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Durch die Lektüre von bedeutenden Texten der Hochphase des Marxismus in der Zweiten Internationale und ihrer Krise im 20. Jahrhundert betrachten wir das Problem des Bewusstseins dieser Geschichte und ihrer politischen Implikationen für die Gegenwart. Die Textauswahl beinhaltet Schriften von Luxemburg, Lenin und Trotzki, die philosophische Reflexion des Marxismus von Lukács und Korsch und ihre Auswirkungen auf die Kritische Theorie von Benjamin, Horkheimer und Adorno.

Wöchentlich
Mittwochs, 18:30–21:30
ab 04. März 2020

Cafe C.I. - Club International
Payergasse 14, 1160 Wien

Die Texte werden zu Hause gelesen und beim Lesekreis besprochen. Kein Vorwissen ist nötig. Neueinsteigende sind ausdrücklich erwünscht.

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Leseliste

  • vorausgesetzte / + empfohlene Texte

04.03.2020 | Woche 10. Revolutionäre Führung

11.03.2020 | Woche 11. Reform oder Revolution

+ Eugene V. Debs, “Competition vs. Cooperation” (1900)

18.03.2020 | Woche 12. Lenin und die Avantgardepartei 

+ Richard Appignanesi and Oscar Zarate / A&Z, Introducing Lenin and the Russian Revolution/ Lenin for Beginners (1977)

25.03.2020 | Woche 13. Was tun?

+ Richard Appignanesi and Oscar Zarate / A&Z, Introducing Lenin and the Russian Revolution/ Lenin for Beginners (1977)

01.04.2020 | Woche 14. Massenstreik und Sozialdemokratie

22.04.2020 | Woche 15. Permanente Revolution

+ Tariq Ali and Phil Evans, Introducing Trotsky and Marxism / Trotsky for Beginners (1980)

29.04.2020 | Woche 16. Staat und Revolution

06.05.2020 | Woche 17. Imperialismus

+ W.I. Lenin, „Sozialismus und Krieg“ (1915)

13.05.2020 | Woche 18. Scheitern der Revolution

+ Rosa Luxemburg, „Die Sozialisierung der Gesellschaft“ (1918)

+ Rosa Luxemburg, „Die russische Tragödie“ (1918)

+ Rosa Luxemburg, „Die Ordnung herrscht in Berlin“ (1919)

+ Sebastian Haffner, „Die deutsche Revolution 1918/19“ (1968)

+ Eugene V. Debs, “The Day of the People” (1900)

20.05.2020 | Woche 19. Rückzug nach der Revolution 

+ W.I. Lenin, „Notizen eines Publizisten“ (1922/24)

27.05.2020 | Woche 20. Dialektik der Verdinglichung

  • György Lukács, „Der Standpunkt des Proletariats“ (= Teil III. des Kapitels „Die Verdinglichung und das Bewußtsein des Proletariats“) In: Geschichte und Klassenbewusstsein (1923)

Reification chart of terms 

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

Commodity form chart of terms

Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

03.06.2020 | Woche 21. Die Lehren des Oktobers

10.06.2020 | Woche 22. Trotzkismus

+ Leo Trotzki, „Die Gewerkschaften in der Epoche des imperialistischen Niedergangs“ (1940)

+ Leo Trotzki, „Brief an James P. Cannon“ (1939)

+ Leo Trotzki, “To Build Communist Parties and an Interational Anew” (1933)

+ Leo Trotzki, „Wenn Amerika kommunistisch würde“ (1934)

17.06.2020 | Woche 23. Der autoritäre Staat

 + Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

24.06.2020 | Woche 24. Über den Begriff der Geschichte 

+ Charles Baudelaire, „Fusées“ (1867)

+ Bertolt Brecht, „An die Nachgeborenen“ (1939)

+ Walter Benjamin, „Erfahrung und Armut“ (1933)

+ Walter Benjamin, „Theologisch-politisches Fragment“ (1921/39?)

+ Walter Benjamin, „Zum Planetarium“ (aus: Einbahnstraße, 1928)

+ Walter Benjamin, „Feuermelder“ (aus: Einbahnstraße, 1928)

Benjamin on history chart of terms

Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms

01.07.2020 | Woche 25. Reflexionen über den Marxismus

+ Theodor Adorno, „Zueignung“, „Vor Mißbrauch wird gewarnt“ und „Vermächtnis“, aus Minima Moralia (1944-47)

+ Max Horkheimer und Theodor Adorno, Diskussion über Theorie und Praxis (1956)

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

08.07.2020 | Woche 26. Theorie und Praxis

+ Theodor Adorno, „Zu Subjekt und Objekt“ (1969)

Commodity form chart of terms
Reification chart of terms
Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
Adorno’s critique of actionism chart of terms

+ Theodor Adorno, „Spätkapitalismus oder Industriegesellschaft?“ (1968) [Audio] [Text]

+ Theodor Adorno und Herbert Marcuse, “Correspondence on the German New Left” (1969)

+ Esther Leslie, “Introduction to the 1969 Adorno-Marcuse correspondence” (1999)

Der Spiegel, Interview mit T. W. Adorno: „Keine Angst vor dem Elfenbeinturm“ (1969)

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

Einheiten zur Neuen Linken (Fortsetzung der Buchstaben-Wochen des Wintersemesters 2019/20)

15.07.2020 | Woche H. 1960s New Left I: Neo-Marxismus

Commodity form chart of terms

Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

Organic composition of capital chart of terms

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

+ Moishe Postone, “History and Helplessness: Mass Mobilization and Contemporary Forms of Anticapitalism” (2006)

+ Moishe Postone, “Theorizing the Contemporary World: Robert Brenner, Giovanni Arrighi, David Harvey” (2006)

22.07.2020 | Woche I. 1960s New Left II: Gender und Sexualität 

„Die Lage der Frau unterscheidet sich von der jeder anderen gesellschaftlichen Gruppe, weil sie nicht eine von mehreren abgrenzbaren sozialen Gruppen Größen sind, sondern die Hälfte eines Ganzen: der Menschengattung. Frauen sind unabdingbar und unersetzlich; deshalb lassen sie sich auch nicht in derselben Weise ausbeuten wie andere Gruppen. Für die condition humaine sind sie zwar grundlegend, in ihren wirtschaftlichen, sozialen und politischen Rollen hingegen marginal. Gerade dieser Zusammenhang: gleichzeitig grundlegend und marginal zu sein, hat sich für sie als verhängnisvoll erwiesen.“

Juliet Mitchell, „Frauen – die längste Revolution“ (1966)

Capitalist contradiction chart of terms

29.07.2020 | Woche J. 1960s New Left III: Anti-black racism in the U.S.

“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)

+ Eugene Debs, “The Negro and his nemesis” (1904)

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

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

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

Capitalist contradiction chart of terms

05.08.2020 | Woche K. Vorläufer der Frankfurter Schule

Siegfried Kracauer, “Photography” (1927)

Capitalist contradiction chart of terms

Wednesday Jan. 15, 2:30PM at Kresge Study Center Room 348

This teach-in will be led by Matthew Ramirez.

In the mid-19th century, Marx and Engels observed, in the Communist Manifesto, that a "specter" was haunting Europe â the specter of Communism. A century and a half later, it is Marxism itself that continues to haunt the Left, while capitalism remains.

What does it mean that Marx and Marxism still appeal, while political movements for socialism are weak or non- existent? What were Marxism's original points of departure for considering radical possibilities for freedom that might still speak to the present?

How does Marxism still matter?

https://platypus1917.org/wp-content/uploads/LENIN_SMALL.jpg


II. Introduction to revolutionary Marxism

Tuesdays 6-8 via Zoom. For meeting ID/URL, please RSVP at london@platypus1917.org

(Previously Wednesdays, 6-8pm, University of Manchester A213 Samuel Alexander Building M13 9PP)


required / + recommended reading


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


Recommended winter break preliminary readings:

+ Leszek Kolakowski, “The concept of the Left” (1968)
+ 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)
+ 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


Film screening | Jan. 15, 2020

Fall of Eagles episodes: #5 "The Last Tsar" and #6 "Absolute Beginners" on the origins of the Bolsheviks


Film screening | Jan. 22, 2020

Reds (1981) film on American anarchists, Socialists and Communists in WWI and the Russian Revolution


Winter–Spring 2020

II. Introduction to revolutionary Marxism

Week 11. Revolutionary leadership | Jan. 29, 2020

• Rosa Luxemburg, “The Crisis of German Social Democracy” Part 1 (1915)
• 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. 5, 2020

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


Week 13. Lenin and the vanguard party | Feb. 12, 2020

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. 19, 2020

• 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. 26, 2020

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


Week 16. Permanent revolution | Mar. 4, 2020

• 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. 11, 2020

Lenin, The State and Revolution (1917)


Week 18. Imperialism | Mar. 18, 2020

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)


Week 19. Failure of the revolution | Mar. 25, 2020

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 20-21. Apr. 1/8 2020 - Easter break / Platypus International Convention, Chicago, April 3-5.


Week 22. Retreat after revolution | Apr. 15, 2020

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


Week 23. Dialectic of reification | Apr. 21, 2020

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. 28, 2020

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


Week 25. Trotskyism | May 5, 2020

+ 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 (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 12, 2020

• Friedrich Pollock, "State Capitalism: Its Possibilities and Limitations" (1941) (note 32 on USSR)
• Max Horkheimer, "The Authoritarian State" (1942)
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms


Week 27. On the concept of history | May 19, 2020

• 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?)
+ 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 26, 2020

+ 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)
+ 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?") [Deutsch] (1956)


Week 29. Theory and practice | June 2, 2020

+ 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)

Monday Sept. 30, 3PM at Kresge Study Center Room 348

This teach-in will be led by Matthew Ramirez.

In the mid-19th century, Marx and Engels observed, in the Communist Manifesto, that a "specter" was haunting Europe â the specter of Communism. A century and a half later, it is Marxism itself that continues to haunt the Left, while capitalism remains.

What does it mean that Marx and Marxism still appeal, while political movements for socialism are weak or non- existent? What were Marxism's original points of departure for considering radical possibilities for freedom that might still speak to the present?

How does Marxism still matter?


brodsky_leninsmolnypalace


Santa Cruz - Platypus primary Marxist reading group Fall/Autumn 2019

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


Location/time: Kresge 348 Wednesdays 7:00PM.


required / + recommended reading


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


Week 1. What is the Left? I. Capital in history | Oct. 2, 2019

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 Edmund Wilson), Karl Marx, on "becoming" (from the Grundrisse, 1857–58), and Peter Preuss (on Nietzsche)

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

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

+ 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 persective) today”

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


Week 2. Radical bourgeois philosophy V. Kant and Constant: Bourgeois society | Oct. 9, 2019

• 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

• 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 3. What is the Left? II. Utopia and critique | Oct. 16, 2019

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

Adorno, “Imaginative Excesses” (1944–47)

• Leszek Kolakowski, “The concept of the Left” (1968)

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 4. What is Marxism? I. Socialism | Oct. 23, 2019

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

Marx and Friedrich Engels, selections from the Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), pp. 469-500

Marx, Address to the Central Committee of the Communist League (1850), pp. 501–511


Week 5. What is Marxism? II. Revolution in 1848 | Oct. 30, 2019

Marx, The coming upheaval (from The Poverty of Philosophy, 1847) 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


Week 6. What is Marxism? III. Bonapartism | Nov. 6, 2019

+ 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), 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 7. What is Marxism? IV. Critique of political economy | Nov. 13, 2019

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

+ Commodity form chart of terms

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms

+ Organic composition of capital chart of terms

Marx, selections from the Grundrisse (1857–61), pp. 222–226, 236–244, 247–250, 276–293 ME Reader pp. 276-281

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 8. What is Marxism? V. Reification | Nov. 20, 2019

• Georg Lukács, “The phenomenon of reification” (Part I of “Reification and the consciousness of the proletariat,” History and Class Consciousness, 1923)
+ Commodity form chart of terms
+ Reification chart of terms
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms

+ Organic composition of capital chart of terms

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


Week 9. What is Marxism? VI. Class consciousness | Nov. 27, 2019

Lukács, “Class Consciousness” (1920), Original Preface (1922), “What is Orthodox Marxism?” (1919), History and Class Consciousness (1923)
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
+ Reification chart of terms
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
+ Marx, Preface to the First German Edition and Afterword to the Second German Edition (1873) of Capital (1867), pp. 294–298, 299–302


Week 10. What is Marxism? VII. Ends of philosophy | Dec. 4, 2019

Korsch, “Marxism and philosophy” (1923)

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms

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

+ 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 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)

+ 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

+ Tariq Ali and Phil Evans, Introducing Trotsky and Marxism / Trotsky for Beginners (1980)

+ James Joll, The Second International 1889–1914 (1966)


Winter–Spring 2020

II. Introduction to revolutionary Marxism