Nationalism

The struggle for a Catalan republic

Rethinking the way forward

February 3, 2018 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

THE EVENTS OF OCTOBER 2017 and the subsequent election held on December 21st have done little to resolve the issue of Catalan independence, which has now escalated into a regional and national crisis marked by political gridlock and polarization among the Catalan people. This polarization has taken a particular toll on the Catalan left as well as on the region’s labor movement, allowing the bourgeoisie to remain in power and further its own agenda by exploiting the issue while the Left remains fractionalized and at odds about the way forward. [Read More]

The struggle for a Catalan Republic

Which way forward?

December 3, 2017 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

EVENTS IN CATALONIA in the last two months represent the biggest challenge ever faced by the Spanish regime since its establishment in 1978. The explosion of the masses on to the scene has acquired at points insurrectionary features. Where does this movement come from? What is its character and how can it move forward in the face of Spanish state repression? On October 27, 2017, the Catalan Parliament, following the mandate of the October 1 independence referendum, proclaimed the Catalan Republic. [Read More]

Spain Catalonia Nationalism International Marxist Tendency Fascism National Self Determination

What is the European Union and should we be against it?

September 6, 2016 | The Platypus Affiliated Society • Other languages: Deutsch

ON NOVEMBER 7, 2015, at its Second Annual European Conference in Frankfurt, Germany, the Platypus Affiliated Society hosted a panel addressing the topic “What is the European Union and should we be against it?” The discussion was moderated by Thodoris Velissaris and included the following panelists: Juan Roch, a member of the Spanish political party Podemos; Jens Wissel, a founding member of the Assoziation für Kritische Gesellschaftsforschung and author of Staatsprojekt EUropa: Grundzüge einer materialistischen Theorie der Europäischen Union; Nikos Nikisianis, a member of DIKTYO (Network for Political and Social Rights) in Greece, an affiliate of SYRIZA until July 2015; and Martin Suchanek, a member of Gruppe Arbeitermacht, the German section of the League for the Fifth International, and the editor of its theoretical journal Revolutionärer Marxismus. [Read More]

The European Union Nationalism Internationalism Democracy

Left Exit or No Brexit?

June 18, 2016 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

ON JUNE 8, the London chapter of the Platypus Affiliated Society hosted a panel on the topic “Left Exit or No Brexit?” at the London School of Economics. The panel brought together Neil Davenport, Mike Macnair, and Gerry Downing, and was moderated by Ninad Pandit of the Platypus Affiliated Society. Neil Davenport is the head of sociology at a comprehensive school in North London, and is a NASUWT representative. He is on the organizing committee for the Institute of Ideas’ annual festival, the Battle of Ideas, and is a regular contributor to its associated publication, Spiked Online. [Read More]

The European Union Brexit Socialist Fight Spiked! CPGB Weekly Worker Democracy Nationalism Internationalism sovereignty

Québec and the future of the Canadian left

December 17, 2015 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

ONE OF THE DEFINING MOMENTS of the recent general federal election for the Canadian left was the release on September 15 of the Leap Manifesto.1 The Manifesto, spearheaded by prominent left Canadian intellectuals such as Naomi Klein, Avi Lewis, David Suzuki, and Martin Lukács as well as notable celebrities such as Donald Sutherland and Leonard Cohen, included a bold call for respect for Indigenous rights, transition to a “clean economy,” and a guaranteed annual income. [Read More]

Canada Nationalism Québéc Leap Manifesto New Democratic Party Bloc Québécois

Something better than the nation?

Book Review: Rob Ogman, Against the Nation: Anti-National Politics in Germany. Porsgrunn, Norway: New Compass Press, 2013.

July 4, 2014 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

IN THE WAKE of the fall of the Wall and reunification the German left confronted a resurgent nationalism. One section of the Left’s response was an “anti-national” tendency whose answer to questions posed by historical developments challenged received political categories by rejecting not only nationalism but, ultimately, traditional left attitudes towards both the nation-state and “the people.” In Against the Nation, Rob Ogman charts the emergence of this “anti-national” tendency by examining two activist campaigns of the 1990s, “Never Again Germany” and “Something Better than the Nation,” to show how “the encounter with nationalism resulted in a fundamental reorientation of a broad set of political assumptions, and produced a deep restructuring in the content and contours of left politics and practice” (11). [Read More]

Nationalism Nation-state State Germany

1914 in the history of Marxism

May 6, 2014 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

At the Platypus Affiliated Society’s annual International Convention, held at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago April 4–6, 2014, Chris Cutrone delivered the following President’s Report. An edited transcript of the presentation and subsequent discussion appears below. A full audio recording is available online at <sixth-annual-platypus-international-convention>. Cover of the Vorwärts, the SPD's party organ in 1914; the headline reads, 'Social Democracy and the War!' The SPD voted for war credits to the First World War almost 100 years ago on August 4 1914. [Read More]

1914 /2nd International August 4 Bebel Imperialism Karl Kautsky Karl Liebknecht Vladimir Lenin Marxism Nationalism Pacifism Rosa Luxemburg RSDLP SPD War Woodrow Wilson WWI

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

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

Why is it that nobody understands me, yet everybody likes me?

The ambivalence of the current German student movement

March 15, 2010 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

“DIESER HÖRSAAL IST BESETZT!” (“This lecture hall is occupied!”) In November and December 2009, signs bearing such slogans were found on doors at over 60 German universities. For the second time that year, a broad student movement managed to gain public attention for its demands. Protests at the University of Vienna kicked off what became a Europe-wide solidarity wave. In Germany, the Viennese protest first triggered occupations in Heidelberg, Münster, and Potsdam, after which students at many other institutions also became involved. [Read More]

Bologna Process Capitalism Germany Human rights Max Horkheimer Michael Burawoy Nationalism Occupation Protest Red-baiting Reform Strike Students Student politics Student Left