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Presented at the Left Forum 2018 on the panel “Has ‘the Left’ Accommodated Trump (and Putin)? A Debate,” with Ravi Bali, Brendan Cooney, Anne Jaclard, Daphne Lawless and Bill Weinberg, organized by the Marxist-Humanist Initiative at John Jay College in NYC on June 2, 2018.
Detlev Claussen ist emeritierter Professor fĂŒr Gesellschaftstheorie, Kultur- und Wissenschaftssoziologie an der Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz UniversitĂ€t in Hannover. Entgegen einer Vereinnahmung durch den akademischen Betrieb und der Anklage eines kulturpessimistischen RĂŒckzuges 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. MĂ€rz 2017 statt.
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.

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.

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.