The Platypus Review

[ Die deutschsprachige Platypus Review ]

Latest Issue: #183

Category error: The Good and freedom under capitalism: Reply to Tom Canel’s caveats on Marxism

Tom Canel’s essay on my debate with Benjamin Studebaker, between pursuit of freedom and the Good, tries to address my writing as a logical problem. But it begins with a misapprehension: not I but Studebaker introduced the category of the “body” into our dispute about Platonism and Marxism. Not my argument but his hinges on the natural body as a phenomenon. For me it is a historical form of appearance in society; for him it is an emanation of the Good — falling away from it.

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Marxism or radical Fabianism? An interview with Tony Collins on the precursors to the CPGB

Efraim Carlebach

On January 4, 2026, Platypus Affiliated Society member Efraim Carlebach interviewed Tony Collins about his book Raising the Red Flag: Marxism, Labourism, and the Roots of British Communism, 1884–1921.

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The party question

Andy Blunden

It is widely accepted that an essential premise of Marx’s theory is that socialism must have a party as its vehicle. I do not accept this claim.

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British impossibilism and the IWW: A debate without history

Adam Buick

The “impossibilist revolt” in the Social Democratic Federation (SDF) at the turn of the last century led to the formation of two new political parties — the Socialist Labour Party of Great Britain (SLP-GB) in 1903 and the Socialist Party of Great Britain (SPGB) in 1904. In the period up until the outbreak of the First World War, both parties were roughly the same size — each with no more than three hundred members. Yet labor historians have concentrated on the history and theories of the SLP-GB to the almost complete neglect of those of the SPGB, and worse, relegated the latter to a sneering footnote.

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Letter from Iran

Anarchist Front

Dear comrades, we are writing to you from the middle of a war.

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Frantz Fanon's uneven legacy

George Fish

History has not treated Frantz Fanon well as of 2025, the 100th anniversary of his birth. The apostle of violent, no-holds-barred revolution, even terrorism against uninvolved civilians, as a necessity for true independence for Africa from the yoke of European colonialism has been belied by the fact that most former African colonies achieved independence by peaceful means. Nor did violent revolution spare the former African colonies from adverse outcomes, as his own Algeria proves.

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Staff

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Louis Sterrett

COPY EDITORS

Gabriel Almeida
Mike Bartlett
Austin Carder
Rory Hannigan
Thom Hutchinson
Stanley Sharpey
Patrick Unwin

DESIGNERS

Mike Atkinson
Chris Mansour

SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR

Gabe Gottfried

DISTRIBUTION

Erica Gamble

Editorial Statement

Taking stock of the universe of positions and goals that constitutes leftist politics today, we are left with the disquieting suspicion that a deep commonality underlies the apparent variety: What exists today is built upon the desiccated remains of what was once possible.
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Submission Guidelines

Articles will typically range in length from 750–4,500 words, but longer pieces will be considered. Please send article submissions and inquiries about this project to editor.platypusreview@gmail.com. All submissions should conform to the Chicago Manual of Style.

The Platypus Review is funded by:

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School of the Art Institute of Chicago Student Government
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