The Platypus Affiliated Society

Platypus primary Marxist reading group Winter – Spring 2025

II. Introduction to revolutionary Marxism

• required / + recommended reading

Marx and Engels readings pp. from Robert C. Tucker, ed., Marx-Engels Reader (Norton 2nd ed., 1978)

Film screenings: Winter 2025

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

4 screenings, each ~2 hours of film:
1.) Fall of Eagles episodes: #5 "The Last Tsar" and #6 "Absolute Beginners" on the origins of the Bolsheviks
2.) 37 Days Episode #3 "One Long Weekend" (uncut BBC version including the Socialists) on the start of WWI; and Fall of Eagles episode #12 "The Secret War" on WWI and the Russian Revolution
3.) Fall of Eagles episode #13 "End Game" on the German Revolution 1918-19; and Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States Prequel Episode A. 1900-20, on imperialism, WWI and the Russian Revolution
4.) Rosa Luxemburg film

additional recommended screenings:
+ Fall of Eagles episodes #s 7-8 "Dearest Nicky" and "The Appointment" on the Russo-Japanese War and Russian Revolution of 1905 and modernization, the Narodniks and Socialist Revolutionaries
+ Reds film on American anarchists, Socialists and Communists in WWI and the Russian Revolution
+ Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States Prequel Episode B. 1920-40 on counterrevolution, fascism, the Great Depression, Stalinism and Nazism

Winter 2025

I. What is the Left? – What is Marxism?

Winter–Spring 2025

II. Introduction to revolutionary Marxism

Week 11. Revolutionary leadership | Jan. 25, 2025

• Rosa Luxemburg, “The Crisis of German Social Democracy” Part 1 (1915) [HTML]
• J. P. Nettl, “The German Social Democratic Party 1890–1914 as a Political Model” (1965)
• Cliff Slaughter, “What is Revolutionary Leadership?” (1960)

Week 12. Reform or revolution? | Feb. 1, 2025

• Luxemburg, Reform or Revolution? (1900/08)
+ Eugene Debs, "Competition versus Cooperation" (1900)

Week 13. Lenin and the vanguard party | Feb. 8, 2025

• Spartacist League, Lenin and the Vanguard Party (1978)
+ Richard Appignanesi and Oscar Zarate / A&Z, Introducing Lenin and the Russian Revolution / Lenin for Beginners (1977)

Week 14. What is to be done? | Feb. 15, 2025

• 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 15. Mass strike and social democracy | Feb. 22, 2025

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

Week 16. Permanent revolution | Mar. 1, 2025

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

Week 17. State and revolution | Mar. 8, 2025

• Lenin, The State and Revolution (1917)

Week 18. Imperialism | Mar. 15, 2025

“The bourgeoisie makes it its business to promote trusts, drive women and children into the factories, subject them to corruption and suffering, condemn them to extreme poverty. We do not ‘demand’ such development, we do not ‘support’ it. We fight it. But how do we fight? We explain that trusts and the employment of women in industry are progressive. We do not want a return to the handicraft system, pre-monopoly capitalism, domestic drudgery for women. Forward through the trusts, etc., and beyond them to socialism!”
— Lenin, The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution (1916/17)

• 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)
+ Lenin, The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution (1916/17)

Week 19. Mar. 22, 2025 (spring break)

Week 20. Failure of the revolution | Mar. 29, 2025

• 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)
+ Eugene Debs, “The Day of the People” (1919)
+ Sebastian Haffner, Failure of a Revolution: Germany 1918–19 (1968)

Week 21. Apr. 5, 2025 [Platypus international convention]

Week 22. Retreat after revolution | Apr. 12, 2025

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

Week 23. Dialectic of reification | Apr. 19, 2025

• 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
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
+ Commodity form chart of terms
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms + Organic composition of capital chart of terms
+ Reification chart of terms
+ Lukács, “The phenomenon of reification” (Part I of “Reification and the consciousness of the proletariat,” History and Class Consciousness, 1923)

Week 24. Lessons of October | Apr. 26, 2025

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

Week 25. Trotskyism | May 3, 2025

+ Trotsky, "To build communist parties and an international anew" (1933)
+ Trotsky, "If America should go communist" (1934)
• Trotsky, The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International (AKA The Transitional Program and the Struggle for Socialism, 1938)
+ Trotsky, "Trade unions in the epoch of imperialist decay" (1940)
+ Trotsky, Letter to James Cannon (September 12, 1939)

Week 26. The authoritarian state | May 10, 2025

• Friedrich Pollock, "State Capitalism: Its Possibilities and Limitations" (1941) (note 32 on USSR)
• Max Horkheimer, "The Authoritarian State" (1940) [PDF]
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms

Week 27. On the concept of history | May 17, 2025

• 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, "Fire alarm" (from One-Way Street, 1928)
[JPG] [PDF]
+ Benjamin, "Experience and poverty" (1933)
+ Benjamin, Theologico-political fragment (1921/39?)
+ epigraphs by Hegel and W.E.B. DuBois on history
+ Benjamin on history chart of terms
• Benjamin, "On the Concept of History" (AKA "Theses on the Philosophy of History") (1940) [PDF]
• Benjamin, Paralipomena to "On the Concept of History" (1940)
+ Benjamin, Arcades Project Convolute N, "On the theory of knowledge, theory of progress" (see especially p. 471 [N8,1] on Horkheimer on unredeemablility of past suffering)
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms

Week 28. Reflections on Marxism | May 24, 2025

+ Capital in history timeline and chart of terms
+ Benjamin on history chart of terms
• Theodor Adorno, “Reflections on Class Theory” (1942)
• Adorno, “Imaginative Excesses” (1944–47)
+ Adorno, letter to Benjamin on "The Work of Art..." essay and intellectuals and the proletariat (1936)
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
+ 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?") [PDF] [Deutsch] (1956)

Week 29. Theory and practice | May 31, 2025

+ Adorno, “On Subject and Object” (1969)
+ Commodity form chart of terms
+ Reification chart of terms
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
+ Adorno's critique of actionism chart of terms
• Adorno, “Marginalia to Theory and Praxis” (1969)
• Adorno, “Resignation” (1969)
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
+ Adorno, “Late Capitalism or Industrial Society?” (AKA “Is Marx Obsolete?”) (1968)
+ Organic composition of capital chart of terms
+ Esther Leslie, Introduction to the 1969 Adorno-Marcuse correspondence (1999)
+ Adorno and Herbert Marcuse, correspondence on the German New Left (1969)
+ Adorno, Interview with Der Spiegel magazine (1969)

[. . .]

Platypus primary Marxist reading group Summer and Fall 2024 – Winter 2025

Summer and Fall/Autumn 2024 – Winter 2025

I. What is the Left? – What is Marxism?

• required / + recommended reading

Marx and Engels readings pp. from Robert C. Tucker, ed., Marx-Engels Reader (Norton 2nd ed., 1978)

Week A. Introduction: Capital in history | Jul. 27, 2024

• Max Horkheimer, "The little man and the philosophy of freedom" (1926–31)

• epigraphs on modern history and freedom by Louis Menand (on Marx and Engels), Karl Marx, on "becoming" (from the Grundrisse, 1857–58), and Peter Preuss (on history)

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms

• Chris Cutrone, "Capital in history" (2008)

+ Capital in history timeline and chart of terms

+ video of Communist University 2011 London presentation

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms

• Cutrone, "The Marxist hypothesis" (2010)

• Cutrone, “Class consciousness (from a Marxist perspective) today” (2012)

+ G.M. Tamas, "Telling the truth about class" [HTML] (2007)

+ Robert Pippin, "On Critical Theory" (2004)

+ Rainer Maria Rilke, "Archaic Torso of Apollo" (1908)

Week B. 1960s New Left I. Neo-Marxism | Aug. 3, 2024

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms

• Martin Nicolaus, “The unknown Marx” (1968)

+ Commodity form chart of terms

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms

+ Organic composition of capital chart of terms

+ Marx on surplus-value chart of terms

• Theodor W. Adorno, “Late Capitalism or Industrial Society?” (AKA “Is Marx Obsolete?”) (1968)

• Moishe Postone, “Necessity, labor, and time” (1978)

+ Postone, “Interview: Marx after Marxism” (2008)

+ Postone, “History and helplessness: Mass mobilization and contemporary forms of anticapitalism” (2006)

+ Postone, “Theorizing the contemporary world: Brenner, Arrighi, Harvey” (2006)

Week C. 1960s New Left II: Gender and sexuality | Aug. 10, 2024

The situation of women is different from that of any other social group. This is because they are not one of a number of isolable units, but half a totality: the human species. Women are essential and irreplaceable; they cannot therefore be exploited in the same way as other social groups can. They are fundamental to the human condition, yet in their economic, social and political roles, they are marginal. It is precisely this combination — fundamental and marginal at one and the same time — that has been fatal to them.
— Juliet Mitchell, "Women: The longest revolution" (1966)

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms

• Juliet Mitchell, “Women: The longest revolution” (1966)

• Clara Zetkin and Vladimir Lenin, “An interview on the woman question” (1920)

• Theodor W. Adorno, “Sexual taboos and the law today” (1963)

+ Freud categories chart of terms [PNG]

• John D’Emilio, “Capitalism and gay identity” (1983)

Week D. 1960s New Left III. Anti-black racism in the U.S. | Aug. 17, 2024

As a social party we receive the Negro and all other races upon absolutely equal terms. We are the party of the working class, the whole working class, and we will not suffer ourselves to be divided by any specious appeal to race prejudice; and if we should be coaxed or driven from the straight road we will be lost in the wilderness and ought to perish there, for we shall no longer be a Socialist party.
— Eugene Debs, "The Negro in the class struggle" (1903)

+ Eugene Debs, "The Negro in the class struggle" (1903)

+ Debs, "The Negro and his nemesis" (1904)

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms

• Richard Fraser, “Two lectures on the black question in America and revolutionary integrationism” (1953)

+ Fraser, "For the materialist conception of the Negro struggle" (1955)

• James Robertson and Shirley Stoute, “For black Trotskyism” (1963)

+ Spartacist League, “Black and red: Class struggle road to Negro freedom” (1966)

+ Bayard Rustin, “The failure of black separatism” (1970)

• Adolph Reed, “Black particularity reconsidered” (1979)

+ Reed, “Paths to Critical Theory” (1984)

Week E. Frankfurt School precursors | Aug. 24, 2024

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms

• Wilhelm Reich, “Ideology as material power” (1933/46)

+ Freud categories chart of terms [PNG]

• Siegfried Kracauer, “The mass ornament” (1927)

+ Kracauer, “Photography” (1927)

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms

Week F. Radical bourgeois philosophy I. Rousseau: Crossroads of society | Aug. 31, 2024

To be radical is to go to the root of the matter. For man, however, the root is man himself.
— Marx, Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (1843)

Whoever dares undertake to establish a people’s institutions must feel himself capable of changing, as it were, human nature, of transforming each individual, who by himself is a complete and solitary whole, into a part of a larger whole, from which, in a sense, the individual receives his life and his being, of substituting a limited and mental existence for the physical and independent existence. He has to take from man his own powers, and give him in exchange alien powers which he cannot employ without the help of other men.
— Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract (1762)

• Max Horkheimer, "The little man and the philosophy of freedom" (1926–31)

• epigraphs on modern history and freedom by James Miller (on Jean-Jacques Rousseau), Louis Menand (on Marx and Engels), Karl Marx, on "becoming" (from the Grundrisse, 1857–58), and Peter Preuss (on history)

+ Rainer Maria Rilke, "Archaic Torso of Apollo" (1908)

+ Robert Pippin, "On Critical Theory" (2004)

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (1754) PDFs of preferred translation (5 parts): [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

+ Capital in history timeline and chart of terms

• Rousseau, selection from On the Social Contract (1762) [on freedom and alienation]

Week G. Radical bourgeois philosophy II. Adam Smith: On the wealth of nations (part 1) | Sep. 7, 2024

• Adam Smith, selections from The Wealth of Nations

Volume I [PDF]
Vol. 1: pp. 1-4, 7-43, 53-110, 399-446
Introduction and Plan of the Work
Book I: Of the Causes of Improvement…
I.1. Of the Division of Labor
I.2. Of the Principle which gives Occasion to the Division of Labour
I.3. That the Division of Labour is Limited by the Extent of the Market
I.4. Of the Origin and Use of Money
I.5 Of the Real and Nominal Price of Commodities
I.6. Of the Component Parts of the Price of Commodities
I.7. Of the Natural and Market Price of Commodities
I.8. Of the Wages of Labour
I.9. Of the Profits of Stock
Book III: Of the different Progress of Opulence in different Nations
III.1. Of the Natural Progress of Opulence
III.2. Of the Discouragement of Agriculture in the Ancient State of Europe after the Fall of the Roman Empire
III.3. Of the Rise and Progress of Cities and Towns, after the Fall of the Roman Empire
III.4. How the Commerce of the Towns Contributed to the Improvement of the Country

Week H. Radical bourgeois philosophy III. Adam Smith: On the wealth of nations (part 2) | Sep. 14, 2024

• Smith, selections from The Wealth of Nations

Volume II [PDF]
Vol. 2: pp. 66-158, 282-309, 338-340
IV.7, Of Colonies
V.1. Of the Expences of the Sovereign or Commonwealth Article 2d and 3d and Part IV

Week I. Radical bourgeois philosophy IV. What is the Third Estate? | Sep. 21, 2024

• Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, What is the Third Estate? (1789) [full text]

+ Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees (1732)

Week J. Radical bourgeois philosophy V. Kant and Constant: Bourgeois society | Sep. 28, 2024

• Immanuel Kant, "Idea for a universal history from a cosmopolitan point of view" and "What is Enlightenment?" (1784)

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms

+ Kant's 3 Critiques [PNG] and philosophy [PNG] charts of terms

• Benjamin Constant, "The liberty of the ancients compared with that of the moderns" (1819)

+ Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the origin of inequality (1754)

+ Rousseau, selection from On the social contract (1762)

Week K. Radical bourgeois philosophy VI. Hegel: Freedom in history | Oct. 5, 2024

"When we look at this drama of human passions, and observe the consequences of their violence and of the unreason that is linked not only to them but also (and especially) to good intentions and rightful aims; when we see arising from them all the evil, the wickedness, the decline of the most flourishing nations mankind has produced, we can only be filled with grief for all that has come to nothing. And since this decline and fall is not merely the work of nature but of the will of men, we might well end with moral outrage over such a drama, and with a revolt of our good spirit (if there is a spirit of goodness in us). Without rhetorical exaggeration, we could paint the most fearful picture of the misfortunes suffered by the noblest of nations and states as well as by private virtues — and with that picture we could arouse feelings of the deepest and most helpless sadness, not to be outweighed by any consoling outcome. We can strengthen ourselves against this, or escape it, only by thinking that, well, so it was at one time; it is fate; there is nothing to be done about it now. And finally — in order to cast off the tediousness that this reflection of sadness could produce in us and to return to involvement in our own life, to the present of our own aims and interests — we return to the selfishness of standing on a quiet shore where we can be secure in enjoying the distant sight of confusion and wreckage… But as we contemplate history as this slaughter-bench, upon which the happiness of nations, the wisdom of states, and the virtues of individuals were sacrificed, the question necessarily comes to mind: What was the ultimate goal for which these monstrous sacrifices were made?… World history is the progress in the consciousness of freedom — a progress that we must come to know in its necessity… The Orientals knew only that one person is free; the Greeks and Romans that some are free; while we [moderns] know that all humans are implicitly free, qua human… The final goal of the world, we said, is Spirit’s consciousness of its freedom, and hence also the actualization of that very freedom… It is this final goal — freedom — toward which all the world’s history has been working. It is this goal to which all the sacrifices have been brought upon the broad altar of the earth in the long flow of time."
— Hegel, Introduction to the Philosophy of History

• G.W.F. Hegel, Introduction to the Philosophy of History (1831) [HTML] [PDF pp. 14-128] [Audiobook]

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms

Week 1. What is the Left? I. Capital in history | Oct. 12, 2024

• Max Horkheimer, "The little man and the philosophy of freedom" (1926–31)

• epigraphs on modern history and freedom by Louis Menand (on Marx and Engels), Karl Marx, on "becoming" (from the Grundrisse, 1857–58), and Peter Preuss (on history)

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms

• Chris Cutrone, "Capital in history" (2008)

+ Capital in history timeline and chart of terms

+ video of Communist University 2011 London presentation

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms

• Cutrone, "The Marxist hypothesis" (2010)

• Cutrone, “Class consciousness (from a Marxist perspective) today” (2012)

+ G.M. Tamas, "Telling the truth about class" [HTML] (2007)

+ Robert Pippin, "On Critical Theory" (2004)

+ Rainer Maria Rilke, "Archaic Torso of Apollo" (1908)

Week 2. What is the Left? II. Utopia and critique | Oct. 19, 2024

• Max Horkheimer, selections from Dämmerung (1926–31)

• Adorno, “Imaginative Excesses” (1944–47)

• Leszek Kolakowski, “The concept of the Left” (1958)

• Herbert Marcuse, "Note on dialectic" (1960)

• Marx, To make the world philosophical (from Marx's dissertation, 1839–41), pp. 9–11

• Marx, For the ruthless criticism of everything existing (letter to Arnold Ruge, September 1843), pp. 12–15

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms

Week 3. What is Marxism? I. Socialism | Oct. 26, 2024

• Marx, selections from Economic and philosophic manuscripts (1844), pp. 70–101

+ Commodity form chart of terms

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms

+ Engels, "Principles of communism" (1847) / "Draft of a communist confession of faith: Credo" (1847)
• Marx and Friedrich Engels, selections from the Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), pp. 469–500

• Marx, The coming upheaval (from The Poverty of Philosophy, 1847), pp. 218–19

Week 4. What is Marxism? II. Revolution in 1848 | Nov. 2, 2024

• Marx, Address to the Central Committee of the Communist League (1850), pp. 501–511 and Class struggle and mode of production (letter to Weydemeyer, 1852), pp. 218–220

• Engels, The tactics of social democracy (Engels's 1895 introduction to Marx, The Class Struggles in France), pp. 556–573

• Marx, selections from The Class Struggles in France 1848–50 (1850), pp. 586–593

• Marx, selections from The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852), pp. 594–617, including 1869 Preface

Week 5. What is Marxism? III. Bonapartism | Nov. 9, 2024

+ Karl Korsch, "The Marxism of the First International" (1924)

• Marx, Inaugural address to the First International (1864), pp. 512–519

• Marx, selections from The Civil War in France (1871, including Engels's 1891 Introduction + Postscript), pp. 618–652

+ Korsch, Introduction to Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme (1922)

• Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, pp. 525–541

• Marx, Programme of the Parti Ouvrier (1880)

Week 6. What is Marxism? IV. Critique of political economy | Nov. 16, 2024

The fetish character of the commodity is not a fact of consciousness; rather it is dialectical, in the eminent sense that it produces consciousness. . . . [P]erfection of the commodity character in a Hegelian self-consciousness inaugurates the explosion of its phantasmagoria.
— Theodor W. Adorno, letter to Walter Benjamin, August 2, 1935

+ Karl Marx, on "becoming" (from the Grundrisse, 1857–58)
+ Commodity form chart of terms
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
+ Organic composition of capital chart of terms
+ Marx on surplus-value chart of terms
• Marx, selections from the Grundrisse (1857–61), pp. 222–226, 236–244, 247–250, 276–293
• Marx, Capital Vol. I, Ch. 1 Sec. 4 "The fetishism of commodities" (1867), pp. 319–329
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms

Week 7. What is Marxism? V. Reification | Nov. 23, 2024 / Jan. 4, 2025

Winter break readings

+ 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)
+ Carl Schorske, The SPD 1905-17: The Development of the Great Schism (1955)
+ J.P. Nettl, Rosa Luxemburg (1966) [Vol. 1] [Vol. 2]
+ 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

Week 8. Nov. 30, 2024 U.S. Thanksgiving break

Week 9. What is Marxism? VI. Class consciousness | Dec. 7, 2024 / Jan. 11, 2025

Week 10. What is Marxism? VII. Ends of philosophy | Dec. 14, 2024 / Jan. 18, 2025

• Korsch, “Marxism and philosophy” (1923)

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms

+ Herbert Marcuse, "Note on dialectic" (1960)
+ Marx, To make the world philosophical (from Marx's dissertation, 1839–41), pp. 9–11

+ Marx, For the ruthless criticism of everything existing (letter to Arnold Ruge, September 1843), pp. 12–15

+ Marx, "Theses on Feuerbach" (1845), pp. 143–145

Winter–Spring 2025

II. Introduction to revolutionary Marxism

[. . .]

Summer 2024 readings: The Right for the Left

( • required / + recommended readings)

Recommended background reading:
+ J.P. Nettl, "The SPD 1890-1914 as political model" (1965)

Week 1 | June 8, 2024

• Georges Sorel, Reflections on Violence (1908/19)
[Priority readings: Letter to Daniel Halevy; Introduction; Chapters 2, 4, 5 (complete); final section of Chapter 6 (section IV); final section of Chapter 7 (section V); Appendix III: In Defense of Lenin]
+ Sorel, "The decomposition of Marxism" [pp. 211-254] (1908)

Week 2 | June 15, 2024

• Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political (1932) including + "The age of neutralizations and depoliticizations" (1929)
+ Schmitt, "Political theology" Chapter 3 of Political Theology (1922/34)
+ Schmitt, Chapters 3-6 of Dictatorship (1921)
+ Schmitt, "Dictatorship in Marxist thought" Chapter 3 of The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy (1923/26)
(+ Walter Benjamin, "Critique of violence" [updated translation from Selected Writings], 1921)

Week 3 | June 22, 2024

• James Burnham, The Managerial Revolution (1941)
[Priority readings: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8 pp. 99-109, Chapter 9 pp. 119-126, 135-138, Chapter 10 pp. 143-151, Chapter 11 pp. 160-171, Chapter 13]

Week 4 | June 29, 2024

• Burnham, The Machiavellians (1943)
[Priority readings: Part I Section 3, Parts II, III, VI, VII]

Week 5 | July 6, 2024

• Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (1963)
[Priority readings: Introduction, Chapters 1, 3, 4, 6]

Week 6 | July 13, 2024

• Arendt, On Violence (1969)
+ Arendt, The Human Condition (1958), Prologue, Part I. The Human Condition
+ Arendt, selections from Origins of Totalitarianism (1951/58): Prefaces to First and Second Enlarged Editions; Part Two: Imperialism Chapters 5 and 9; Part Three: Totalitarianism Chapters 10-14 (including Epilogue: Reflections on the Hungarian Revolution)

Week 7 | July 20, 2024

• Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (1985)

[. . .]

Platypus primary Marxist reading group Winter – Spring 2024

II. Introduction to revolutionary Marxism

• required / + recommended reading

Marx and Engels readings pp. from Robert C. Tucker, ed., Marx-Engels Reader (Norton 2nd ed., 1978)

Film screenings: Winter 2024

Winter 2024

I. What is the Left? – What is Marxism?

Week 8. What is Marxism? V. Reification | Jan. 6, 2024

Week 9. What is Marxism? VI. Class consciousness | Jan. 13, 2024

Week 10. What is Marxism? VII. Ends of philosophy | Jan. 20, 2024

Winter–Spring 2024

II. Introduction to revolutionary Marxism

Week 11. Revolutionary leadership | Jan. 27, 2024

Week 12. Reform or revolution? | Feb. 3, 2024

• Luxemburg, Reform or Revolution? (1900/08)
+ Eugene Debs, "Competition versus Cooperation" (1900)

Week 13. Lenin and the vanguard party | Feb. 10, 2024

• Spartacist League, Lenin and the Vanguard Party (1978)
+ Richard Appignanesi and Oscar Zarate / A&Z, Introducing Lenin and the Russian Revolution / Lenin for Beginners (1977)

Week 14. What is to be done? | Feb. 17, 2024

• 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 15. Mass strike and social democracy | Feb. 24, 2024

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

Week 16. Permanent revolution | Mar. 2, 2024

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

Week 17. State and revolution | Mar. 9, 2024

• Lenin, The State and Revolution (1917)

Week 18. Mar. 16, 2024 (spring break)

Week 19. Imperialism | Mar. 23, 2024

“The bourgeoisie makes it its business to promote trusts, drive women and children into the factories, subject them to corruption and suffering, condemn them to extreme poverty. We do not ‘demand’ such development, we do not ‘support’ it. We fight it. But how do we fight? We explain that trusts and the employment of women in industry are progressive. We do not want a return to the handicraft system, pre-monopoly capitalism, domestic drudgery for women. Forward through the trusts, etc., and beyond them to socialism!”
— Lenin, The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution (1916/17)

Week 20. Failure of the revolution | Mar. 30, 2024

Week 21. Apr. 6, 2024 [Platypus international convention]

Week 22. Retreat after revolution | Apr. 13, 2024

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

Week 23. Dialectic of reification | Apr. 20, 2024

Week 24. Lessons of October | Apr. 27, 2024

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

Week 25. Trotskyism | May 4, 2024

Week 26. The authoritarian state | May 11, 2024

Week 27. On the concept of history | May 18, 2024

Week 28. Reflections on Marxism | May 25, 2024

Week 29. Theory and practice | June 1, 2024

[. . .]

Platypus Berlin Sommerlesekreis 2023: Kritik der politischen Ökonomie

Der Lesekreis soll einen Überblick über das vielbesprochene, aber selten wirklich gelesene Opus magnum von Marx, „das Kapital - Kritik der politischen Ökonomie“, bieten. Um ein Verständnis des Gesamtwerks zu gewinnen, werden Ausschnitte sowohl aus den Grundrissen, dem ersten, dem dritten und dem inoffiziellen vierten Band („Die Theorien über den Mehrwert“) diskutiert. Entgegen der Herangehensweise der sogenannten „Neuen Marx-Lektüre“ soll dabei das „Politische“ nicht vom „Ökonomischen“, das „Frühe“ nicht vom Späten“ und das „Logische“ nicht vom „Historischen“ getrennt werden. Ebenso wenig wollen wir Marx gegen seinen engsten Mitstreiter Friedrich Engels ausspielen. Welche Rolle also nimmt die Kritik der politischen Ökonomie in der Politik von Marx und dem Marxismus ein?

Die Texte werden im Voraus gelesen und dann zusammen diskutiert. Neueinsteiger sind herzlich willkommen und es werden keine Vorkenntnisse benötigt!

Zeit: Mittwochs, 19:00 - 22:00, 9. August - 27. September 2023

Ort: Hedwig Dohm Haus, Ziegelstr. 4, HU Berlin

Weitere Infos über Telegram und andere Kanäle

• vorausgesetzte Texte

+ zusätzlich, empfohlene Texte

Hintergrundlektüre:

+ Commodity form chart of terms
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
+ Organic composition of capital chart of terms
+ Marx on surplus-value chart of terms

+ Karl Kautsky (1903): Karl Marx’ Ökonomische Lehren gemeinverständlich dargestellt und erläutert

+ Franz Mehring (1918): Karl Marx - Geschichte seines Lebens

+ David Riazanov (1927): Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: An Introduction to Their Lives and Work

Woche 1.: Einführung | 9. August

• Karl Marx (1849): Lohnarbeit und Kapital

• Karl Marx, Die kommende Schlacht (aus Das Elend der Philosophie, 1847)

• Karl Marx, Klassenkampf und Produktionsweise (aus dem Brief an Weydemeyer, 1852)

• Wladimir Lenin (1914): Karl Marx. In: Lenin Werke Band 21, S.30-80 (Für die Diskussion vorausgesetzt wird nur das Kapitel „Die Ökonomische Lehre von Marx“)

Woche 2.: Die Grundrisse | 16. August

• Karl Marx (1857): Einleitung zur Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie

• Karl Marx, Auszüge aus den Grundrisse (1857–61)

Woche 3: Das Kapital (Band 1) Teil 1 | 23. August

• Marx: Das Kapital Band 1. Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie: Vorwort zur ersten und Nachwort zur zweiten Auflage (1867/1873) von Das Kapital Bd. I (1867), Vor- und Nachwort zur französischen Ausgabe (1872), Erster Abschnitt Ware und Geld. Erstes Kapitel: Die Ware., Zweiter Abschnitt. Viertes Kapitel. Die Verwandlung von Geld in Kapital. Nur: Die allgemeine Formel des Kapitals

Woche 4: Das Kapital (Band 1) Teil 2 | 30. August

• Marx: Das Kapital Band 1. Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie: Viertes Kapitel: Der Kauf und Verkauf der Arbeitskraft, Sechstes Kapitel: Konstantes Kapital und variables Kapital, Siebtes Kapitel: Die Rate des Mehrwerts, Achtes Kapitel: Der Arbeitstag

Woche 5: Das Kapital (Band 1) Teil 3 | 6. September

• Marx: Das Kapital Band 1. Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie: Teil 4. Die Produktion des relativen Mehrwerts, Zehntes Kapitel: Begriff des relativen Mehrwerts, Elftes Kapitel: Kooperation, Zwölftes Kapitel: Teilung der Arbeit und Manufaktur (1-5), Dreizehntes Kapitel: Maschinerie und große Industrie (nur Teil 1 und Teil 3)

Woche 6: Das Kapital (Band 1) Teil 4 | 13. September

• Marx: Das Kapital Band 1. Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie: Dreizehntes Kapitel, Teil 4: Die Fabrik, Teil 5: Der Kampf zwischen Arbeiter und Maschine, Teil 9: Fabrikgesetzgebung, Teil 10: Große Industrie und Agrikultur, Vierzehntes Kapitel: Die Produktion des absoluten und relativen Mehrwerts, Dreiundzwanzigstes Kapitel. Das allgemeine Gesetz der kapitalistischen Akkumulation Nur Teil 1, 3 und 4, Vierundzwanzigstes Kapitel. Die sogenannte ursprüngliche Akkumulation: 1. Das Geheimnis der ursprünglichen Akkumulation, 2. Expropriation des Landvolks von Grund und Boden, 6. Genesis des industriellen Kapitalisten, 7. Geschichtliche Tendenz der kapitalistischen Akkumulation

Woche 7: Das Kapital (Band 3) Teil 1 | 20. September

• Marx: Das Kapital Band 1. Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie: Vierundzwanzigstes Kapitel. Die sogenannte ursprüngliche Akkumulation: 1. Das Geheimnis der ursprünglichen Akkumulation, 2. Expropriation des Landvolks von Grund und Boden, 6. Genesis des industriellen Kapitalisten, 7. Geschichtliche Tendenz der kapitalistischen Akkumulation

• Marx: Das Kapital Band 3. Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie: Dritter Abschnitt. Gesetz des tendenziellen Falls der Profitrate, Dreizehntes Kapitel, Vierzehntes Kapitel, Fünfzehntes Kapitel

Woche 8: Das Kapital (Band 3) Teil 2 | 27. September

• Marx: Das Kapital Band 3. Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie: Siebenter Abschnitt. Die Revenuen und ihre Quellen. Die trinitarische Formel, 48., 49., 50. und 51. Kapitel

• Marx: Die Theorien über den Mehrwert: Kapitel 17.: Abschnitt 8., 9., 10., 11. und 14

[. . .]

1 2 3 4 5...15 16

II. Introduction to revolutionary Marxism

Recommended winter break preliminary readings:

Film screenings: Winter 2025

Winter 2025

Week 8. What is Marxism? V. Reification | Jan. 4, 2025

Week 9. What is Marxism? VI. Class consciousness | Jan. 11, 2025

Week 10. What is Marxism? VII. Ends of philosophy | Jan. 18, 2025

Winter–Spring 2025

II. Introduction to revolutionary Marxism

Week 11. Revolutionary leadership | Jan. 25, 2025

Week 12. Reform or revolution? | Feb. 1, 2025

Week 13. Lenin and the vanguard party | Feb. 8, 2025

Week 14. What is to be done? | Feb. 15, 2025

Week 15. Mass strike and social democracy | Feb. 22, 2025

Week 16. Permanent revolution | Mar. 1, 2025

Week 17. State and revolution | Mar. 8, 2025

Week 18. Imperialism | Mar. 15, 2025

Week 19. Mar. 22, 2025 (spring break)

Week 20. Failure of the revolution | Mar. 29, 2025

Week 21. Apr. 5, 2025 [Platypus international convention]

Week 22. Retreat after revolution | Apr. 12, 2025

Week 23. Dialectic of reification | Apr. 19, 2025

Week 24. Lessons of October | Apr. 26, 2025

Week 25. Trotskyism | May 3, 2025

Week 26. The authoritarian state | May 10, 2025

Week 27. On the concept of history | May 17, 2025

Week 28. Reflections on Marxism | May 24, 2025

Week 29. Theory and practice | May 31, 2025

Summer and Fall/Autumn 2024 – Winter 2025

I. What is the Left? – What is Marxism?

Week A. Introduction: Capital in history | Jul. 27, 2024

Week B. 1960s New Left I. Neo-Marxism | Aug. 3, 2024

Week C. 1960s New Left II: Gender and sexuality | Aug. 10, 2024

Week D. 1960s New Left III. Anti-black racism in the U.S. | Aug. 17, 2024

Week E. Frankfurt School precursors | Aug. 24, 2024

Week F. Radical bourgeois philosophy I. Rousseau: Crossroads of society | Aug. 31, 2024

Week G. Radical bourgeois philosophy II. Adam Smith: On the wealth of nations (part 1) | Sep. 7, 2024

Week H. Radical bourgeois philosophy III. Adam Smith: On the wealth of nations (part 2) | Sep. 14, 2024

Week I. Radical bourgeois philosophy IV. What is the Third Estate? | Sep. 21, 2024

Week J. Radical bourgeois philosophy V. Kant and Constant: Bourgeois society | Sep. 28, 2024

Week K. Radical bourgeois philosophy VI. Hegel: Freedom in history | Oct. 5, 2024

Week 1. What is the Left? I. Capital in history | Oct. 12, 2024

Week 2. What is the Left? II. Utopia and critique | Oct. 19, 2024

Week 3. What is Marxism? I. Socialism | Oct. 26, 2024

Week 4. What is Marxism? II. Revolution in 1848 | Nov. 2, 2024

Week 5. What is Marxism? III. Bonapartism | Nov. 9, 2024

Week 6. What is Marxism? IV. Critique of political economy | Nov. 16, 2024

Week 7. What is Marxism? V. Reification | Nov. 23, 2024 / Jan. 4, 2025

Winter break readings

Week 8. Nov. 30, 2024 U.S. Thanksgiving break

Week 9. What is Marxism? VI. Class consciousness | Dec. 7, 2024 / Jan. 11, 2025

Week 10. What is Marxism? VII. Ends of philosophy | Dec. 14, 2024 / Jan. 18, 2025

Winter–Spring 2025

Week 1 | June 8, 2024

Week 2 | June 15, 2024

Week 3 | June 22, 2024

Week 4 | June 29, 2024

Week 5 | July 6, 2024

Week 6 | July 13, 2024

Week 7 | July 20, 2024

II. Introduction to revolutionary Marxism

Recommended winter break preliminary readings:

Film screenings: Winter 2024

Winter 2024

Week 8. What is Marxism? V. Reification | Jan. 6, 2024

Week 9. What is Marxism? VI. Class consciousness | Jan. 13, 2024

Week 10. What is Marxism? VII. Ends of philosophy | Jan. 20, 2024

Winter–Spring 2024

II. Introduction to revolutionary Marxism

Week 11. Revolutionary leadership | Jan. 27, 2024

Week 12. Reform or revolution? | Feb. 3, 2024

Week 13. Lenin and the vanguard party | Feb. 10, 2024

Week 14. What is to be done? | Feb. 17, 2024

Week 15. Mass strike and social democracy | Feb. 24, 2024

Week 16. Permanent revolution | Mar. 2, 2024

Week 17. State and revolution | Mar. 9, 2024

Week 18. Mar. 16, 2024 (spring break)

Week 19. Imperialism | Mar. 23, 2024

Week 20. Failure of the revolution | Mar. 30, 2024

Week 21. Apr. 6, 2024 [Platypus international convention]