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You are here: The Platypus Affiliated Society/Summer 2012: Trotsky and Trotskyism

Summer 2012: Trotsky and Trotskyism

The Russian Revolution, which Lenin held up as the torch-light of emancipation for the world proletariat, is being run into national socialist channels. . . . “The Russian proletariat,” said Lenin, “cannot single-handed bring the socialist revolution to a victorious conclusion. But it can give the Russian revolution a mighty impetus such as would create most favorable conditions for a socialist revolution, and would, in a sense, start it. It can help to create more favorable circumstances for its most important, most trustworthy and most reliable collaborator, the European and American proletariat, to join the decisive battles” (“Farewell letter to the Swiss workers,” 1917).

– â€œLenin lives in the work of the Opposition” (1931)

Boston, Chicago, London, New York, Philadelphia

Video will be broadcast live and available as recordings at: http://www.livestream.com/platypusaffiliatedsociety


Saturdays 1–4PM CST

School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC)
112 S. Michigan Ave. room 920

Chicago Platypus Facebook invitation: http://www.facebook.com/events/140497572752262/


Saturdays 2–5PM EST

The New School
6 E. 16th St. (between Union Square West and 5th Ave.) room 1001

• recommended / + supplemental reading


Recommended preliminary readings:

+ Tariq Ali and Phil Evans, Introducing Trotsky and Marxism / Trotsky for Beginners (1980)
+ Nicolas KrassĂł, â€œTrotsky’s Marxism” (1967)
• Platypus Historians Group“The dead Left: Trotskyism” (2008)
• Richard Rubin“The decline of the Left in the 20th century: 1933″ (2009)
• Ian Morrison“Trotsky’s Marxism” (2011)
• Mike Macnair, Bryan Palmer, Richard Rubin, and Jason Wright“The legacy of Trotskyism” (2011)
• Grover Furr“Learning from the Communist Movement of the 20th century: A response to Richard Rubin”(2012)
+ Spartacist League, Lenin and the Vanguard Party (1978)
+ Richard Appignanesi and Oscar Zarate / A&Z, Introducing Lenin and the Russian Revolution / Lenin for Beginners (1978)
+ Isaac Deutscher, The Prophet: Trotsky biography (three volumes: 1954, 1959, 1963)


Week 1. Jun. 16, 2012

1879–1905

lecture: video recording | audio recording

• Tariq Ali and Phil EvansIntroducing Trotsky and Marxism / Trotsky for Beginners (1980)
• Leon TrotskyResults and Prospects (1906)


Week 2. Jun. 23, 2012

1905–17

lecture: video recording [glitches after ~32:00] | audio recording [without glitches]

+ Trotsky, 1905 (1907)


Week 3. Jun. 30, 2012

1917–23

lecture: video recording | audio recording

• TrotskyTerrorism and Communism (1920)
• TrotskyThe Lessons of October (1924) [PDF] + Trotsky, Literature and Revolution (1924)
+ Bret Schneider, â€œTrotsky’s theory of art” (2011)


Week 4. Jul. 7, 2012

1923–33

lecture: video recording | audio recording

+ Trotsky, Where is Britain Going? (1925)
+ Trotsky, Problems of the Chinese Revolution 1927–31 (1932)
+ Trotsky, writings on the rise of Hitler and the destruction of the German Left (1930–40), especially â€œTo build communist parties and an international anew” (1933)


Week 5. Jul. 14, 2012

1933–40

lecture: video recording | audio recording

• Trotsky“Stalinism and Bolshevism” (1937)
• TrotskyThe Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International (1938)
+ Trotsky, â€œTrade unions in the epoch of imperialist decay” (1940)
+ Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed (1936)
+ Trotsky, In Defense of Marxism (1939/40), especially â€œLetter to James Cannon” (September 12, 1939)
+ Trotsky, â€œArt and politics on our epoch” (1938)
+ Mary McCarthy, â€œMy Confession” (1954)


Week 6. Jul. 21, 2012

1940–53

lecture: video recording | audio recording

+ James Cannon, â€œThe coming American revolution” (1946)
+ C.L.R. James, Raya Dunayevskaya, et al., â€œProgram of the minority tendency of the Workers Party/U.S.” (1946)
+ C.L.R. James, â€œDialectical materialism and the fate of humanity” (1947)
+ Herbert Marcuse, â€œ33 Theses” (1947)
+ Earl Browder and Max Shachtman with C. Wright Mills, â€œIs Russia a socialist community?” (1950)
+ Ernest Mandel, â€œThe theory of ‘state capitalism’” (1951)
+ Michel Pablo, â€œOn the duration and the nature of the period of transition from capitalism to socialism” (1951)
+ Pablo, â€œWhere are we going?” (1953)


Week 7. Jul. 28, 2012

1953–63

lecture: video recording [ends ~4:00 prematurely] | audio recording [complete]

+ Cornelius Castoriadis, â€œThe workers and organization” (1959)
• Cliff Slaughter“What is revolutionary leadership?” (1960)
• Revolutionary Tendency of the Socialist Workers Party/U.S.“In defense of a revolutionary perspective”(1962)
+ Tony Cliff, â€œThe coming Russian revolution” (final chapter of Russia: A Marxist Analysis, 1964)
+ Hal Draper, â€œThe two souls of socialism” (1966)
+ Isaac Deutscher, â€œMarxism in our time” (1965)
+ Murray Bookchin, â€œListen, Marxist!” (1969)
• Spartacist League“Genesis of Pabloism” (1972)


2012–13

Primary Marxist reading group

I. What is the Left? — What is Marxism?

• required / + recommended reading

Week A. Aug. 4, 2012

• epigraphs on modern history and freedom by James Miller (on Jean-Jacques Rousseau), Louis Menand (on Edmund Wilson), Karl Marxon “becoming” (from the Grundrisse, 1857–58), and Peter Preuss (on Nietzsche)
+ Rainer Maria Rilke, â€œArchaic Torso of Apollo” (1908)
+ Robert Pippin, â€œOn Critical Theory” (2004)
• Jean-Jacques RousseauDiscourse on the Origin of Inequality (1754) PDFs of preferred translation (5 parts):[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
• Rousseauselection from On the Social Contract (1762)


Week B. Aug. 11, 2012

• G.W.F. HegelIntroduction to the Philosophy of History (1831) [HTML] [PDF pp. 14-128]


Week C. Aug. 18, 2012

• Friedrich NietzscheOn the Use and Abuse of History for Life (1874) [translator's introduction by Peter Preuss]


Week D. Aug. 25, 2012

• Nietzscheselection from On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (1873)
• NietzscheOn the Genealogy of Morals (1887)


Week E. Sep. 1, 2012 Labor Day weekend

• Martin Nicolaus“The unknown Marx” (1968)
• Moishe Postone“Necessity, labor, and time” (1978)
• Postone“History and helplessness: Mass mobilization and contemporary forms of anticapitalism” (2006)
+ Postone, â€œTheorizing the contemporary world: Brenner, Arrighi, Harvey” (2006)


Week F. Sep. 8, 2012

• Juliet Mitchell“Women: The longest revolution” (1966)
• Clara Zetkin and Vladimir Lenin“An interview on the woman question” (1920)
• Theodor W. Adorno“Sexual taboos and the law today” (1963)
• John D’Emilio“Capitalism and gay identity” (1983)


Week G. Sep. 15, 2012

• Richard Fraser“Two lectures on the black question in America and revolutionary integrationism” (1953)
• James Robertson and Shirley Stoute“For black Trotskyism” (1963)
+ Spartacist League, â€œBlack and red: Class struggle road to Negro freedom” (1966)
+ Bayard Rustin, â€œThe failure of black separatism” (1970) 
• Adolph Reed“Black particularity reconsidered” (1979)
+ Reed, â€œPaths to Critical Theory” (1984)


Week H. Sep. 22, 2012

• Wilhelm Reich“Ideology as material power” (1933/46)
• Siegfried Kracauer“The mass ornament” (1927)
+ Kracauer, â€œPhotography” (1927)


Week 1. Sep. 29, 2012

• Chris Cutrone“Capital in history” (2008)
• Cutrone“The Marxist hypothesis” (2010)