Critique

Critique is in Zone 4 of Literature in the CAS Journal Ranking (2025 upgraded edition). By OpenAlex counts of its recent articles, its largest topics are French Urban and Social Studies, Linguistics and Discourse Analysis and Psychoanalysis and Psychopathology Research, together about 32.9% of its articles. (generated from OpenAlex topic counts and CAS ranking data)

Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory is an independent, refereed, scholarly journal founded in 1973. It attempts to analyse contemporary society from a critical Marxist perspective. Critique takes the view that Marxism has been so degraded by the Stalinist period that much of what has passed for Marxism has ranged between incoherent nonsense and empty if complex scholastic schema. Since socialism in one country is a theoretical and practical impossibility, Critique rejected and continues to reject analyses purporting to show this or that country is or was socialist. Furthermore, Critique emphatically insists on the impossibility of an undemocratic socialism. The aim of Critique is to take part in the restoration of the earlier pre-eminence of Marxist thought by encouraging discussion around the political economy of contemporary capitalist and non-capitalist societies. For this purpose, it regards debate around methodology and as a consequence philosophy to be essential. Inevitably, contemporary political economy must also involve debate around the importance of historical events and so Critique encourages contributions of historical analysis. In short, Critique's aim is to publish theoretical work at various levels of abstraction from the most profound to that of analytical description in order to help provide the theory required for socialist change, which with the end of Stalinism is once more on the agenda. The Origins of Critique : Critique was founded in May 1973 following its first conference in London, at which some 500 people attended. In the initial editorial it declared that its aim was to analyse Stalinism based on the empirical reality, while rejecting an empiricist approach. It sought to discover the laws of motion applying to Stalinism. It rejected the imposition of schema on the analysis, usual both on the left and right. The journal became associated with a new school of thought critical of Stalinism and the Soviet Union, which argued that the USSR was neither actually nor potentially a mode of production. Articles made it clear that it could not last and that the market would be imposed but that it would fail. The theory has been amply borne out by events. In the second issue the editorial made clear "that we will follow the logic of our enterprise and publish articles on wider aspects of socialist theory, such as problems of the transitional period, the socialist mode of production etc." Debates on the decline of capitalism and the impor

From the journal's Aims & Scope

Research area (LetPub): LITERARY REVIEWS

Editor-in-chief Hillel TicktinPublisher website

Editorial board by country: none in mainland China; most named United Kingdom 2, United States 1 (3 members with a country) Editorial board ↗Publisher website · 2026-10-01

CAS Journal Ranking

JCR / CiteScore quartiles on the journal's website

• CiteScore Q2 · 2025

Publisher-reported: JCR figures are Clarivate's and CiteScore figures Scopus's to confirm; both are a different system from the CAS zones.Publisher website

Database indexing

AHCIScopusLetPub

International journal early-warning lists: not listed in any editionLetPub

Editions, and major and minor categories, are shown separately and never merged into one zone; check which edition your institution uses before you submit or report.

Impact

CiteScore (publisher) 2025

0.3Publisher website · 2026-10-01

SJR (publisher) 2025

0.16Publisher website · 2026-10-01

SNIP (publisher) 2025

0.16Publisher website · 2026-10-01

h-index

15OpenAlex · 2026-10-01

i10-index

38OpenAlex · 2026-10-01

2-year mean citedness

0.05OpenAlex · 2026-10-01

Self-citation rate

0%LetPub · 2026-09-13

Share of gold OA articles

0.76%LetPub · 2026-09-13

Volume

Articles per year

53LetPub · 2026-09-13

Downloads per year (publisher)

47,000Publisher website · 2026-10-01

Sources count differently and were observed at different times, so each source's own value is kept; "publisher" marks figures from the journal's website.

Figures by source

Acceptance rate (publisher)

34%Publisher website · 2026-10-01

Submission to first decision

33 daysPublisher website · 2026-10-01

First decision after review

44 daysPublisher website · 2026-10-01

Community reports come from authors' own submissions (confidence 0.5) and are not a promise from the journal; for publisher figures, the journal's own definitions apply.

The journal's website is authoritative for fees; sources were observed at different times and each keeps its own value, without averaging.

Excerpts are quoted from the journal's website; "model summary" lines are written by Workers AI and checked against the text. The journal's website is authoritative.

ISSN

0011-1600

Print ISSN

0301-7605

Electronic ISSN

1748-8605

Latest issue on the website

Volume 54, Issue 2 (2026)

Official links

• Journal homepage ↗LetPub
• Submission system ↗Publisher website
• Special issues ↗Publisher website