Revolution

Marx@200: The point is to change the world (Knoxville, 3.27.19)

May 16, 2019 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

Panel discussion on the life and legacy of Karl Marx as a revolutionary intellectual, hosted by the Platypus Affiliated Society on March 27, 2019 at the University of Tennessee (Knoxville). Speakers: Dr. Harry Dahms, University of Tennessee (Sociology) Dr. Arnold Farr, University of Kentucky (Philosophy) Dr. Spencer Leonard, Platypus Affiliated Society Moderated by AJ Knowles. Description: This past year marked the 200^th^ birthday of Karl Marx, than whom, as even his ideological opponent Isaiah Berlin had to admit, “no thinker in the nineteenth century has had so direct, deliberate and powerful an influence upon mankind. [Read More]

19th Century 20th Century Communism Critical Theory eco-socialism economic crisis Karl Marx Knoxville Marxism psychoanalysis Revolution socialism

Revolutionary politics and thought

September 5, 2014 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

No coarser insult, no baser defamation, can be thrown against the workers than the remark, ‘Theoretical controversies are for the intellectuals’ —Rosa Luxemburg, Reform or Revolution (1900) Since there can be no talk of an independent ideology formulated by the working masses themselves in the process of their movement the only choice is – either bourgeois or socialist ideology… This does not mean, of course, that the workers have no part in creating such an ideology. [Read More]

C. Wright Mills Democracy Environmentalism French Revolution Hannah Arendt Ideology Jacobin Karl Marx Vladimir Lenin Leon Trotsky Organization Political party Praxis Revolution Rosa Luxemburg Theory and practice Thomas jefferson

Democracy and The Left

June 1, 2014 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

Honoré Daumier's (1808-1879) 'The Republic', 1848. After the Republic was proclaimed on 24 February 1848, the official image of the State had to be changed. A competition was launched to define the 'painted face of the republic'. The French caricaturist, painter, and sculptor submitted a mother nursing powerful toddlers while holding the tricolour flag in her hand. The child sitting at her feet, reading, was much admired. [Read More]

1776 1789 1848 1914 1917 1989 Arab Spring Bonapartism CIO Critique Cuban Missile Crisis Democracy Electoral politics GDR Immanent critique John F. Kennedy Koch brothers Kshama Sawant Vladimir Lenin Karl Marx Max Weber New Deal Occupy Republic Revolution Rosa Luxemburg Russian revolution SFIO Socialist Alternative SPD The Left Ukraine WWII

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

1776 in world history

The American Revolution as bourgeois revolution

December 15, 2013 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

I. Introduction: The bourgeois revolution(s) and the American Revolution In the period stretching from the outbreak of the Seven Years’ War to the *coup d’état* that brought Napoleon Bonaparte to power in revolutionary France, the old order in Europe and North America gave up the ghost and passed away from the face of the earth. For the years between 1760 and 1800 were, as the liberal historian R. R. Palmer masterfully argued, the Age of the Democratic Revolution. [Read More]

American revolution revolution bourgeois revolution

The 3 Rs: Reform, Revolution and "Resistance", London

June 13, 2012 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

A panel discussion with audience Q & A on the problematic forms of “anticapitalism” today. Held on Wednesday 13 June, 7pm at the University of London Union (ULU), Malet Street, London. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Panelists Clare Solomon (co-editor of Springtime: The New Student Rebellions (2011); President of the University Of London Union in 2010) James Heartfield (active in extra-parliamentary Left for thirty years; author of The ‘Death of the Subject” Explained (2002), and the forthcoming Unpatriotic History of the Second World War (2012)). [Read More]

Reform Resistance Revolution

The 3 Rs: Reform, Revolution, and Resistance, NYC

April 26, 2012 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

A panel held on April 26, 2012 at New York University, as part of the 3 Rs panel series. Video Recording Panelists John Asimakopoulos (Institute for Transformative Studies) Todd Gitlin (Columbia University) Tom Trottier (Workers’ International Committee) Ross Wolfe (Platypus Affiliated Society) Description [After the 1960s, the] underlying despair with regard to the real efficacy of political will, of political agency… in a historical situation of heightened helplessness… became a self-constitution as outsider, as other… focused on the bureaucratic stasis of the [Fordist/late 20th century] world: it echoed the destruction of that world by the dynamics of capital [with the neo-liberal turn after 1973, and especially after 1989]. [Read More]

Institute for Transformative Studies Occupy Occupy wall street OWS Reform Resistance Revolution Workers International Committee

The 3 Rs: Reform, Revolution, and Resistance, Boston

April 16, 2012 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

Panel held on April 16, 2012, in Boston, as part of the 3 Rs panel series. Thanks to Doug Enaa Greene (http://www.youtube.com/user/dwgthed) for the video recording. Video Recording Part One Part Two Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Panelists Jeff Booth (Socialist Alternative) Gayge (Common Struggle Libertarian Communist Federation) Joe Ramsey (Kasama Project) Laura Lee Schmidt (Platypus) J. Phil Thompson (MIT) [Read More]

Common Struggle Libertarian Communist Federation Kasama Reform Resistance Revolution Socialist Alternative

The 3 Rs: Reform, Revolution, and Resistance, Dalhousie

January 19, 2012 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

A moderated panel discussion and audience Q & A on problems of strategies and tactics on the Left today held on Thursday, 19 January 2012 at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Panelists Eric Anatolik (Occupy NS) Jacques Beaudoin (Parti communiste revolutionnaire - Revolutionary Communist Party, Canada) Howard Epstein (New Democratic Party MLA Halifax Chebucto) Max Haiven (Edu-Factory, Historical and Critical Studies NSCAD) [Read More]

Edu-Factory Historical and Critical Studies NSCAD New Democratic Party MLA Halifac Chebucto Parti communiste revolutionnaire RCP Canada Reform Resistance Revolution Revolution Communist Party Canada

1917

The Decline of the Left in the 20th Century: Toward a Theory of Historical Regression

November 18, 2009 | The Platypus Affiliated Society • Other languages: Ελληνικά, Deutsch

ON APRIL 18, 2009, the Platypus Affiliated Society conducted the following panel discussion at the Left Forum Conference at Pace University in New York City. The panel was organized around four significant moments in the progressive separation of theory and practice over the course of the 20th century: 2001 (Spencer A. Leonard), 1968 (Atiya Khan), 1933 (Richard Rubin), and 1917 (Chris Cutrone). The following is an edited transcript of the 1917 presentation by Chris Cutrone. [Read More]

Bolshevik Revolution György Lukács Karl Korsch Vladimir Lenin Revolution Rosa Luxemburg Socialism Left Forum