Introduction to Revolutionary Marxism (2015)

Platypus primary Marxist reading group (the continuation of What is the Left? What is Marxism?)

Room 318 Student Union Building, Dalhousie University
Tuesdays 6–8:30PM
contact: dalhousie@platypus1917.org

 Week 13. Revolutionary leadership | Jan. 27

• Rosa Luxemburg, Junius pamphlet Part 1 (1915)
• J. P. Nettl, “The German Social Democratic Party 1890–1914 as a Political Model” (1965)
• Cliff Slaughter, “What is Revolutionary Leadership?” (1960)

Week 14. Reform or revolution? | Feb. 3

• Luxemburg, Reform or Revolution? (1900/08)

Week 15. Lenin and the vanguard party | Feb. 10

• Spartacist League, Lenin and the Vanguard Party (1978)

Week 16. What is to be done? | Feb. 17

• V. I. Lenin, What is to be Done? (1902)

Week 17. Mass strike and social democracy | Feb. 24

• Luxemburg, The Mass Strike, the Political Party and the Trade Unions (1906)

Week 18. Permanent revolution | Mar. 3

• Leon Trotsky, Results and Prospects (1906)

Week 19. State and revolution | Mar. 10

• Lenin, The State and Revolution (1917)

Week 20. Imperialism | Mar. 17

• Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916)

Week 21. Failure of the revolution | Mar. 24

• Luxemburg, “What does the Spartacus League Want?” (1918)
•  Luxemburg, “On the Spartacus Programme” (1918)

Week 22. Retreat after revolution | Mar. 31

• Lenin, “Left-Wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)

Weeks 23–25. Apr. 7–Apr. 21 (exam break)

Week 26. Dialectic of reification | Apr. 28

• Lukács, “The Standpoint of the Proletariat” (1923)

Week 27. Lessons of October | May 5

• Trotsky, The Lessons of October (1924)

Week 28. Trotskyism | May 12

• Trotsky, The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International (1938)

Week 29. The authoritarian state | May 19

• Friedrich Pollock, “State Capitalism” (1941)
• Max Horkheimer, “The Authoritarian State” (1942)

Week 30. On the concept of history | May 26

• Walter Benjamin, “On the Concept of History” (AKA “Theses on the Philosophy of History”) (1940)

Week 31. Reflections on Marxism | Jun. 2

• Theodor Adorno, “Reflections on Class Theory” (1942)
• Adorno, “Imaginative Excesses” (1944–47)
• Horkheimer and Adorno, “Discussion about Theory and Praxis” (AKA “Towards a New Manifesto?”) (1956)

Week 32. Theory and practice | Jun. 9

• Adorno, “Marginalia to Theory and Praxis” (1969)
• Adorno, “Resignation” (1969)