On April 9, 2026, the Platypus Affiliated Society hosted a panel at Northwestern University on the Islamic Revolution in Iran as a satellite plenary to its 18th annual International Convention. The speakers were Chris Cutrone (founding member of the Platypus Affiliated Society), Mateo Farzaneh (professor of History at Northeastern Illinois University and author of The Iranian Constitutional Revolution and the Clerical Leadership of Khurasani), Tirdad Kiamanesh (co-founder of Chicago4Iran, lecturer at Northwestern University), and Grayson Walker (American Communist Party).
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On April 10, 2026, as the opening plenary of its 18th annual Convention, the Platypus Affiliated Society hosted a panel at Northwestern University on the crisis of the American Revolution and its legacy. The speakers were Chris Cutrone (original lead organizer of Platypus and the Campaign for a Socialist Party), Edith Fischer (founding member of Communist Unity in Australia), and Ingar Solty (Senior Research Fellow at the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung in Berlin and author of Trumps Triumph?, Der postliberale Kapitalismus, and Edition Marxismen). Platypus member Erin Hagood moderated the panel. An edited transcript follows.
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While there should not be a reinforcement let alone ratification of the casting aside of Marxist critical theory by politics, it is also important to recognize that the actual problem is rather the opposite: turning Marxist critics into mere comrades. "Comrade Marx" won't do. Neither will Comrade Adorno — nor Comrade Cutrone.
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What is Stalinism? It is the liquidation of Marxism. More precisely, it is the liquidation of the Marxist self-consciousness and theory of the proletarian socialist party — it is also the practical liquidation of that party. What is most troubling about the history of “Marxism-Leninism” AKA Stalinism is, like with the Jacobins, not their ruthlessness towards avowed counterrevolutionaries, but rather the Revolution eating its own — the unjust and murderous turn against the loyal revolutionaries themselves. The problem with Stalinism is the lies it entails — the lies against the revolutionaries, and against the Revolution itself. And the lies never end.
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Tom Canel’s essay on my debate with Benjamin Studebaker, between pursuit of freedom and the Good, tries to address my writing as a logical problem. But it begins with a misapprehension: not I but Studebaker introduced the category of the “body” into our dispute about Platonism and Marxism. Not my argument but his hinges on the natural body as a phenomenon. For me it is a historical form of appearance in society; for him it is an emanation of the Good — falling away from it.
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