Chicago Saturdays 1–4PM
School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC)
112 S. Michigan Ave. room 920
Facebook invitation: http://www.facebook.com/events/339098822822962/
• required / * recommended reading
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Film screening: May 2012**
• Last Party 2000 (2001)
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Week 1. May 26, 2012
Marx and democracy**
• Dick Howard, selections from The Specter of Democracy (2002)
Howard, “Philosophy by other means?” (2001) (original version of Chapter 13 of The Specter of Democracy)
Benjamin Constant, “The liberty of the ancients compared with that of the moderns” (1819)
Karl Marx, On Bruno Bauer’s The Jewish Question (1844)
Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875)
Chris Cutrone, “Lenin’s liberalism” and “Lenin’s politics” (2011)
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Week 2. Jun. 2, 2012
Communist Party of Great Britain debates Platypus**
• **Selected articles from Weekly Worker, May 12 – August 11, 2011 + Original pages of Weekly Worker
• Ben Lewis, “Chicago school” (letter in *Weekly Worker* 914, May 17, 2012)
• Chris Cutrone, letter in response to Ben Lewis (May 17, 2012)
Danny Hammill, “Debate, controversy and comradeship” (on the 2011 CPGB Communist University summer school, *Weekly Worker* 879, September 1, 2011, p. 11)
Spencer A. Leonard, “Adam Smith’s profoundest reader: Marx” (*Weekly Worker* 895, December 22, 2011, pp. 12–14)
June 16 – July 28
Trotsky and Trotskyism
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Recommended preliminary readings:
Tariq Ali and Phil Evans, Introducing Trotsky and Marxism / Trotsky for Beginners (1980)
Nicolas Krassó, “Trotsky’s Marxism” (1967)
• Platypus Historians Group, “The dead Left: Trotskyism” (2008)
• Richard Rubin, “The decline of the Left in the 20th century: 1933″ (2009)
• Ian Morrison, “Trotsky’s Marxism” (2011)
• Mike Macnair, Bryan Palmer, Richard Rubin, and Jason Wright, “The legacy of Trotskyism” (2011)
• Grover Furr, “Learning from the Communist Movement of the 20th century: A response to Richard Rubin”(2012)
Spartacist League, *Lenin and the Vanguard Party* (1978)
Richard Appignanesi and Oscar Zarate / A&Z, Introducing Lenin and the Russian Revolution /* Lenin for Beginners* (1978)
Isaac Deutscher, *The Prophet: Trotsky* biography (three volumes: 1954, 1959, 1963)