Santa Cruz reading group Winter/Spring 2020
II. Introduction to revolutionary Marxism
Beginning April 2, 2020 all events are Thursdays, 5:30PM @ zoom for the spring quarter: https://zoom.us/j/922323603?pwd=VVZGZUdjdndlYUZudjh0cXRDc3dvUT09
• required / + recommended reading
Marx and Engels readings pp. from Robert C. Tucker, ed., Marx-Engels Reader (Norton 2nd ed., 1978)
Screening A | Monday, Jan. 6
• Rosa Luxemburg (1986)
Week 11. Revolutionary leadership | Monday, Jan. 13
• Rosa Luxemburg, “The Crisis of German Social Democracy” 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)
Teach-in: Capital in History | Wednesday, Jan. 15 2:30PM @ Kresge 348
Screening B | Monday, Jan. 20
• Fall of Eagles episodes: #5 "The Last Tsar" and #6 "Absolute Beginners" on the origins of the Bolsheviks
Screening C | Monday, Jan. 27
• 37 Days Episode #3 "One Long Weekend" (uncut BBC version including the Socialists) on the start of WWI; and Fall of Eagles episode #12 "The Secret War" on WWI and the Russian Revolution
Week 12. Reform or revolution? | Monday, Feb. 3
• Luxemburg, Reform or Revolution? (1900/08)
+ Eugene Debs, "Competition versus Cooperation" (1900)
Week 13. Lenin and the vanguard party | Monday, Feb. 10
• Spartacist League, Lenin and the Vanguard Party (1978)
+ Richard Appignanesi and Oscar Zarate / A&Z, Introducing Lenin and the Russian Revolution/Lenin for Beginners (1977)
Week 14. What is to be done? | Monday, Feb. 17
• V. I. Lenin, What is to be Done? (1902)
+ Richard Appignanesi and Oscar Zarate / A&Z, Introducing Lenin and the Russian Revolution/Lenin for Beginners (1977)
Week 15. Mass strike and social democracy | Monday, Feb. 24
• Luxemburg, The Mass Strike, the Political Party and the Trade Unions (1906)
+ Luxemburg, "Blanquism and Social Democracy" (1906)
Week 16. Permanent revolution | Monday, Mar. 2
• Leon Trotsky, Results and Prospects (1906)
+ Tariq Ali and Phil Evans, Introducing Trotsky and Marxism / Trotsky for Beginners (1980)
Week 17. State and revolution | Monday, Mar. 9
• Lenin, The State and Revolution (1917)
March 16 Final Exams
Week 18. March 23 Spring Break
Week 19. Imperialism | Thursday, Apr. 2
• Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916)
+ Lenin, Socialism and WarCh. 1 The principles of socialism and the War of 1914–15 (1915)
Week 20. Platypus International Convention, Chicago | Apr. 3-5 - CANCELED
Week 21. Failure of the revolution | Thursday, Apr. 9
• Luxemburg, “What does the Spartacus League Want?” (1918)
• Luxemburg, “On the Spartacus Programme” (1918)
+ Luxemburg, "German Bolshevism" (AKA "The Socialisation of Society") (1918)
+ Luxemburg, “The Russian Tragedy” (1918)
+ Luxemburg, “Order Reigns in Berlin” (1919) + Eugene Debs, “The Day of the People” (1919) + Sebastian Haffner, Failure of a Revolution: Germany 1918–19 (1968)
Week 22. Retreat after revolution | Thursday, Apr. 16
• Lenin, “Left-Wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)
+ Lenin, "Notes of a Publicist" (1922)
Week 23. Dialectic of reification | Thursday, Apr. 23
• Lukács, “The Standpoint of the Proletariat” (Part III of “Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat,” 1923). Available in three sections from marxists.org: section 1section 2section 3
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
+ Commodity form chart of terms + Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
+ Organic composition of capital chart of terms
+ Lukács, “The phenomenon of reification” (Part I of “Reification and the consciousness of the proletariat,” History and Class Consciousness, 1923)
Week 24. Lessons of October | Thursday, Apr. 30
• Trotsky, The Lessons of October (1924) [PDF]
• Trotsky, "Stalinism and Bolshevism" (1937)
Week 25. Trotskyism | Thursday, May 7
+ Trotsky, "To build communist parties and an international anew" (1933)
+ Trotsky, "If America should go communist" (1934)
• Trotsky, The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International (1938)
+ Trotsky, "Trade unions in the epoch of imperialist decay" (1940)
+ Trotsky, Letter to James Cannon (September 12, 1939)
Week 26. The authoritarian state | Thursday, May 14
• Friedrich Pollock, "State Capitalism: Its Possibilities and Limitations" (1941) (note 32 on USSR)
• Max Horkheimer, "The Authoritarian State" (1942)
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
Week 27. On the concept of history | Thursday, May 21
• epigraphs by Louis Menand (on Edmund Wilson) and Peter Preuss (on Nietzsche) on the modern concept of history
+ Charles Baudelaire, fromFusées[Rockets] (1867)
+ Bertolt Brecht, "To posterity" (1939)
+ Walter Benjamin, "To the planetarium" (from One-Way Street, 1928)
+ Benjamin, "Fire alarm" (from One-Way Street, 1928) [JPG][PDF]
+ Benjamin, "Experience and poverty" (1933)
+ Benjamin, Theologico-political fragment (1921/39?)
+ Benjamin on history chart of terms
• Benjamin, "On the Concept of History" (AKA "Theses on the Philosophy of History") (1940) [PDF]
• Benjamin, Paralipomena to "On the Concept of History" (1940)
+ Benjamin, Arcades ProjectConvolute N, "On the theory of knowledge, theory of progress" (see especially p. 471 [N8,1] on Horkheimer on unredeemablility of past suffering)
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
Week 28. Reflections on Marxism | Thursday, May 28
+ Capital in history timeline and chart of terms
+ Benjamin on history chart of terms
• Theodor Adorno, “Reflections on Class Theory” (1942)
• Adorno, “Imaginative Excesses” (1944–47)
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
+ Adorno, Dedication, "Bequest", "Warning: Not to be Misused" and "Finale", Minima Moralia (1944–47)
+ Horkheimer and Adorno, "Discussion about Theory and Praxis" (AKA "Towards a New Manifesto?") [Deutsch] (1956)
Week 29. Theory and practice | Thursday, June 4
+ Adorno, “On Subject and Object” (1969)
+ Commodity form chart of terms
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
+ Adorno's critique of actionism chart of terms
• Adorno, “Marginalia to Theory and Praxis” (1969)
• Adorno, “Resignation” (1969)
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
+ Adorno, “Late Capitalism or Industrial Society?” (AKA “Is Marx Obsolete?”) (1968)
+ Organic composition of capital chart of terms
+ Esther Leslie, Introduction to the 1969 Adorno-Marcuse correspondence (1999)
+ Adorno and Herbert Marcuse, correspondence on the German New Left (1969)
+ Adorno, Interview withDer Spiegelmagazine (1969)
![[JPG]](https://platypus1917.org/wp-content/uploads/benjamin_firealarm.jpg){kind=link}