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You are here: The Platypus Affiliated Society/Summer 2020: Kautsky's Marxism

Summer 2020: Kautsky's Marxism

"How well Kautsky wrote [when he was still a Marxist]!"
— Lenin, 'Left-Wing' Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)


Every Tuesday

5:00pm to 8:00pm

online via Zoom (check social media for details)

Our Facebook and Twitter

Contact us with platypus.metrodc@gmail.com

• required / + recommended readings


Recommended background reading:
+ Vernon Lidtke, The Outlawed Party: SPD 1878–1890 (1966)
+ Lidtke, The Alternative Culture: Socialist Labor in Imperial Germany (1985)
+ Carl Schorske, The SPD 1905-17: The Development of the Great Schism (1955)
+ James Joll, The Second International 1889–1914 (1966)

Preliminary readings:

• Spartacist League, "Kautskyism and the origins of Russian Social Democracy," Ch. 1, Lenin and the Vanguard Party (1978)

• Monty Johnstone, “Marx and Engels and the concept of the party” (1967)

• J. P. Nettl“The German Social Democratic Party 1890–1914 as a Political Model” (1965)


Week 1 | June 9

+ Karl Korsch, "The Marxism of the First International" (1924)
• Karl MarxInaugural address to the First International (1864)
• Ferdinand LassalleOpen letter to the German workers’ movement (1863)

Week 2 | June 16

• Mikhail BakuninA Critique of the German Social-Democratic Program (1870)
• BakuninMarxism, Freedom and the State (1872)
• MarxCritique of the Gotha Programme (1875)
• MarxProgramme of the Parti Ouvrier (1880)

Week 3 | June 23

• Karl KautskyThe Class Struggle (1892)
+ Eugene Debs, "How I became a socialist" (1902)
+ Debs, "Competition versus Cooperation" (1900)

Week 4 | June 30

• KautskyThe Social Revolution (1902)

Week 5 | July 14

• KautskyThe Road to Power (1909)

Week 6 | July 21

• Vladimir LeninThe Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky (1918)
+ Debs, â€śThe Day of the People” (1919)

Week 7 | July 28

• Manifesto of the Communist International to the Workers of the World
• The Organisational Structure of the Communist Parties, the Methods and Content of Their Work: Theses
• The 21 Conditions of Admission into the Communist International [HTML]