The Platypus Review

[ Die deutschsprachige Platypus Review ]

Latest Issue: 187

The Frankfurt School wanted socialism: Contra Rockhill

What is Stalinism? It is the liquidation of Marxism. More precisely, it is the liquidation of the Marxist self-consciousness and theory of the proletarian socialist party — it is also the practical liquidation of that party. What is most troubling about the history of “Marxism-Leninism” AKA Stalinism is, like with the Jacobins, not their ruthlessness towards avowed counterrevolutionaries, but rather the Revolution eating its own — the unjust and murderous turn against the loyal revolutionaries themselves. The problem with Stalinism is the lies it entails — the lies against the revolutionaries, and against the Revolution itself. And the lies never end.

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On David Harvey's The Condition of Postmodernity

Andreas Wintersperger, Kathrin D

Behind society’s deeply damaged attempts to become aware of its own direction, the current, more or less deformed, intellectual instinct already indicates that the world has changed. What is the reality of the past in the present?

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The revolution next time: Wiser and on firmer ground

David McMullen

The reversion to capitalism by the “socialist camp” was certainly an eye-opener. It laid bare the fact that society had not undergone a fundamental transformation in the relations of production and the social superstructure. There was nothing comparable to the way capitalism had made itself immune to a relapse into feudalism or something similar.

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“A state of crisis and a century of revolutions”: The legacy of the French Revolution

Dominique Pagani

Nearly two and a half centuries after the storming of the Bastille, does our historical present still have something to learn from the French Revolution?

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The transgender issue

George Fish

I think we can all agree, for a start, that the weaponization of the transgender issue by Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, and the minions of the Republican Right — and their outrageous claims — are reprehensible. But the “transgender-affirming” Left isn’t much better — they too have weaponized the issue, turning one’s subjective sense of gender identity (especially among minors, who are too young to even qualify for a learner’s permit for a driver’s license!) into an objective “alternative fact” — to invoke Kellyanne Conway’s infamous phrase.

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Staff

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Louis Sterrett

COPY EDITORS

Mike Bartlett
Charles Crum
Rory Hannigan
Octavio Hernandez
Thom Hutchinson
Liam Kenny
Michael McClelland
Divya Menon
Olivia Mistretta
Matthew Ramirez
Evan Rodgers
Patrick Unwin
Allen You

DESIGNERS

Mike Atkinson
Chris Mansour

WEB EDITOR

Nick Cochran

SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR

Gabe Gottfried

DISTRIBUTION

Erica Gamble
Diaz Mathis
Allen You

CHAPTER COORDINATOR

Ceci Chang

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:

Phedias Christodoulides
Dalhousie Student Union
Loyola University of Chicago
The New School
New York University
Northwestern University
The Platypus Affiliated Society
School of the Art Institute of Chicago Student Government
The University of Chicago Student Government
The University of Illinois at Chicago