Inwiefern lassen sich Kontinuitäten im organisierten Antifaschismus ausmachen, von heute bis zu seiner Entstehung in den 1920er bzw. -30er-Jahren? Lässt sich ein Problemfeld identifizieren in der Wahrnehmungen der Antifaschistischen Bewegung sowohl als staatstragendes zivilgesellschaftliches Engagement wie ‘revolutionärer Bestrebung‘? Ob die Geschichte des Antifaschismus als eine des Scheiterns oder des Siegens wahrgenommen wird, hängt schließlich nicht zuletzt mit der Idee zusammen, die Linke heute von ihrer eigenen Geschichte – und Zukunft – haben.

A panel discussion organized by the Platypus Affiliated Society, held on March 20, 2011 at Left Forum, Pace University.

Panel Abstract:

Marx and Engels were not the preeminent socialists but rather socialism's greatest critics, distinguishing their "communism" from "reactionary," "bourgeois" and "democratic" socialism. Lately, Marx is taken for his theoretical analysis of capitalism more than his and Engels's revolutionary politics, discredited after the 20th century's spectacular failures of "Marxism." So what is Marx and Engels's political legacy? What Marx wrote after the failed "social-democratic" revolutions of 1848 still resonates: "Every demand of the simplest bourgeois financial reform, of the most ordinary liberalism, of the most formal republicanism, of the most insipid democracy, is simultaneously castigated as an 'attempt on society' and stigmatized as 'socialism'." How does Marx and Engels's politics of "communism," that is, socialism aware of its historical vocation, task us today?

Benjamin Blumberg - University of Chicago
Nathan Smith - The Platypus Affiated Society
Pam Nogales - New York University
Richard Rubin - Platypus
Tana Forrester - The Platypus Affiliated Society