Die Veranstaltungsreihe „1917-2017 - 100 Jahre Russische Revolution” will sich im Rahmen verschiedener Veranstaltungen mit dem 100. Jahrestag des russischen Revolutionsjahrs auseinandersetzen. Von Mai bis September 2017 sollen in diesem Rahmen ein Teach In, Filmvorführungen, eine Podiumsdiskussion, sowie ein Lesekreis stattfinden. Uhrzeiten und Orte werden noch bekannt gegeben, soweit noch nicht vermerkt.
Teach In (HIER GEHT’S ZUM AUDIOMITSCHNITT)
Donnerstag, 11. Mai 2017 19Uhr, Raum K1 im Studierendenhaus in Bockenheim: Einführung und Eröffnung der Veranstaltungsreihe mit einem Teach In von Jan Schroeder (Platypus Affiliated Society) zu 1917.
[Filmscreenings]{}
[(Wir versuchen al]{}[le Filme im Original mit Untertitel zu zeigen; ist dies nicht möglich, zeigen wir sie in Originalsprache)]{.text_exposed_show}
Alle Screenings finden um 17 Uhr im Studierendenhaus Bockenheim im Raum K1 statt.
Freitag, 12. Mai: Nicholas and Alexandra Part 1 (up to intermission)/ Fall of Eagles Episodes “Absolute Beginners”
Freitag, 19. Mai: Nicholas and Alexandra Part 2 (after intermission)/ Fall of Eagles Episode “the secret war”
Freitag, 26. Mai: Lenin the train (full length Version)
Freitag, 2. Juni: Reds
Podiumsdiskussion
Mittwoch, 5. Juli:
[ Podiumsdiskussion zu 1917 u.a. mit Frank Ruda (Philosoph, Goethe Universität Frankfurt) / Weiter unten findet ihr die Beschreibung des Podiums. (Podium wird in englischer Sprache stattfinden, da wir internationale Gäste erwarten)]{.text_exposed_show}
Lesekreis zur Russischen Revolution 1917[
Semesterferien (Termine werden noch bekannt gegeben)]{.text_exposed_show}
Leseliste:
(Die deutschen Titel werden noch hinzugefügt, der Lesekreis wird auf Deutsch stattfinden)
Background: Introducing Lenin / Lenin for Beginners (PDF)
Background: John Reed, 10 Days that Shook the World
Selections from Robert C. Tucker, ed., The Lenin Anthology
Week 1:
Lenin, Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution
Week 2:
Lenin, Lecture on the 1905 Revolution
Lenin, Letters from Afar
Lenin, April Theses
Week 3:
Lenin, The Dual Power
Lenin, Enemies of the People
Lenin, The Beginning of Bonapartism
Week 4:
Lenin, The State and Revolution
Week 5:
Lenin, Can the Bolsheviks Retain State Power?
Lenin, Marxism and Insurrection
Lenin, Advice of an Onlooker
Week 6:
Lenin, To the Citizens of Russia
Lenin, Theses on the Constituent Assembly
Lenin, The Chief Task of Our Day
Lenin, The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government
Week 7:
Lenin, The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky
Beschreibung des Podiums: 1917-2017 (Übersetzung folgt)
In 1917 Lenin, Luxemburg and Trotsky sought to follow Marx, who recognized the political contradiction of the bourgeois-democratic revolutions of 1848 and the necessity of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Bolsheviks tried to provide the historical consciousness and revolutionary leadership adequate to this task. Lenin thought that political forms such as the state’ and the party’ would be transformed in and through revolution. The Bolsheviks had thought that such a “bourgeois-democratic” revolution would be a potential spark for a workers’ socialist revolution in Europe, which then might only subsequently allow a struggle for socialism.
The First World War manifested a global crisis of capitalism - of “imperialism” - that was economic, social and political. Lenin, Luxemburg and Trotsky first cut their teeth in the “revisionist dispute” in the mass socialist parties of the Second International. Following this “crisis of Marxism”, they sought to understand the revolutions in Russia and elsewhere as a necessary expression of a self-contradiction within the movement for socialism. Even the most revolutionary party produced its own conservatism, hence the need for self-conscious, revolutionary leadership to avoid “tailing” the movement. Trotsky spent the rest of his life fighting “over the heads of the leaders of the Second and Third International[s]“. Already in 1924, in The Lessons of October, this revolutionary leadership was in doubt and the meaning of 1917 in contention.
In the 20th century, the memory of 1917 has re-emerged in crises. Whether in the popular front of the 1930’s, the Communist revolution in China in 1949 or the New Left of the 1960’s, the Left has sought to understand itself – both positively and negatively – in relation to the aims and outcomes of 1917. However, since 1917 the revolutionary consciousness of its primary actors has disintegrated into various oppositions: the principles of liberalism against those of socialism; libertarianism against authoritarianism; the Machiavellian Lenin against Luxemburg as a Cassandra of the revolution; the revolutionary will of ends justifying means against the principled emancipatory means and the virtues of practical defeat. At the same time, the futility of both Lenin and Luxemburg’s politics have been naturalized: it is tacitly understood that neither what Lenin nor Luxemburg aspired to achieve was actually possible to accomplish – either in their time or in ours. The premises of the revolution itself have been thrown into doubt.
· What were the aims of the Russian Revolution in 1917?
· What was the self-understanding of its Marxist leadership?
· How has the memory of 1917 changed in the course of the 20th century?
· Why does the legacy of 1917 appear arrayed in oppositions?
· Are we still tasked by the memory of 1917 today, and if so how?
· In what way, if any, does the present moment present a new opportunity to reassess 1917 and the self-understanding of Lenin, Luxemburg and Trotsky?