Notes on Luxemburg's The Mass Strike, the Political Party and the Trade Unions (1906)

 March 23, 2009  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

I am writing with some notes on Rosa Luxemburg’s Mass, Strike, the Political Party and the Trade Unions (1906), which we read as our second text from the period of the 1905 Revolution in Russia. First, on the 1905 Revolution, it needs to be emphasized that this was not only a prelude to and “rehearsal” for the 1917 Russian Revolution, but was itself a world-historic event that was galvanizing for the international Left and workers movement, as well as giving shape to 20th Century political trends more generally. [Read More]
Anarchism  Chris Cutrone  Discussion  Vladimir Lenin  Marxism  Rosa Luxemburg  Leon Trotsky 

excerpt from Trotsky

 March 16, 2009  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

From Leon Trotsky (1879-1940), Results and Prospects (1906), VII. The Pre-Requisites of Socialism: http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1931/tpr/rp07.htm “Undoubtedly, the concentration of production, the development of technique and the growth of consciousness among the masses are essential pre-requisites for socialism. But these processes take place simultaneously, and not only give an impetus to each other, but also retard and limit each other. Each of these processes at a higher level demands a certain development of another process at a lower level. [Read More]
Chris Cutrone  Discussion  emancipation  ideology  Karl Marx  Marxism  Revolution  Socialism  Leon Trotsky 

notes on Lukács

 March 9, 2009  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

I am writing with some brief, partial notes from our discussion at UChicago at yesterday’s (Sun. 3/8/09) reading group, on several essays from György Lukács’s 1923 book History and Class Consciousness. I want to emphasize and discuss in particular a couple of passages, from the (original, 1922) Preface, and the essay “What is Orthodox Marxism?” (1919). Specifically, I wish to discuss Lukács’s use of categories, “materialist dialectics,” and his meaning of Marxism as a “method,” which might otherwise prove confusing or tricky. [Read More]
Chris Cutrone  Discussion  György Lukács  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel  Hegelian  Karl Korsch  Vladimir Lenin  Karl Marx  Marxism  Theodor W. Adorno  Walter Benjamin 

notes on Spartacists on Lenin and the vanguard party

 March 1, 2009  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

I am writing with some notes and suggestions for discussion on the Spartacist League pamphlet on “Lenin and the vanguard party” (1978): http://www.bolshevik.org/Pamphlets/LeninVanguard/LVP%200.htm I’d like to quote at length from Spartacist founder James Robertson’s 1973 speech “In Defense of Democratic Centralism” that is included in the pamphlet as supplemental material (and is edited in the pamphlet but given in its entirety on-line): http://www.bolshevik.org/Pamphlets/LeninVanguard/LVP%20Robertson%20to%20Spartacus-BL.htm “What we are dealing with in the period from the founding of Iskra to the founding of the Bolshevik Party in 1912 is the transformation of the Bolshevik faction from a revolutionary social-democratic into an embryonic communist organization. [Read More]
Chris Cutrone  Discussion  History  Vladimir Lenin  Marxism  the Left 

Trotsky on art and politics: "with a sword or at least a whip in hand"

 February 26, 2009  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

Re: Platypus: “They had friends, they had enemies, they fought, and exactly through this they demonstrated their right to exist.” – Trotsky, on the history of new political and artistic movements (1938) http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/06/artpol.htm Not a single progressive idea has begun with a “mass base,â€? otherwise it would not have been a progressive idea. It is only in its last stage that the idea finds its masses – if, of course, it answers the needs of progress. [Read More]
/20th Century  Chris Cutrone  Discussion  Marxism  Marxism  Platypus  the Left  Leon Trotsky  Trotskyism 

notes on Lenin, What is to be done?---Platypus "neo-Leninism?"

 February 23, 2009  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

I am writing with some notes and suggestions on Lenin’s What is to be done? (1902). I’d like to start with a quotation from Lenin’s first footnote, in the chapter “Dogmatism and Freedom of Criticism:” At the present time (as is now evident), the English Fabians, the French Ministerialists, the German Bernsteinians, and the Russian Critics all belong to the same family, all extol each other, learn from each other, and together take up arms against “dogmatic” Marxism. [Read More]
Chris Cutrone  Discussion  Karl Korsch  Vladimir Lenin  Marxism  organization  Politics  Rosa Luxemburg  the Left 

notes on Feb. 15 reading Korsch "Marxism and Philosophy" (1923)

 February 15, 2009  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

‘[Humanity] always sets itself only such problems as it can solve; since, looking at the matter more closely it will always be found that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or are at least understood to be in the process of emergence’ [Marx, Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859)]. This dictum is not affected by the fact that a problem which supersedes present relations may have been formulated in an anterior epoch. [Read More]
/20th Century  Chris Cutrone  crisis  critical theory  Discussion  History  ideology  Karl Korsch  Vladimir Lenin  Karl Marx  Marxism  Philosophy  Platypus  Revolution  Rosa Luxemburg  Socialism  vulgar Marxism 

Trotsky on "degeneration" and "entire generations passing into discard" (1933)

 February 7, 2009  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

It is not a question of counterposing abstract principles… [W]ith the degeneration of organizations, with the passing of entire generations into discard… the necessity… arises of mobilizing fresh forces on a new historical stage… With inevitable halts and partial retreats it is necessary to move forward on a road crisscrossed by countless obstacles and covered with the debris of the past. Those who are frightened by this had better step aside. [Read More]
Chris Cutrone  crisis  Discussion  History  Marxism  Politics  the Left  Leon Trotsky  Trotskyism 

Heidegger's conservative-reactionary misunderstanding of freedom

 February 5, 2009  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

… [M]odern man finds his own ‘essence’ in his greatest discovery, namely, that the most important thing is to turn ‘life’ into a ‘lived experience’ and to make all possibilities of lived-experience accessible generally to all in an equal manner so that through this universality of ‘lived experience’ ‘life’ may prove and actualize itself as the unconditioned whole… Without initiating its own self-destruction, how could that which has made itself beforehand the goal of itself and has put all goal-setting at the service of this goal, ever inquire into a goal? [Read More]
Chris Cutrone  Discussion  emancipation  freedom  History