolution, when workers and peasants created “an astonishing combination of direct and representational democracy” through factory committees, soviets, and other democratic institutions. This represented genuine working-class rule – what Marx had envisioned as “the dictatorship of the proletariat.” However, this democratic workers’ state was short-lived.
The catastrophic conditions of civil war in Russia following the 1917 Revolution, foreign intervention (in the aftermath of the revolution, the militaries of more than a dozen countries, including Canada, invaded Russia with aims to suppress the Bolsheviks and support the White Army during the Russian Civil War), and economic collapse led to the gradual replacement of working-class rule with what Camfield terms “Bolshevik leadership rule,” and eventually the emergence of a new bureaucratic ruling class. Crucially, he argues this outcome was not inevitable but resulted from specific historical pressures combined with theoretical weaknesses in Bolshevik conceptions of democracy and the workers’ state.
The pivotal moment came with Stalin’s “Great Break” beginning in 1928, which launched crash industrialization and forced collectivization of agriculture. Camfield describes this as “a modernizing counter-revolution” that consolidated “the crystallization of this layer into a distinct social class”. The leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union had become “a new exploiting class” that used state power to extract surplus from workers and peasants for its own accumulation and power.
The human costs were staggering. Real wages in Moscow plummeted to 52 percent of 1928 levels by 1932, while meat consumption declined by 69 percent. The dispossession of the peasantry led to famine in 1932-33 that killed several million people, while the Great Purge of 1937-38 saw the execution of 681,692 people. Demographic analysis suggests “around ten million” excess deaths between 1928 and 1938.
This analysis resonates strongly with the “state capitalist” theoretical tradition’s understanding of the Soviet Union. Like Tony Cliff, Camfield emphasizes how the pressures of competing with advanced capitalist states drove the Soviet bureaucracy to accumulate capital through intensified exploitation of workers. The Stalinist rhetoric of “socialism in one country” provided ideological cover for what was essentially a state-directed capitalist development process.
As Camfield notes, the working class “sold its ability to work to the ‘central political bureaucracy’ that had ‘at its exclusive command the basic means of production’” without any “democratic allocation by workers of their surplus to industrialization or anything else.”
The human cost of “socialist construction”
One of the book’s most powerful sections examines the enormous human and ecological costs of building these societies. Camfield documents how “close to 1.5 million people were executed or died in the prisons, forced labour camps (Gulag camps), labour colonies, and special settlements” during the 1930s alone, not including those who died in the forced collectivization famines. The 1932-33 famine that killed several million people resulted directly from the state’s prioritization of grain exports for industrialization over peasant survival.
This violence was not an aberration, but integral to the process of primitive accumulation that built Soviet industry. As Camfield notes, “it was fundamentally surplus labour extracted from the urban working class that built AES.” Workers had no democratic control over how their labour was used; decisions about production, investment, and social priorities remained “the exclusive preserve of top party-state officials.”
The book also examines how gender and racial oppression persisted under AES. Despite official commitments to women’s equality, the Soviet state under Stalin implemented “pro-family” policies that pushed women into double burden of wage labour and domestic work while criminalizing homosexuality and restricting reproductive rights. Ethnic minorities faced deportations and cultural suppression, with “over three million people deported within the USSR on the basis of belonging to ethnonational groups whose loyalty to the state was deemed suspect.”
China: State capitalism with “market reforms”
Camfield extends his analysis to other major AES societies, showing how similar dynamics played out in different contexts. In China, the Communist Party initially implemented genuine social reforms after 1949, but this gave way to intensified exploitation during the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution periods. The transition to market reforms under Deng Xiaoping represented not a turn toward capitalism but the evolution of the same state capitalist system in new conditions.
Contemporary China, Camfield argues, remains fundamentally an AES society where the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to rule through state control of key economic sectors. This challenges both Western narratives about China’s “transition to capitalism” and left-wing arguments about China as a socialist alternative to US imperialism.
Cuba: Opposing US embargo, blockade, and economic sanctions essential for socialists
The analysis of Cuba is particularly important given the both the second Trump administration’s continued and escalating attacks on Cuba, as well as Cuba’s continued (and very often uncritical) support among many anti-imperialist leftists.
While acknowledging Cuba’s genuine achievements in healthcare, education, literacy rates, internationalism, and its lengthy history of standing up to U.S. imperialism, Camfield argues that these cannot be separated from the island’s authoritarian political structure, and that it too represents a form of AES where workers lack democratic control over production and social decision-making. The persistence of a one-party state and the absence of independent worker organizations which are not directly linked to the state apparatus indicate that Cuba, despite its positive features, has not created the conditions for transition to genuine Communism, and is led by an unaccountable state bureaucracy.
However, Camfield fails to grapple in the book with the question of the responsibilities of socialists and other anti-imperialists to oppose the ongoing more-than-six-decade-long U.S. government economic sanctions, embargo, and blockade of Cuba which directly distorts Cuban society in countless ways, and which limits the ability of the Cuban people to achieve the liberatory socialist society which many aspired towards when overthrowing Batista in 1959, or throughout the decades since.
Arguably, there has been a failing of some who stand in the “socialism from below” tradition to defend Cuba from US imperialist attack (both in terms of ongoing attacks on Cuba’s economy as well as continued efforts by the US government towards “regime change” in Cuba) in the way that they would in relation to Haiti, or Palestine, or other countries that don’t claim to be “socialist.”
There is a tendency to “bend the stick” towards critique of the state capitalist unaccountable bureaucracy of the Cuban state, and away from the clear need for anti-imperialist socialists to campaign against the (now heightened and escalated in these past months of the second Trump administration) US imperialist efforts contained within the sanctions and embargo which have material and real impact on the lives of Cubans.
Contemporary relevance: Anti-anti-Communism and campism
One of the book’s most urgent contributions lies in its analysis of contemporary left politics. Camfield documents the rise of what critics term “tankies;” young leftists who, rejecting anti-communist narratives, swing toward uncritical defense of AES societies past and present. As Barnaby Raine observes, quoted in the book, there is “a new if modest proliferation of radicals now who would have baffled 1990s commentators; young people in Europe and North America who want to sound like the old Communists.”
Camfield identifies how many young leftists, disgusted by capitalism’s failures and skeptical of Cold War propaganda, have swung toward uncritical support for AES societies past and present. This “campist” approach, which views geopolitical conflicts primarily through the lens of opposition to US imperialism, leads to apologetics for authoritarian regimes simply because they oppose Western powers.
This phenomenon reflects genuine anti-capitalist sentiment but channels it in politically dangerous directions. When faced with capitalism’s mounting crises – from climate change to rising inequality to the threat of fascism – some leftists embrace authoritarian “Communist” states as the only viable alternative. Camfield’s analysis provides crucial tools for understanding why this is a dead end that will only reproduce oppression in new forms.
Camfield advocates for what the 1960s radical left captured in the slogan: “The ‘Communist’ world is not Communist and the ‘Free’ world is not free.” This perspective, deeply aligned with the socialism from below tradition, maintains that authentic Communist politics must be “ruthlessly critical of social domination” and assess both capitalism and AES “from that perspective.”
This analysis speaks directly to current debates about China’s role in global politics, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and how the left should respond to authoritarian “anti-imperialist” governments. Camfield’s framework suggests that genuine internationalism requires solidarity with working-class and democratic movements everywhere, not reflexive support for states that happen to conflict with Western imperialism.
The book also addresses the resurgence of interest in socialism among young people facing housing crises, climate catastrophe, and economic insecurity. Camfield argues that this opening creates both opportunities and dangers; opportunities to build genuine socialist movements, but dangers if these movements are misdirected toward support for AES-style “socialism” that would reproduce oppression in new forms.
An alternative tradition: Socialism from Below
Perhaps the book’s most controversial argument is that Marxism-Leninism functions as “a ruling-class ideology.” By conflating party rule with workers’ rule and state ownership with socialism, Camfield argues Marxism-Leninism provides intellectual justification for bureaucratic domination. This analysis, while sure to provoke fierce debate, offers important insights into why Marxism-Leninism politics consistently lead toward authoritarianism rather than liberation.
In his final chapters, Camfield outlines an alternative Communist tradition that remained critical of both capitalism and AES. This tradition includes figures like Rosa Luxemburg, whose emphasis on mass democracy led her to argue that “the essence of socialist society consists in the fact that the great labouring mass ceases to be a dominated mass, but rather, makes the entire political and economic life its own life and gives that life a conscious, free, and autonomous direction.” It also includes the anti-Stalinist insights of C.L.R. James and Raya Dunayevskaya, and contemporary movements that prefigure democratic self-organization. This tradition, which aligns closely with “socialism from below” politics, emphasizes that “socialism” must be “the self-emancipation of the working class,” based on self-activity and democratic control, rather than something delivered by a revolutionary elite.
As Camfield notes, following Marx, “the establishment of the socialist order of society…requires a complete transformation of the state and a complete overthrow of the economic and social foundations of society. This transformation and this overthrow cannot be decreed by any bureau, committee, or parliament. It can be begun and carried out only by the masses of people themselves”.
The book’s vision of Communism as “a classless and stateless society of freedom in which people democratically organize production to meet their needs and flourish” resonates with the classical Marxist tradition’s emphasis on human emancipation. This is not a utopian blueprint but a directional goal that can guide contemporary struggles for democracy, equality, and ecological sustainability.
Strengths and limitations from a socialist perspective
Camfield’s book’s greatest strength lies in its rigorous historical materialist analysis that takes seriously both the democratic aspirations of 1917 and the bureaucratic reality that emerged. His historical analysis effectively demolishes both liberal anti-communist myths and authoritarian socialist apologetics. The documentation of AES’s oppressive character provides crucial ammunition against those who would repeat these experiments. The emphasis on working-class democracy and self-emancipation aligns with the core commitments of the Marxist tradition.
Unlike crude anti-Communist accounts, Camfield recognizes the genuine revolutionary content of the early Soviet period while explaining its degeneration through material conditions rather than inherent ideological flaws.
The book also succeeds in demonstrating that criticism of AES societies need not lead to acceptance of capitalism. By rooting his analysis in Communist principles of democratic self-emancipation, Camfield shows how revolutionary socialists can oppose both capitalist exploitation and bureaucratic authoritarianism without falling into liberal reformism.
However, there are some areas where socialists in this tradition might want to push further. While Camfield acknowledges that the isolation of the Russian Revolution contributed to its degeneration, he could have explored more deeply how international revolutionary strategy might have changed outcomes. The role of revolutionary organization and the lessons of other failed or defeated revolutionary movements deserve more attention.
Additionally, while the book effectively critiques AES and outlines principles for genuine socialism, it offers relatively limited concrete analysis of how transition struggles might unfold today. Given the urgency of the climate crisis and rising authoritarianism, more strategic thinking about building socialist movements capable of challenging both capitalism and emerging forms of state capitalism would strengthen the analysis.
Camfield’s book could benefit from more detailed analysis of how democratic communist politics might look in practice. While Camfield references glimpses from revolutionary periods, more concrete discussion of prefigurative politics and transitional demands might strengthen his case for the alternative tradition he champions.
The book might also benefit from more engagement with contemporary movements that embody elements of socialist democracy — from workplace occupations and mutual aid networks to ecological direct action and feminist organizing. These provide glimpses of the kind of self-organization that genuine socialist transformation would require.
Toward genuine socialist liberation
“Red Flags” represents an essential contribution to contemporary Communist theory and practice. At a moment when capitalism’s failures drive millions toward anti-systemic politics, Camfield provides crucial guidance for avoiding the twin traps of reformist accommodation and authoritarian substitutionism. His analysis demonstrates that authentic Communist politics remain both necessary and possible, but only through the self-activity of the oppressed rather than the machinations of revolutionary elites.
For activists and theorists in the Socialism From Below tradition, and for socialists committed to working-class self-emancipation, this book provides essential tools for understanding both historical failures and contemporary possibilities, offering both theoretical vindication and practical guidance. It shows why truly democratic revolutionary socialism remains relevant and necessary, even as it acknowledges the enormous challenges facing any attempt to transcend capitalism.
Spring’s Halifax branch is hosting a public discussion with David Camfield over Zoom on Monday, July 21, 6:30pm AT / 5:30pm ET / 2:30pm PT. For details and registration, please click here.
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