Summer 2012: Democracy and Marxism
Chicago
Saturdays 1–4PM
School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC)
112 S. Michigan Ave. room 920
Facebook invitation: http://www.facebook.com/events/339098822822962/
• required / + recommended reading
Film screening: May 2012
• Last Party 2000 (2001)
Week 1. May 26, 2012
Marx and democracy
• Dick Howard, selections from The Specter of Democracy (2002)
+ Howard, “Philosophy by other means?” (2001) (original version of Chapter 13 of The Specter of Democracy)
+ Benjamin Constant, “The liberty of the ancients compared with that of the moderns” (1819)
+ Karl Marx, On Bruno Bauer’s The Jewish Question (1844)
+ Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875)
+ Chris Cutrone, “Lenin’s liberalism” and “Lenin’s politics” (2011)
Week 2. Jun. 2, 2012
Communist Party of Great Britain debates Platypus
• Selected articles from Weekly Worker, May 12 – August 11, 2011
+ Original pages of Weekly Worker
• Ben Lewis, “Chicago school” (letter in Weekly Worker 914, May 17, 2012)
• Chris Cutrone, letter in response to Ben Lewis (May 17, 2012)
+ Danny Hammill, “Debate, controversy and comradeship” (on the 2011 CPGB Communist University summer school, Weekly Worker 879, September 1, 2011, p. 11)
+ Spencer Leonard, “Adam Smith’s profoundest reader: Marx” (Weekly Worker 895, December 22, 2011, pp. 12–14)
June 16 – July 28
Trotsky and Trotskyism
Recommended preliminary readings:
+ Tariq Ali and Phil Evans, Introducing Trotsky and Marxism / Trotsky for Beginners (1980)
+ Nicolas Krassó, “Trotsky’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)
