Moscow, Nauka Publishing House. 1976. 268 p. The print run is 1,700. Price 1 rub. 36 kopecks. The study of the colonial policy of the Labour Party is a kind of laboratory for the study of the theory and practice of social reformism in the colonial question, since, firstly, the methodological fruitfulness and universality of the study of the colonial problems of Great Britain - the largest, "classical" colonial power, which also became the pioneer of neo-colonialism, is known, and secondly, the Labour Party is one of the the ruling social democratic parties, which implemented colonial policies. The work of A. G. Sudeikin, a researcher at the Institute of General History of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Candidate of Historical Sciences, is almost the first monograph specifically devoted to the colonial policy of not only the Labor Party, but also the entire international social reformism in the period between the two World Wars. Based on extensive factual material, the author analyzes the contradictions between the theory and practice of Labor in the colonial question. The monograph convincingly shows the failure of their attempt to find a third, "social-democratic way to solve colonial problems" - an attempt that was doomed to failure in advance, because, as A. G. Sudeikin emphasizes, it was based on the erroneous assumption that a "positive colonial policy" is possible within the framework of capitalist relations (p.244). This analysis and conclusions go beyond the scope of English studies alone, as they touch upon important features of the theory and practice of social reformism in general. A. G. Sudeikin's work is closely connected with the political problems of today. We are witnessing how hard and painful the general crisis of capitalism is manifesting itself in England. The collapse of the British Empire, which for decades helped to keep the British economy afloat, is of no small importance in the complex of reasons that weakened the former "master of th ... Read more