Summer 2017 readings: Lenin and the 1917 Russian Revolution

• required/ + recommended reading
• Lenin readings available in Robert C. Tucker, ed., The Lenin Anthology (Norton, 1977), except (*) on marxists.org

Recommended background readings

+ Richard Appignanesi and Oscar Zarate / A&Z, Introducing Lenin and the Russian Revolution / Lenin for Beginners (1977)
+ John Reed, Ten Days that Shook the World (1919)

Week 1 | June 19

• Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution(1905)
• Lenin, On the Two Lines in the Revolution(1915) *

Week 2 | June 26

• Lenin, Lecture on the 1905 Revolution(1917)
• Lenin, Letters from Afar (1917) *
• Lenin, April Theses (1917)

Week 4 | July 10

• Lenin, The Dual Power(1917)
• Lenin, The Enemies of the People (1917)
• Lenin, The Beginning of Bonapartism (1917)

Week 5 | July 17

• Lenin, Can the Bolsheviks Retain State Power?(1917)
• Lenin, Marxism and Insurrection (1917)
• Lenin, Advice of an Onlooker (1917)

Week 6 | July 24

• Lenin, To the Citizens of Russia!(1917)
• Lenin, Theses on the Constituent Assembly (1917)
• Lenin, The Chief Task of Our Day (1918)
• Lenin, The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government (1918)

Week 7 | July 31

• Lenin, The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky(1918)

Teach-in by Allison Hewitt Ward held at New York University on March 23, 2017.

If the commodity-structure has been the defining feature of modern capitalism, it stands to reason that the development of art has followed its logic as well. Art, however, seems to be deeply ambivalent about its commodity status and bourgeois development. How might an examination of the emergence of "art" as we know it alongside the emergence of bourgeois society and the dominance of the commodity structure help us understand its present confusion?

Join us for discussion on contemporary political issues, and articles from the Platypus Reviews.

Mondays 6pm, Think Coffee 248 Mercer St, New York (by NYU)

Reading Group, Tuesdays 7pm, 19 University Place Room 337

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

Film screenings: January 2017

• 37 Days(2014) [Episode 1] [Episode 2] [Episode 3]
• Fall of Eagles (1974) episodes: "Absolute Beginners," "The Secret War," and "End Game"
• Rosa Luxemburg (1986)
• Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States (2012) Episodes A (1900-20) and B (1920-40)
• Reds (1981)

Week 13. Revolutionary leadership | Jan. 30, 2017

• 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 14. Reform or revolution? | Feb. 6, 2017

• Luxemburg, Reform or Revolution? (1900/08)

Week 15. Lenin and the vanguard party | Feb. 13, 2017

• Spartacist League, Lenin and the Vanguard Party (1978)

Week 16. What is to be done? | Feb. 20, 2017

• 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 17. Mass strike and social democracy | Feb. 27, 2017

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

Week 18. Permanent revolution | Mar. 6, 2017

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

Week 19. State and revolution | Mar. 13, 2017

• Lenin, The State and Revolution(1917)

Week 20. Imperialism | Mar. 20, 2017

• 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 21. Mar. 27, 2017 (spring break)

Week 22. Failure of the revolution | Apr. 3, 2017

• 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)
• + Sebastian Haffner, Failure of a Revolution: Germany 1918–19 (1968)

Week 23. Apr. 10, 2017 [Platypus international convention]

Week 24. Retreat after revolution | Apr. 17, 2017

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

Week 25. Dialectic of reification | Apr. 24, 2017

• 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

Week 26. Lessons of October | Apr. 29, 2017

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

Week 27. Trotskyism | May 1, 2017

• + Trotsky, "To build communist parties and an international anew" (1933)
• • 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 28. The authoritarian state | May 8, 2017

• Friedrich Pollock, "State Capitalism: Its Possibilities and Limitations" (1941) (note 32 on USSR)
• Max Horkheimer, "The Authoritarian State" (1942)

Week 29. On the concept of history | May 15, 2017

• 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, "Experience and poverty" (1933)
  + Benjamin, Theologico-political fragment (1921/39?)
• Benjamin, "On the Concept of History" (AKA "Theses on the Philosophy of History") (1940) [PDF]
• Benjamin, Paralipomena to "On the Concept of History" (1940)

Week 30. Reflections on Marxism | May 22, 2017

• Theodor Adorno, “Reflections on Class Theory”(1942)
• Adorno, “Imaginative Excesses”(1944–47)
  + 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 31. Theory and practice | Jun. 29, 2017

• + Adorno, “On Subject and Object” (1969)
• Adorno, “Marginalia to Theory and Praxis” (1969)
• Adorno, “Resignation” (1969)
• Adorno, “Late Capitalism or Industrial Society?” (AKA “Is Marx Obsolete?”) (1968)
• Esther Leslie, Introduction to the 1969 Adorno-Marcuse correspondence (1999)
• Adorno and Herbert Marcuse, correspondence on the German New Left (1969)