Overview of all pages with the tags #History of the Left

Platypus Nashville Reading Group - Fall 2016

September 30, 2016 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

Summer and Fall/Autumn 2016 – Winter 2017 Every Monday, 7:00-9:00 pm Bongo Java, 2007 Belmont Blvd. I. What is the Left?—What is Marxism? • required / * recommended reading Marx and Engels readings pp. from Robert C. Tucker, ed., Marx-Engels Reader (Norton 2nd ed., 1978) Week A. Radical bourgeois philosophy I. Rousseau: Crossroads of society | Aug. 8, 2016 Whoever dares undertake to establish a people’s institutions must feel himself capable of changing, as it were, human nature, of transforming each individual, who by himself is a complete and solitary whole, into a part of a larger whole, from which, in a sense, the individual receives his life and his being, of substituting a limited and mental existence for the physical and independent existence. [Read More]

On Anarchism and Marxism

In response to Price and Swenson

May 6, 2014 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

IN RESPONSE TO THE CRITIQUES of Wayne Price and Liam Swenson to my piece on anarchism in The Platypus Review #65,1 I will reiterate what I consider the major differences between Marxist revolutionary theory and anarchism in general. I say in general because I see nothing to be gained by dealing with the great variety of differences within anarchism itself presented by these critiques. In fact their great variety proves the very fleeting and vacillating nature of the anarchist project. [Read More]

Anarchism History History of the Left Vladimir Lenin Marxism Occupy Revolution

1873--1973: The century of Marxism

The death of Marxism and the emergence of neo-liberalism and neo-anarchism

June 7, 2012 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

AT THE 2012 PLATYPUS AFFILIATED SOCIETY’S (PAS) annual International Convention, held at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago March 30–April 1, Chris Cutrone, President of the PAS, delivered the following presentation, which has been edited for clarity. A full audio recording is available online by clicking the above link. IN THE TRADITION we established just two years ago, there is a Platypus President’s report, speaking to the historical moment. [Read More]

Anarchism History History of the Left Vladimir Lenin Karl Marx Marxism Stalinism The Left Theodor W. Adorno Trotskyism

A destroyer of vulgar-Marxism

Book review: Karl Korsch, _Marxism and Philosophy_ (Leipzig: C.L. Hirschfeld, 1923)

January 30, 2012 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

Karl Kautsky’s 1924 review of Karl Korsch’s Marxism and Philosophy appears below in English for the first time.1 It is hoped that other reviews of Marxism and Philosophy will also be made available in the very near future, not least by leading German communists such as August Thalheimer. Given the highly disputed theoretical legacy of both Kautsky and Korsch, the publication of this review will doubtless add to the debate on the idea of a “coming of age” of Marxism in the late 1860s. [Read More]

Book Review History of the Left Karl Kautsky Karl Korsch Vladimir Lenin Marxism

A cry of protest before accommodation?

The dialectic of emancipation and domination

December 1, 2011 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

HOW ARE WE TO REGARD the history of revolutions? Why do revolutions appear to fail to achieve their goals? What does this say about consciousness of social change? One common misunderstanding of Marx (against which, however, many counter-arguments have been made) is with respect to the supposed “logic of history” in capital. The notion of a “historical logic” is problematic, in that there may be assumed an underlying historical logic that Marx, as a social scientist, is supposed to have discovered. [Read More]

History History of the Left Marxism Revolution

Up in the air: The legacy of the New Communist Movement

December 1, 2010 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

_ON OCTOBER 17, 2010, Spencer A. Leonard interviewed Max Elbaum, author of Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao, and Che, to discuss the New Communist Movement of the late 1960s and 1970s. The interview was aired during two episodes of Radical Minds on WHPK – FM Chicago, on October 26 and November 9. What follows is an edited transcript of the interview._ Spencer A. Leonard: To start off in the broadest possible way, how and when did the New Communist Movement emerge? [Read More]

Anti-intellectualism Antonio Gramsci Black Belt thesis Black Panther Communist party History of the Left Vladimir Lenin Marxism Max Elbaum New Communist Movement Orthodoxy SNCC The Left Weather Underground

Imperialism: What is it, why should we be against it?

July 9, 2010 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

ON JANUARY 30, 2007, Platypus hosted its first public forum, “Imperialism: What is it – Why should we be Against it?” The panel consisted of Adam Turl of the International Socialist Organization (ISO), Kevin Anderson of the Marxist-Humanist group News and Letters, Nick Kreitman of the new Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Danny Postel of Open Democracy, and Chris Cutrone of Platypus. What follows is an edited transcript of this event; the full video can be found online at the above link. [Read More]

Afghanistan Bosnia Bush administration History of the Left Iraq Imperialism War Anti-war ISO Marxism New SDS Vietnam

Disappearances

Reflections on the collapse of honey bees and the Left

May 9, 2010 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

A bustling city at dawn. Industrious workers set out from their homes, coming and going in a perfect and productive ballet. But by evening the workers vanish. No trace of foul play. No bodies left behind. Mass disappearances like this have recently occurred across the globe, not of humans, but of millions of honey bees.1 THE OMINOUSLY TITLED 2007 PBS documentary Silence of the Bees begins with a montage of the streets of a major U. [Read More]

Bees Freedom History of the Left New Left Regression environmentalism ecology

Rejoinder to David Black

On Karl Korsch's Marxism and Philosophy

February 26, 2010 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

DAVID BLACK’S VALUABLE COMMENTS and further historical exposition (in Platypus Review 18, December 2009) of my review of Karl Korsch’s Marxism and Philosophy (Platypus Review 15, September 2009) have at their core an issue with Korsch’s account of the different historical phases of the question of “philosophy” for Marx and Marxism. Black questions Korsch’s differentiation of Marx’s relationship to philosophy into three distinct periods: pre-1848, circa 1848, and post-1848. But attempting to defeat Korsch’s historical account of such changes in Marx’s approaches to relating theory and practice means avoiding Korsch’s principal point. [Read More]

David Black György Lukács History of the Left Karl Korsch Vladimir Lenin Karl Marx Marxism Max Horkheimer Rosa Luxemburg The Left Theodor W. Adorno Leon Trotsky

A Prelude to the History of the Left

November 1, 2007 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

THE PLATYPUS HISTORIANS GROUP is a collective of members of Platypus who are researchers into the history of the Left. We will be publishing this series on the History of the Left under this collective authorship to indicate the collaborative nature of our research and the questions it raises. Each article under this byline will be written by one or several members of this collective, but with contributions and review by as many others of this group as possible and appropriate to the topics essayed. [Read More]

1789 1917 1960s 1968 Capitalism Defeat Enlightenment History of the Left Humanity Marxism Movements Ronald Reagan Sectarianism Socialism Stalinism The Platypus Historians Group Trotskyism