The Platypus Affiliated Society – Platypus Review Authors

Flaschenpost statt Scheinrevolution – Ein Interview mit Detlev Claussen über Adorno, Lenin und die Studentenbewegung

Detlev Claussen ist emeritierter Professor für Gesellschaftstheorie, Kultur- und Wissenschaftssoziologie an der Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universität in Hannover. Entgegen einer Vereinnahmung durch den akademischen Betrieb und der Anklage eines kulturpessimistischen Rückzuges in einen vermeintlichen Elfenbeinturm verteidigt Claussen die politische Relevanz der Kritischen Theorie und geht in seinen Schriften auch dem Einfluss Lenins auf Adornos Denken nach. Jan Schroeder ist Mitglied bei Platypus. Das nachfolgende Interview fand am 21. März 2017 statt.

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Messages in a bottle instead of pseudo-revolution: an interview with Detlev Claussen

Jan Schroeder

Detlev Claussen is Professor Emeritus at Leibniz University in Germany and author of Theodor W. Adorno: One Last Genius. He defends Critical Theory’s political relevance against both academic co-optation and the charge of retreat into the academic ivory tower. His writings investigate, among other things, Lenin’s influence on Adorno’s thought. Jan Schroeder is a member of Platypus. The following interview was conducted in German on March 21, 2017. What follows is Clara Picker’s translation of the transcript of that interview.

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Interview with Matt Cavagrotti and Greg Lucero of Teamsters for a Democratic Union

Radical Minds co-hosts Erin Hagood and Stephanie Gomez interview Matt Cavagrotti and Greg Lucero on the historical and contemporary relationship between socialism and organized labor.

Greg Lucero is a member of Teamsters, Revolutionary Chicago, and the Socialist Party USA. Matt Cavagrotti is a member of Teamsters and the Platypus Affiliated Society.

Topics discussed include:

Recent wave of American teachers' strikes
AFSCME vs. Janus Supreme Court decision
Upcoming contract negotiations between UPS and Teamsters
Legacy of the New Communist Movement's failed "turn to industry" in the 1970s
The nature and problems of revolutionary leadership
Prospects for reviving unionism and socialism in the U.S.

Radical Minds is a radio show exploring the intersection between politics and economics in the modern world, broadcast on WHPK (88.5 FM Chicago). This episode aired May 24, 2018.

The article referenced by Greg is Radical Minds' interview with Mark Rudd, leader of Students for a Democratic Society and co-founder of the Weather Underground, published in issue 24 of the Platypus Review.

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1918–2018: The century of counterrevolution

Chris Cutrone

Recently, I came across a 1938 article by the “Left communist” Paul Mattick, Sr., titled “Karl Kautsky: From Marx to Hitler.” In it, Mattick asserted that the reformist social democracy that Kautsky ended up embracing was the harbinger of fascism — of Nazism. There is a certain affinity to Friedrich Hayek’s book on The Road to Serfdom (1944), in which a similar argument is made about the affinity of socialism and fascism. If Marxism (e.g. Kautsky) led to Hitler, as Hayek and Mattick aver, then this is because the counterrevolution was in the revolutionary tradition.

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The future of socialism: What kind of illness is capitalism?

Chris Cutrone

THE FUTURE OF SOCIALISM is the future of capitalism—the future of capitalism is the future of socialism. Socialism is an illness of capitalism. Socialism is the prognosis of capitalism. In this respect, it is a certain diagnosis of capitalism. It is a symptom of capitalism. It is capitalism’s pathology. It recurs, returning and repeating. So long as there is capitalism there will be demands for socialism. But capitalism has changed throughout its history, and thus become conditioned by the demands for socialism.

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