Leon Trotsky

Trotsky's Marxism

'The point, however, is to change it'

May 5, 2011 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

At the 2011 Left Forum, held at Pace University in NYC between March 18-21 , Platypus hosted a conversation on “Trotsky’s Marxism.” Panelists Ian Morrison (Platypus), Susan Williams (Freedom Socialist Party), and Jason Wright (International Bolshevik Tendency) were asked to address, “What was Trotsky’s contribution to revolutionary Marxism? At one level, the answer is clear. Above even his significance as organizer of the October insurrection and leader of the Red Army during the Russian Civil War, what makes Trotsky a major figure in the history of Marxism is his status as the leader of the Left Opposition and, later, his founding of the Fourth International. [Read More]

The Legacy of Trotskyism

April 30, 2011 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

One of the plenary sessions held at the third annual Platypus Affiliated Society international convention, hosted by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from April 29–May 1st, 2011, set about exploring the legacy of Trotsky’s Marxism. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Transcript in Platypus Review #38 Panelists Mike Macnair, Communist Party of Great Britain (Oxford Univ. St. Hugh College) Bryan Palmer, Trent University [Read More]

Platypus International Convention 2011 Anti-Stalinism Communism Communist Party of Great Britain CPGB IBT International Bolshevik Tendency Leon Trotsky Karl Marx Marxism Socialism Stalinism Trotskyism

Art, Culture, and Politics

Marxist Approaches

April 30, 2011 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

Panel held as part of the third annual Platypus International Convention, on Saturday, April 30, 2011, at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element A transcript of Bret Schneider’s remarks appears in Platypus Review #37 Panelists Omair Hussain Lucy Parker Pac Pobric Bret Schneider Description After its apparent exhaustion as a project of social transformation, Marxism seems to remain alive as a cultural and hermeneutic endeavor. [Read More]

Platypus International Convention 2011 Aesthetics Art Contemporary art Culture Leon Trotsky Marxism Politics Jacques Rancière Theodor W. Adorno Leon Trotsky Walter Benjamin

Art, Culture, and Politics

Marxist Approaches

April 30, 2011 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

Panel held as part of the third annual Platypus International Convention, on Saturday, April 30, 2011, at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element A transcript of Bret Schneider’s remarks appears in Platypus Review #37 Panelists Omair Hussain Lucy Parker Pac Pobric Bret Schneider Description After its apparent exhaustion as a project of social transformation, Marxism seems to remain alive as a cultural and hermeneutic endeavor. [Read More]

Platypus International Convention 2011 Aesthetics Art Contemporary art Culture Leon Trotsky Marxism Politics Jacques Rancière Theodor W. Adorno Leon Trotsky Walter Benjamin

Attention to theory

Letter to the editor of "Under the Banner of Marxism"

April 3, 2011 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

ON THE OCCASION of the launch of a new theoretical journal in 1922, Under the Banner of Marxism (Pod Znamenem Marksizma), Lenin singled out the open letter that Trotsky had written to the editors in the first issue, while expressing the hope that the venture would take the shape of a “society of materialist friends of Hegelian dialectics.” Trotsky himself underscored the importance of the letter in The Stalin School of Falsification (1937), which, in pointing to the difference between the changed conditions of education of the younger members of the party from that of their older comrades, outlined the necessity of a new theoretical approach in order to safeguard the theoretical and political experience accumulated within the party. [Read More]

Marxism Philosophy Leon Trotsky Translation

Trotsky's Marxism

March 19, 2011 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

A panel discussion organized by the Platypus Affiliated Society held on March 19, 2011, at Left Forum, Pace University. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element A transcript of Jason Wright’s remarks appears in Platypus Review #35 A transcript of Ian Morrison’s remarks appears in Platypus Review #37 Panelists Ian Morrison—Platypus Affiliated Society; University of Chicago Jason Wright—International Bolshevik Tendency (IBT) Spencer A. Leonard—Platypus Affiliated Society; University of Chicago [Read More]

Freedom Socialist Party IBT International Bolshevik Tendency Leon Trotsky Trotskyism

The relevance of critical theory to art today

January 1, 2011 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

ON SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2010, Platypus hosted a panel entitled “The Relevance of Critical Theory to Art Today” moderated by Chris Mansour at The New School for Social Research in New York. The panel consisted of Philosophy Professors J.M. Bernstein (The New School), Lydia Goehr (Columbia University), and Gregg Horowitz (Pratt Institute and Vanderbilt University), and Chris Cutrone (Adjunct Assistant Professor of Art History, Theory and Criticism, School of the Art Institute of Chicago), Member of Platypus. [Read More]

Art Marxism Art and culture Theodor W. Adorno Leon Trotsky Walter Benjamin

On nationalism

An anti-fascist intervention

May 9, 2010 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

ULI VOM HAGEN’S RESPONSE1 to my article on the current state of the German Left2 engages in a remarkable apology for its nationalism, which results from its near complete failure to digest the dangerous policies of the German KPD of the 1920s and 30s. With his focus on the events of 1923 and his excitement for “National Bolshevism,” vom Hagen presents a highly symptomatic position informed by a gross conflation of nationalism and romantic-regressive anti-capitalism, which experienced its peak with the rise of European fascism and National Socialism in Germany. [Read More]

Anti-Deutsche Fascism German National Bolshevik Movement Germany Nationalism Social Democratic party of Germany Leon Trotsky Uli vom Hagen

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

Rosa Luxemburg's legacy

A reply to Jerzy Sobotta

February 18, 2010 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

THE ASSUMPTION THAT ROSA LUXEMBURG’S CORPSE has significance for the state of the German Left, though perhaps not her body, is tempting. Luxemburg was a Polish socialist involved in a European socialist movement during a time when there was no sovereign Polish state. She was successively a member of the Social Democratic Party of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), and the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany. [Read More]

Anti-Deutsche Baader-Meinhof Group Communist Party of Germany Die Linke Fascism German National Bolshevik Movement Germany Henry Ford Jerzy Sobotta Karl Liebknecht Karl Radek Vladimir Lenin Marxism Nationalism Nazism New Economic Policy Proletariat RAF Rosa Luxemburg Schlageter Line Social democratic party Social Democratic party of Germany Spartakusbund Joseph Stalin Leon Trotsky