As a new generation discovers socialism, this important text by American Marxist Hal Draper makes the case that genuine liberation can only come from the self-activity of workers. Draper outlines the important distinction in the socialist movement between those who looked for freedom to be handed down from above and those who saw the revolutionary struggle as being led by ordinary people from below for their own liberation. The late Hal Draper was the author of the five-volume study of Karl Marx’s Theory of Revolution (Monthly Review Press).
In exploring the question: "What do we mean by socialism?,” Hal Draper argues genuine liberation can be won only through self-emancipation.
