A moderated panel discussion held January 29, 2020 at London School of Economics in the wake of the 2019 UK general election.

Description:
The movement around Jeremy Corbyn has been the centre of the British Left since 2015. A generation of activists have thrown themselves into the Labour party, some abandoning former organisations or anti-party (anarchist) political perspectives. But in the wake of the landslide victory of the Conservative Party in 2019, the goals of the Left seem unclear. It feels like we’ve been here before. How did we get to this point? How has the election changed the political arena? How should the Left relate to the Labour party going forward? Is the Left transforming Labour or is Labour transforming the Left? Is the goal of the Left socialism in the 21st century? If so, what is socialism and how can we achieve it? After the election, what's Left?

Saturdays

5pm

28A Wilberforce Road, London, N4 2SW, United Kingdom (closest tube: Finsbury Park).

• required + recommended

Winter preliminary reading

• Karl Korsch, “Marxism and philosophy” (1923)

Week 1. Nietzsche I: Life in history | Dec. 28, 2019

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

• epigraphs on modern history and freedom by Louis Menand (on Marx and Engels), Karl Marx, on "becoming" (from the Grundrisse, 1857–58), and Peter Preuss (on history)

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms

+ "Revolution without Marx? Rousseau and his followers for the Left" panel at Left Forum, 6/9/13

+ Cutrone, Beyond history? Nietzsche, Benjamin and Adorno

+ Nietzsche on history chart of terms

Week 2. Nietzsche II: Asceticism of moderns | Jan. 4, 2020

• Nietzsche, selection from On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (1873)

• Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals: A Polemic (1887)

+ Human, All Too Human: Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil (1999)

Week 3. Nietzsche III: Assorted articles | Jan. 11, 2020

• Frankfurt School: Discussion of a Paper by Ludwig Marcuse on the Relationship of Need and Culture in Nietzsche (July 14, 1942) and its Introduction by Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School’s ‘Nietzschean Moment’

• Cutrone, Ends of Philosophy

• Cutrone, The future of socialism: What kind of illness is capitalism?

• Sunit Singh, Nietzsche’s untimeliness

• Ethan Linehan, On the use and abuse of Nietzsche for the Left

Wednesdays
6:00 - 8:00 p.m.
20 Kingsway
Room KSW1.01
(map)

• required / + recommended reading

Recommended winter break preliminary readings:

+ Leszek Kolakowski, “The concept of the Left” (1968)
+ Richard Appignanesi and Oscar Zarate / A&Z, Introducing Lenin and the Russian Revolution / Lenin for Beginners (1977)
+ Sebastian Haffner, Failure of a Revolution: Germany 1918–19 (1968)
+ Tariq Ali and Phil Evans, Introducing Trotsky and Marxism / Trotsky for Beginners (1980)
+ James Joll, The Second International 1889–1914 (1966)
+ Edmund Wilson, To the Finland Station: A Study in the Writing and Acting of History (1940), Part II. Ch. (1–4,) 5–10, 12–16; Part III. Ch. 1–6

Week 1. What is Marxism? VI. Class consciousness | Jan. 22, 2020

Catching up with last term.

• Lukács, “Class Consciousness” (1920), Original Preface (1922), “What is Orthodox Marxism?” (1919), History and Class Consciousness (1923)
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 
+ Reification chart of terms
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
+ Marx, Preface to the First German Edition and Afterword to the Second German Edition (1873) of Capital (1867), pp. 294–298, 299–302

II. Introduction to revolutionary Marxism

Week 2. Revolutionary leadership | Feb. 5, 2020

• 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)

Week 3. Reform or revolution? | Feb. 12, 2020

• Luxemburg, Reform or Revolution? (1900/08)
+ Eugene Debs, "Competition versus Cooperation" (1900)

Week 4. Lenin and the vanguard party | Feb. 19, 2020

• 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 5. LSE Reading Week | Feb. 24 - 28, 2020

Week 6. What is to be done? | Mar. 4, 2020

• 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 7. Mass strike and social democracy | Mar. 11, 2020

• Luxemburg, The Mass Strike, the Political Party and the Trade Unions (1906)
+ Luxemburg, "Blanquism and Social Democracy" (1906)

Week 8. Permanent revolution | Mar. 18, 2020

• Leon Trotsky, Results and Prospects (1906)
+ Tariq Ali and Phil Evans, Introducing Trotsky and Marxism / Trotsky for Beginners (1980)

Week 9. State and revolution | Mar. 25, 2020

• Lenin, The State and Revolution (1917)

Week 10. Imperialism | Apr. 1 2020

• Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916)
+ Lenin, Socialism and War Ch. 1 The principles of socialism and the War of 1914–15 (1915)

Week 11. Platypus international convention | Apr. 3 - 5, 2020

Week 12. Failure of the revolution | Apr. 8, 2020

• 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 13. Retreat after revolution | Apr. 15, 2020

• Lenin, “Left-Wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)
+ Lenin, "Notes of a Publicist" (1922)

Week 14. Dialectic of reification | Apr. 22, 2020

• 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 1 section 2 section 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
+ Reification chart of terms
+ Lukács, “The phenomenon of reification” (Part I of “Reification and the consciousness of the proletariat,” History and Class Consciousness, 1923)

Week 15. Lessons of October | Apr. 29, 2020

• Trotsky, The Lessons of October (1924) [PDF]
• Trotsky, "Stalinism and Bolshevism" (1937)

Week 16. Trotskyism | May 6, 2020

+ 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 17. The authoritarian state | May 13, 2020

• 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 18. On the concept of history | May 20, 2020

• epigraphs by Louis Menand (on Edmund Wilson) and Peter Preuss (on Nietzsche) on the modern concept of history
+ Charles Baudelaire, from Fusées [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 Project Convolute 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 19. Reflections on Marxism | May 27, 2020

+ 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 20. Theory and practice | Jun 3, 2020

+ Adorno, “On Subject and Object” (1969)
+ Commodity form chart of terms
+ Reification 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 with Der Spiegel magazine (1969)

Teach-in by Efraim Carlebach of the Platypus Affiliated Society at the LSE SU Platypus Society on 5 December 2019, on the history of the Labour party and its relationship to the Left, and the December 2019 UK general election.

Teach-in hosted by Platypus at London School of Economics introducing the Platypus project: "On Surviving the Extinction of the Left".