Find us at 6pm every Wednesday, on the first floor of The Angel pub.

61 St Giles High St, London WC2H 8LE

All are welcome to attend.

We also host public fora, teach-ins, and informal coffee breaks and pub nights. Find us on Facebook for updates: London Platypus.

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• required / + recommended reading

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Recommended winter break preliminary readings:

+ Leszek Kolakowski, “The concept of the Left” (1958)
+ 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)
+ Carl Schorske, The SPD 1905-17: The Development of the Great Schism (1955)
+ J.P. Nettl, Rosa Luxemburg (1966) [Vol. 1] [Vol. 2]
+ 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

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Winter–Spring 2023

II. Introduction to revolutionary Marxism

Week 11. Revolutionary leadership | Feb. 1, 2023

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

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Week 12. Reform or revolution? | Feb. 8, 2023

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

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Week 13. Feb. 15 (reading week)

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Week 14. Lenin and the vanguard party | Feb. 22, 2023

• 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)

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Week 15. What is to be done? | Mar. 1, 2023

• 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)

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Week 16. Mass strike and social democracy | Mar. 8, 2023

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

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Week 17. Permanent revolution | Mar. 15, 2023

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

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Week 18. State and revolution | Mar. 22, 2023

• Lenin, The State and Revolution (1917)

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Week 19. Mar. 30, 2023 [Platypus international convention]

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Week 20. Imperialism | Apr. 5, 2023

“The bourgeoisie makes it its business to promote trusts, drive women and children into the factories, subject them to corruption and suffering, condemn them to extreme poverty. We do not ‘demand’ such development, we do not ‘support’ it. We fight it. But how do we fight? We explain that trusts and the employment of women in industry are progressive. We do not want a return to the handicraft system, pre-monopoly capitalism, domestic drudgery for women. Forward through the trusts, etc., and beyond them to socialism!”
— Lenin, The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution (1916/17)

• 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)

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Week 21. Failure of the revolution | Apr. 12, 2023

• 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)

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Week 22. Retreat after revolution | Apr. 19, 2023

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

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Week 23. Dialectic of reification | Apr. 26, 2023

• 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)

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Week 24. Lessons of October | May 3, 2023

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

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Week 25. Trotskyism | May 10, 2023

+ 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 (AKA The Transitional Program and the Struggle for Socialism, 1938)
+ Trotsky, "Trade unions in the epoch of imperialist decay" (1940)
+ Trotsky, Letter to James Cannon (September 12, 1939)

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Week 26. The authoritarian state | May 17, 2023

• Friedrich Pollock, "State Capitalism: Its Possibilities and Limitations" (1941) (note 32 on USSR)
• Max Horkheimer, "The Authoritarian State" (1942) [PDF]
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

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Week 27. On the concept of history | May 24, 2023

• 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?)
+ epigraphs by Hegel and W.E.B. DuBois on history
+ 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

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Week 28. Reflections on Marxism | May 31, 2023

+ 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)
+ Adorno, letter to Benjamin on "The Work of Art..." essay and intellectuals and the proletariat (1936)
+ 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)

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Week 29. Theory and practice | June 7, 2023

+ 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)

[. . .]

“Society is a reality sui generis; it has its own characteristics that are either not found in the rest of the universe or are not found there in the same form."
"Society is a sui generis being with its own special nature, distinct from that of its members, and a personality of its own different from individual personalities."
-- Emile Durkheim

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Fridays 6:30-8:30pm at the May Day Rooms in the "Reading Room"

88 Fleet Street, London, EC4Y 1DH

Join London Platypus or follow Platypus LSESU or Platypus at UCL on facebook for updates.

All welcome & no prior knowledge required.

---

( • required / + recommended readings)

Required background reading:
• Chris Cutrone, "Back to Herbert Spencer! Industrial vs. militant society" (2016)

Recommended supplemental parallel reading:
+ Adorno, "Static and Dynamic as Sociological Categories" (1961)
+ Adorno, Introduction to Sociology 1962 lectures
+ Adorno, Philosophical Elements of a Theory of Society 1964 lectures
+ Adorno, Philosophy and Sociology 1960 lectures

Preliminary readings:
• Adorno, “Society” (1965)
• Benjamin Constant, "The liberty of the ancients compared with that of the moderns" (1819)

Charts of terms:
+ Capital in history timeline and chart of terms
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 
+ Commodity form chart of terms
+ Reification chart of terms

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Week 1: June 10, 2022

• Gillian Rose, Hegel Contra Sociology (1981/95) selections: Preface for 1995 reprint, 1. The Antinomies of Sociological Reason, 7. With What Must the Science End?

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Week 2: June 17, 2022

• epigraphs on modern history and freedom by Louis Menand (on Marx and Engels), Karl Marx, on "becoming" (from the Grundrisse, 1857–58)
• Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905) selections: Author's Introduction, Part I Chapters 1-3, Part II (+ Chapter 4,) Chapter 5

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Week 3: June 24, 2022

• Auguste Comte, Introduction to Positive Philosophy (1830-42) I. The nature and importance of the positive philosophy; The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte vol. III Bk. VI. Social Physics pp. 1-11, 199-216, 277-344; A General View of Positivism Ch. II. The Social Aspect of Positivism pp. 63-78, Ch. VI. The Religion of Humanity pp. 340-426

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Week 4: July 1, 2022

+ Chris Cutrone, "Back to Herbert Spencer! Industrial vs. militant society" (2016) [audio]
• Herbert Spencer, Principles of Sociology Vol. I Part I The Data of Sociology Ch. I-IV pp. 3-40 and Part II The Inductions of Sociology Ch. I-II pp. 447-462; On Social Evolution (Univ. Chicago selections): IV 15–16 Societal Typologies, Militancy and Industrialism and V 18–19 Ceremonial and Political Institutions; The Man Versus the State VI The Great Political Superstition

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Week 5: July 8, 2022

• Emile Durkheim, Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912) Introduction

• Durkheim, On Morality and Society (1890), selections Chapter 3. "The principles of 1789 and sociology", and part V. Social Creativity, Chapters 11-12

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Week 6: July 15, 2022

• Émile Durkheim, Author's Preface to 1st Edition and Introduction (pp.xxv-xxx and 1-10) in The Division of Labor in Society (1893)

• Durkheim, selections from On Morality and Society (1898): Chapter 4. "Individualism and the intellectuals" (1898), Chapter 6. "Progressive preponderance of organic solidarity", and Chapter 10. "The dualism of human nature and its social conditions" (1914)

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BREAK - no reading group - on July 22, 2022

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Week 7: July 29, 2022

• Durkheim, The Division of Labor in Society (1893) selections IV. The Evolution of Morality Chapters 7-9, in On Morality and Society; Preface to the 2nd Edition (pp. xxxi-lix)

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Week 8: August 5, 2022

Taking place at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese (145 Fleet St, London EC4A 2BP) which is a short walk from the MayDay Rooms.

Message us on facebook or WhatsApp if you can't find us.

Readings:

• Frankfurt School, Aspects of Sociology (1956) selections: Preface by Horkheimer and Adorno, Chapters I-VI, XII
• Adorno, “Society” (1965)
+ Adorno, "Static and Dynamic as Sociological Categories" (1961)

[. . .]

II. Introduction to revolutionary Marxism

Every Saturday at 11am

Caffe Nero (Unit 1A, 100-110 High Holborn)

Everyone welcome

Facebook pages: Platypus UCL | Platypus LSE | London Platypus

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• required / + recommended reading

---

Marx and Engels readings pp. from Robert C. Tucker, ed., Marx-Engels Reader (Norton 2nd ed., 1978)

---

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)
+ Carl Schorske, The SPD 1905-17: The Development of the Great Schism (1955)
+ J.P. Nettl, Rosa Luxemburg (1966) [Vol. 1] [Vol. 2]
+ 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

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Winter–Spring 2022

Week 10. What is Marxism? VII. Ends of philosophy | Jan. 15, 2022

• Korsch, “Marxism and philosophy” (1923)
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
+ Herbert Marcuse, "Note on dialectic" (1960)
+ Marx, To make the world philosophical (from Marx's dissertation, 1839–41), pp. 9–11
+ Marx, For the ruthless criticism of everything existing (letter to Arnold Ruge, September 1843), pp. 12–15
+ Marx, "Theses on Feuerbach" (1845), pp. 143–145

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II. Introduction to revolutionary Marxism

Week 11. Revolutionary leadership | Jan. 22, 2022

• 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)

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Week 12. Reform or revolution? | Jan. 29, 2022

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

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Week 13. Lenin and the vanguard party | Feb. 5, 2022

• 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? | Feb. 12, 2022

• 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)

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Week 15. Mass strike and social democracy | Feb. 19, 2022

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

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Week 16. Feb. 26, 2022 (reading week break)

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Week 17. Permanent revolution | Mar. 5, 2022

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

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Week 18. State and revolution | Mar. 12, 2022

• Lenin, The State and Revolution (1917)

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Week 19. Imperialism | Mar. 19, 2022

“The bourgeoisie makes it its business to promote trusts, drive women and children into the factories, subject them to corruption and suffering, condemn them to extreme poverty. We do not ‘demand’ such development, we do not ‘support’ it. We fight it. But how do we fight? We explain that trusts and the employment of women in industry are progressive. We do not want a return to the handicraft system, pre-monopoly capitalism, domestic drudgery for women. Forward through the trusts, etc., and beyond them to socialism!”
— Lenin, The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution (1916/17)

• 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)

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Week 20. Failure of the revolution | Mar. 26, 2022

• 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)

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Week 21. Apr. 2, 2022 (Platypus international convention)

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Week 22. Retreat after revolution | Apr. 9, 2022

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

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Week 23. Dialectic of reification | Apr. 16, 2022

• 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)

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Week 24. Lessons of October | Apr. 23, 2022

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

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Week 25. Trotskyism | April 30, 2022

+ 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 (AKA The Transitional Program and the Struggle for Socialism, 1938)
+ Trotsky, "Trade unions in the epoch of imperialist decay" (1940)
+ Trotsky, Letter to James Cannon (September 12, 1939)

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Week 26. The authoritarian state | May 7, 2022

• Friedrich Pollock, "State Capitalism: Its Possibilities and Limitations" (1941) (note 32 on USSR)
• Max Horkheimer, "The Authoritarian State" (1942) [PDF]
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

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Week 27. On the concept of history | May 14, 2022

• 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

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Week 28. Reflections on Marxism | May 21, 2022

+ 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)

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Week 29. Theory and practice | May 28, 2022

+ 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)

[. . .]

Every Saturday morning 11am

Caffe Nero on High Holborn

Unit 1A, 100-110 High Holborn, London, WC1V 6QL

Everybody welcome!

London Platypus facebook | Platypus at UCL facebook | Platypus LSE facebook

---

• required / + recommended reading

---

Marx and Engels readings pp. from Robert C. Tucker, ed., Marx-Engels Reader (Norton 2nd ed., 1978)

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Remaining sessions of Radical Bourgeois Philosophy

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Week 1. Radical bourgeois philosophy V. Kant and Constant: Bourgeois society | Oct. 2, 2021

• Immanuel Kant, "Idea for a universal history from a cosmopolitan point of view" and "What is Enlightenment?" (1784)

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

+ Kant's 3 Critiques [PNG] and philosophy [PNG] charts of terms

• Benjamin Constant, "The liberty of the ancients compared with that of the moderns" (1819)

+ Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the origin of inequality (1754)

+ Rousseau, selection from On the social contract (1762)

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Week 2. Radical bourgeois philosophy VI. Hegel: Freedom in history | Oct. 9, 2021

• G.W.F. Hegel, Introduction to the Philosophy of History (1831) [HTML] [PDF pp. 14-128] [Audiobook]

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

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What is the Left?

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Week 3. What is the Left? I. Capital in history | Oct. 16, 2021

• Max Horkheimer, "The little man and the philosophy of freedom" (1926–31)

• 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

• Chris Cutrone, "Capital in history" (2008)

+ Capital in history timeline and chart of terms

+ video of Communist University 2011 London presentation

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

• Cutrone, "The Marxist hypothesis" (2010)

• Cutrone, “Class consciousness (from a Marxist persective) today” (2012)

+ G.M. Tamas, "Telling the truth about class" [HTML] (2007)

+ Robert Pippin, "On Critical Theory" (2004)

+ Rainer Maria Rilke, "Archaic Torso of Apollo" (1908)

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Week 4. What is the Left? II. Utopia and critique | Oct. 23, 2021

• Max Horkheimer, selections from Dämmerung (1926–31)

• Adorno, “Imaginative Excesses” (1944–47)

• Leszek Kolakowski, “The concept of the Left” (1958)

• Herbert Marcuse, "Note on dialectic" (1960)

• Marx, To make the world philosophical (from Marx's dissertation, 1839–41), pp. 9–11

• Marx, For the ruthless criticism of everything existing (letter to Arnold Ruge, September 1843), pp. 12–15

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms

---

What is Marxism?

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Week 5. What is Marxism? I. Socialism | Oct. 30, 2021

• Marx, selections from Economic and philosophic manuscripts (1844), pp. 70–101

+ Commodity form chart of terms

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

• Marx and Friedrich Engels, selections from the Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), pp. 469–500

• Marx, The coming upheaval (from The Poverty of Philosophy, 1847), pp. 218–19

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Week 6. LSE Reading Week break | Nov. 6, 2021

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Week 7. What is Marxism? II. Revolution in 1848 | Nov. 13, 2021

• Marx, Address to the Central Committee of the Communist League (1850), pp. 501–511 and Class struggle and mode of production (letter to Weydemeyer, 1852), pp. 218–220

• Engels, The tactics of social democracy (Engels's 1895 introduction to Marx, The Class Struggles in France), pp. 556–573

• Marx, selections from The Class Struggles in France 1848–50 (1850), pp. 586–593

• Marx, selections from The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852), pp. 594–617

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Week 8. What is Marxism? III. Bonapartism | Nov. 20, 2021

+ Karl Korsch, "The Marxism of the First International" (1924)

• Marx, Inaugural address to the First International (1864), pp. 512–519

• Marx, selections from The Civil War in France (1871, including Engels's 1891 Introduction), pp. 618–652

+ Korsch, Introduction to Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme (1922)

• Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, pp. 525–541

• Marx, Programme of the Parti Ouvrier (1880)

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Week 9. What is Marxism? IV. Critique of political economy | Nov. 27, 2021

The fetish character of the commodity is not a fact of consciousness; rather it is dialectical, in the eminent sense that it produces consciousness. . . . [P]erfection of the commodity character in a Hegelian self-consciousness inaugurates the explosion of its phantasmagoria.
— Theodor W. Adorno, letter to Walter Benjamin, August 2, 1935

+ Commodity form chart of terms

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

+ Organic composition of capital chart of terms 

+ Marx on surplus-value chart of terms

• Marx, selections from the Grundrisse (1857–61), pp. 222–226, 236–244, 247–250, 276–293 ME Reader pp. 276–281

• Marx, Capital Vol. I, Ch. 1 Sec. 4 "The fetishism of commodities" (1867), pp. 319–329

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms

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Week 10. What is Marxism? V. Reification | Dec. 4, 2021

• Georg Lukács, “The phenomenon of reification” (Part I of “Reification and the consciousness of the proletariat,” History and Class Consciousness, 1923)
+ Commodity form chart of terms
+ Reification chart of terms
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
+ Organic composition of capital chart of terms
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms

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Week 11. What is Marxism? VI. Class consciousness | Dec. 11, 2021

• 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
+ Herbert Marcuse, "Note on dialectic" (1960)
+ Marx, Preface to the First German Edition and Afterword to the Second German Edition (1873) of Capital (1867), pp. 294–298, 299–302

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Week 10. What is Marxism? VII. Ends of philosophy | Dec. 18, 2021

• Korsch, “Marxism and philosophy” (1923)

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms

+ Herbert Marcuse, "Note on dialectic" (1960)
+ Marx, To make the world philosophical (from Marx's dissertation, 1839–41), pp. 9–11

+ Marx, For the ruthless criticism of everything existing (letter to Arnold Ruge, September 1843), pp. 12–15

+ Marx, "Theses on Feuerbach" (1845), pp. 143–145

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Winter Break

Some suggested readings

+ 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)
+ Carl Schorske, The SPD 1905-17: The Development of the Great Schism (1955)
+ J.P. Nettl, Rosa Luxemburg (1966) [Vol. 1] [Vol. 2]
+ 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

[. . .]

Mondays at 6pm on Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81062045963

Facebook event: https://fb.me/e/1TRK16DKi

Everybody welcome! No prior experience required.

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• required / + recommended reading

Marx and Engels readings pp. from Robert C. Tucker, ed., Marx-Engels Reader (Norton 2nd ed., 1978)

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Week A. Introduction: Capital in history | Aug. 9, 2021

• Max Horkheimer, "The little man and the philosophy of freedom" (1926–31)

• 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

• Chris Cutrone, "Capital in history" (2008)

+ Capital in history timeline and chart of terms

+ video of Communist University 2011 London presentation

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms

• Cutrone, "The Marxist hypothesis" (2010)

• Cutrone, “Class consciousness (from a Marxist persective) today” (2012)

+ G.M. Tamas, "Telling the truth about class" [HTML] (2007)

+ Robert Pippin, "On Critical Theory" (2004)

+ Rainer Maria Rilke, "Archaic Torso of Apollo" (1908)

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Week B. 1960s New Left I. Neo-Marxism | Aug. 16, 2021

• Martin Nicolaus, “The unknown Marx” (1968)

+ Commodity form chart of terms

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

+ Organic composition of capital chart of terms

+ Marx on surplus-value chart of terms

• Theodor W. Adorno, “Late Capitalism or Industrial Society?” (AKA “Is Marx Obsolete?”) (1968)

• Moishe Postone, “Necessity, labor, and time” (1978)

+ Postone, “Interview: Marx after Marxism” (2008)

+ Postone, “History and helplessness: Mass mobilization and contemporary forms of anticapitalism” (2006)

+ Postone, “Theorizing the contemporary world: Brenner, Arrighi, Harvey” (2006)

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Week C. 1960s New Left II: Gender and sexuality | Aug. 23, 2021

The situation of women is different from that of any other social group. This is because they are not one of a number of isolable units, but half a totality: the human species. Women are essential and irreplaceable; they cannot therefore be exploited in the same way as other social groups can. They are fundamental to the human condition, yet in their economic, social and political roles, they are marginal. It is precisely this combination — fundamental and marginal at one and the same time — that has been fatal to them.

— Juliet Mitchell, "Women: The longest revolution" (1966)

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

• Juliet Mitchell, “Women: The longest revolution” (1966)

• Clara Zetkin and Vladimir Lenin, “An interview on the woman question” (1920)

• Theodor W. Adorno, “Sexual taboos and the law today” (1963)

• John D’Emilio, “Capitalism and gay identity” (1983)

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Week D. 1960s New Left III. Anti-black racism in the U.S. | Aug. 30, 2021

As a social party we receive the Negro and all other races upon absolutely equal terms. We are the party of the working class, the whole working class, and we will not suffer ourselves to be divided by any specious appeal to race prejudice; and if we should be coaxed or driven from the straight road we will be lost in the wilderness and ought to perish there, for we shall no longer be a Socialist party.

— Eugene Debs, "The Negro in the class struggle" (1903)

+ Eugene Debs, "The Negro in the class struggle" (1903) 

+ Debs, "The Negro and his nemesis" (1904)

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

• Richard Fraser, “Two lectures on the black question in America and revolutionary integrationism” (1953)

+ Fraser, "For the materialist conception of the Negro struggle" (1955)

• James Robertson and Shirley Stoute, “For black Trotskyism” (1963)

+ Spartacist League, “Black and red: Class struggle road to Negro freedom” (1966)

+ Bayard Rustin, “The failure of black separatism” (1970)

• Adolph Reed, “Black particularity reconsidered” (1979)

+ Reed, “Paths to Critical Theory” (1984)

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Week E. Frankfurt School precursors | Sept. 6, 2021

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

• Wilhelm Reich, “Ideology as material power” (1933/46)

• Siegfried Kracauer, “The mass ornament” (1927)

+ Kracauer, “Photography” (1927)

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms

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Week F. Radical bourgeois philosophy I. Rousseau: Crossroads of society | Sep. 13, 2021

To be radical is to go to the root of the matter. For man, however, the root is man himself.
— Marx, Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (1843)

Whoever dares undertake to establish a people’s institutions must feel himself capable of changing, as it were, human nature, of transforming each individual, who by himself is a complete and solitary whole, into a part of a larger whole, from which, in a sense, the individual receives his life and his being, of substituting a limited and mental existence for the physical and independent existence. He has to take from man his own powers, and give him in exchange alien powers which he cannot employ without the help of other men.

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract (1762)

• Max Horkheimer, "The little man and the philosophy of freedom" (1926–31)

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

+ Rainer Maria Rilke, "Archaic Torso of Apollo" (1908)

+ Robert Pippin, "On Critical Theory" (2004)

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

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (1754) PDFs of preferred translation (5 parts): [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

+ Capital in history timeline and chart of terms

• Rousseau, selection from On the Social Contract (1762)

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Week G. Radical bourgeois philosophy II. Adam Smith: On the wealth of nations (part 1) | Sep. 20, 2021

• Adam Smith, selections from The Wealth of Nations

Volume I [PDF]
Introduction and Plan of the Work
Book I: Of the Causes of Improvement…
I.1. Of the Division of Labor
I.2. Of the Principle which gives Occasion to the Division of Labour
I.3. That the Division of Labour is Limited by the Extent of the Market
I.4. Of the Origin and Use of Money
I.5 Of the Real and Nominal Price of Commodities
I.6. Of the Component Parts of the Price of Commodities
I.7. Of the Natural and Market Price of Commodities
I.8. Of the Wages of Labour
I.9. Of the Profits of Stock
Book III: Of the different Progress of Opulence in different Nations
III.1. Of the Natural Progress of Opulence
III.2. Of the Discouragement of Agriculture in the Ancient State of Europe after the Fall of the Roman Empire
III.3. Of the Rise and Progress of Cities and Towns, after the Fall of the Roman Empire
III.4. How the Commerce of the Towns Contributed to the Improvement of the Country

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Week H. Radical bourgeois philosophy III. Adam Smith: On the wealth of nations (part 2) | Sep. 27, 2021

• Smith, selections from The Wealth of Nations

Volume II [PDF]
IV.7, Of Colonies
V.1. Of the Expences of the Sovereign or Commonwealth Article 2d and 3d and Part IV

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Week I. Radical bourgeois philosophy IV. What is the Third Estate? | Oct. 4, 2021

• Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, What is the Third Estate? (1789) [full text]

+ Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees (1732)

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Week J. Radical bourgeois philosophy V. Kant and Constant: Bourgeois society | Oct. 11, 2021

• Immanuel Kant, "Idea for a universal history from a cosmopolitan point of view" and "What is Enlightenment?" (1784)

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

+ Kant's 3 Critiques [PNG] and philosophy [PNG] charts of terms

• Benjamin Constant, "The liberty of the ancients compared with that of the moderns" (1819)

+ Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the origin of inequality (1754)

+ Rousseau, selection from On the social contract (1762)

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Week K. Radical bourgeois philosophy VI. Hegel: Freedom in history | Oct. 18, 2021

• G.W.F. Hegel, Introduction to the Philosophy of History (1831) [HTML] [PDF pp. 14-128] [Audiobook]

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

[. . .]