Click the link, if you want, to see and maybe buy it directly from the publisher, idk (we need more people buying directly from Marxist publishers).
Here's the back-cover blurb:
"First printed by International Publishers in 1987, Viktor Afanasyev's Historical Materialism remains a classic of Marxist-Leninist philosophy.
Afanasyev authored more than 20 books on philosophy from the 1960s to the 1980s, shaping how millions of people around the world learned and understood Marxism. For more than a decade, he was editor-in-chief of Pravda (Truth), voice of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and highest circulation newspaper on the planet. He was one of the top Marxist spokespersons in the world, having also overseen Kommunist, the CPSU's flagship ideological journal. But Afanasyev is most remembered for being one of the Communists who challenged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev during the USSR's twilight years—and lost.
When it came to Marxist-Leninist philosophy, there were few scholars in the postwar period as prolific as Afanasyev. He was a recognized authority on what bourgeouis academics and New Leftists derisively called "state socialist" ideology. It was with those credentials that Afanasyev faced off against Gorbachev. Though anti-Communists would characterize him as merely an apparatchk, Afanasyev was one of those struggling from inside the ruling party to preserve socialism and the Soviet state as the reform program known as perestroika went off the rails. That battle for the heart and soul of socialism in the USSR against the forces of capitalist restoration was the context in which Historical Materialism was first published. No one knew at the time that its author, still a respected figure in the Soviet Union, was already hurtling toward his own political demise.
This new edition of Historical Materialism includes a Foreword by C.J. Atkins, managing editor of People’s World. Atkins' Foreword not only provides biographical information on Afanasyev, it also puts the publication of this book and Afanasyev in historical and political context, providing readers with fresh insight into one of the foremost—though largely forgotten—Marixsts of the 20th century."
Where can I learn more about Afanasyev?!
He seems really interesting to me!