Maoism

50 years of 1968

April 1, 2018 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

On February 16 2018, as part of its Fourth European Conference, the Platypus Affiliated Society organized a panel discussion, “50 Years of 1968,” at Goldsmiths University. Moderated by David Faes of Platypus, the event brought together the following speakers: Robert Borba, supporter of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP USA); Judith Shapiro, professor at the London School of Economics, former member of the Spartacist League, and adviser to the Russian Ministry of Finance; Jack Conrad, of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and the Weekly Worker; and Hillel Ticktin, honorary Senior Research Fellow at Glasgow University. [Read More]

The Platypus Review 1968 Stalinism Maoism CPGB RCP (USA) Spartacist League Weekly Worker South Africa China USSR

Book Review: Josh Moufawad-Paul: Continuity and Rupture, Philosophy in the Maoist Terrain

November 2, 2017 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

London: Zero Books (2016). IN HIS LATEST BOOK Continuity and Rupture (2016), professor of philosophy at York University Josh Moufawad-Paul argues that the science of revolution has undergone a qualitative change in its epistemological foundation. What was taken as truth in the theory of Marxism-Leninism needs to be reconsidered in the light of the continual unfolding of history. The contradictions of Leninism can no longer be ignored, both in the light of the wealth of 20th century Marxist philosophy as well as the concrete experiences of class struggle. [Read More]

Maoism Uriah Marc Todoroff Josh Moufawad-Paul

Book Chat with Richard Wolin, author of The Wind from the East

May 7, 2012 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

A discussion with Richard Wolin, distinguished Professor of History at the City University of New York Graduate Center, on his recent book The Wind from the East: French Intellectuals, the Cultural Revolution, and the Legacy of the 1960s, held on May 7, 2012, at New York University.

Video Recording

1960s French theory Maoism The Cultural Revolution

"Thirty years of counter-revolution"

January 29, 2012 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

_LAST SUMMER, SPENCER A. LEONARD interviewed Clyde Young, a veteran member of the Revolutionary Communist Party. The interview was broadcast on June 31, 2011 on the radio show Radical Minds on WHPK – FM Chicago. What follows is an edited transcript of their conversation. A shorter version of this interview ran in the broadsheet edition of Platypus Review issue 43._ Spencer A. Leonard: Everyone hears a lot about the 1960s, the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King Jr. [Read More]

1970s Bob Avakian Clyde Young Communism Vladimir Lenin Maoism Radical Minds RCP (USA) Civil Rights Third World

The Occupy movement, a renascent Left, and Marxism today

December 1, 2011 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

ON NOVEMBER 5, 2011, using questions formulated together with Chris Cutrone, Haseeb Ahmed interviewed Slavoj Žižek at the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht, the Netherlands. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation. Haseeb Ahmed: Are we currently – after Tahrir Square and the eruption of the Occupy movement – living through a renaissance of the Left? If so, what is the historical legacy that stands in need of reconsideration? [Read More]

Egypt Vladimir Lenin Maoism Max Horkheimer Moishe Postone RCP (USA) Slavoj Žižek Theodor W. Adorno Occupy Occupy Wall Street

Kashmir, socialists, and the right to self-determination

February 1, 2011 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

THE BLOODSHED IN KASHMIR beginning in June 2010 gave rise to a heated debate in India concerning the causes of and possible solutions to the conflict. A meeting on 21 October in Delhi organized by the pro-Maoist Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners was entitled “Azadi (Freedom)—the Only Way.” Interpreting “azadi” as shorthand for “the right to self-determination,” the keynote speakers – writer-activist Arundhati Roy and Syed Ali Shah Geelani of the Islamist Tehreek-e-Hurriyat – argued that the only solution to the dispute in Kashmir was freedom for Jammu and Kashmir from India. [Read More]

India Kashmir Vladimir Lenin Maoism Nationalism Pakistan Rosa Luxemburg

The Maoist insurgency in India: End of the road for Indian Stalinism?

August 6, 2010 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

Given the considerable international interest in the progress of Naxalism on the Indian subcontinent, particularly in the wake of the 2008 Maoist revolution in Nepal, we are pleased to publish the following interview with Marxist and historian Jairus Banaji conducted on June 28th, 2010. Spencer A. Leonard: The immediate occasion for our interview on the Naxalites or Indian Maoists is Arundhati Roy’s widely read and controversial essay, “Walking With the Comrades,” published in the Indian magazine Outlook. [Read More]

India Jairus Banaji Maoism Naxalism Stalinism

Chinoiserie

A critique of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA's 'New Synthesis'"

August 5, 2010 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

Review of ‘Communism: The Beginning of a New Stage’, a Manifesto from the RCP, USA; and Raymond Lotta, Nayi Duniya, and K. J. A., ‘Alain Badiou’s ‘Politics of Emancipation’: A Communism Locked Within the Confines of the Bourgeois World’ Demarcations 1 (Summer – Fall 2009). Communism: The Beginning of a New Stage. Lotta et al. is available online. Prologue DAVID BHOLAT ADOPTED, as epigraph for his essay “Beyond Equality,” the following passage from Joseph Schumpeter’s classic 1942 book Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy: [Read More]

Alain Badiou Bob Avakian Cultural Revolution David Bholat Joseph Schumpeter Immanuel Kant Vladimir Lenin Maoism Karl Marx Marxism RCP (USA) Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Red-baiting and ideology

The new SDS

December 1, 2008 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

TO THE EDITORS OF THE PLATYPUS REVIEW: I am not now, nor have I ever been, either a Maoist or sympathetic to Maoism. I am also not a member of SDS. I was outraged however, by the blatant red-baiting of Rachel Haut in a recent Platypus Review Interview and disturbed that it seems to have gone unchallenged by PR. Rachel Haut was quoted as saying: “To say that the Maoists can be part of the ideological debate would mean to condone them being in this organization, which is something I don’t do. [Read More]

Anarchism Anti-intellectualism Democracy Exchanges Ideology Laurie Rojas Maoism Marxism New SDS Organization Politics Protest Red-baiting Revolution Richard Rubin Stalinism The Left Student Left

The Hundred Days campaign: the present and future of SDS

September 1, 2008 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

FROM JULY 24 UNTIL JULY 28 2008, the new Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) had its third annual national convention in College Park, Maryland. At the convention, national campaigns were presented and voted on by the attendees. A major campaign introduced at the convention was the Hundred Days campaign, which seeks to organize and engage newly politicized Americans in politics beyond the campaign season. During the first one hundred days of the next administration the campaign will organize two nationwide weeks of action to ensure that the people remain involved in politics after the election cycle. [Read More]

Anarchism Anti-capitalism Ben Shepard Capitalism Chicago Dave Shukla Democracy Democratic society FRSO Hope Hundred Days campaign Ideology Left Forum Liberalism Maoism Marxism Movement New SDS New York Barack Obama Organization Power Process Protest Sectarianism Socialism Split Structure Students The Left