Catherine Samary

Catherine Samary[1] born in 1945,  is a French researcher in political economy, specialized on the former Yugoslavia and Eastern Europe.

She developed  comparative analysis of the different experiences and reforms  of the Soviet planning system (see, for example Plan, Market and Democracy - the experience of the so-called socialist countries https://fileserver.iire.org/nsr/NSR7.pdf - An independent website has produced a shorten version of this essay in 2018. http://www.socialisteconomist.com/2018/01/neither-capitalist-nor-socialist.html) Samary put emphasis on specific phases of democratic mass movements in those countries (like in 1968 in Czechoslovakia or later in Poland) compared to their socio-economic transformations through the capitalist restoration after 1989 (see in particular her contributions for  Le Monde Diplomatique, in French : https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/recherche?s=%22Catherine+Samary%22 ; in English : https://mondediplo.com/search?s=%22Catherine+Samary%22) She is member of the scientific council of the French Attac and of the editorial board of its Review Les Possibles; founding member of the Association Autogestion (self-management) and of the European Network in solidarity with Ukraine https://ukraine-solidarity.eu.

She was actively involved in actions and debates against the French law which in 2004 excluded from the public schools Muslim girls wearing the scarf.

On her website, can be found numerous videos (in French and often in English) of presentation of her analysis http://csamary.fr/videos.html  ; and a chronological presentation of her publications according to four main themes: questions and experiences of socialism; capitalist restoration; world disorder; alternatives http://csamary.fr/rubriques.html Her book, written in the context of the anniversary of October Revolution, in 2017,  D'un communisme décolonial à la démocratie des communs published by Editions Le Croquant in French is now available in pdf  https://editions-croquant.org/livres-numeriques/445-pdf-dun-communisme-decolonial-a-la-democratie-des-communs.html The book presents the Yugoslav experience  as a break with Stalin's orientation.

Its extended version in English (co-edited with Fred Leplat)  was published under the title Decolonial Communism: Democracy and the Commons.