On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the 1989 revolutionsāthe āAutumn of Nationsā in the Soviet blocāthe Platypus Affiliated Society organized an international panel series on the significance of 1989 for the Left. The panel held at New York University on February 17, 2015 consisted of Boris Kagarlitsky, director of the Institute for Global Research and Social Movements in Moscow, Christoph Lichtenberg, supporter of the International Bolshevik Tendency, and Mel Rothenberg, a member of the Chicago Political Economy Group.
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On May 6, 2013, the Platypus Affiliated Society hosted a conversation on āBlack Politics in the Age of Obamaā at the University of Chicago. The speakers included Cedric Johnson, the author of Revolutionaries to Race Leaders: Black Power and the Making of African American Politics (2007) and The Neoliberal Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, Late Capitalism, and the Remaking of New Orleans (2011); and Mel Rothenberg, a veteran of the Sojourner Truth Organization and coauthor of The Myth of Capitalism Reborn: A Marxist Critique of Theories of Capitalist Restoration in the USSR (1980). Michael Dawson, author of the forthcoming book, Blacks In and Out of the Left, was unable to attend due to an emergency. The event was moderated on behalf of the Platypus Affiliated Society by Spencer A. Leonard. What follows is an edited transcript of the conversation.
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On May 19, 2011, Platypus invited Carl Davidson, formerly of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Guardian Weekly, Tom Riley of the International Bolshevik Tendency, and Mel Rothenberg, formerly of the Sojourner Truth Organization, to reflect on āThe Marxist turn: The New Left in the 1970s.ā
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On January 31, 2011, Spencer A. Leonard interviewed Mel Rothenberg, author of The Myth of Capitalism Reborn: A Marxist Critique of Theories of Capitalist Restoration in the USSR to discuss the theoretical underpinnings of American Maoism in the 1970s. The interview was aired on the radio show Radical Minds on WHPKāFM Chicago, on February 1. What follows is a revised and edited transcript of the interview.
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