Stalinism

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

Remembrance of things past

March 1, 2013 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

ON DECEMBER 15, 2012, Ross Wolfe interviewed Boris Groys, Global Distinguished Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies at New York University. His numerous published books include The Total Art of Stalinism (1986), Art Power (2008), The Communist Postscript (2009), and Going Public (2011). What follows is an edited transcript of their conversation. Ross Wolfe: In the introduction to your 2006 book, The Communist Postscript, you provocatively assert: “The communist revolution is the transcription of society from the medium of money to the medium of language. [Read More]

Boris Groys Stalinism

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

Platypus 2011 President's report

The "Anti-Fascist" vs. "Anti-Imperialist" Left: Some Genealogies and Prospects

May 1, 2011 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

Platypus President’s report by Chris Cutrone at the third annual Platypus Affiliated Society international convention, Chicago, May 1st, 2011. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Description The usual ways of categorizing various trends on the “Left” today have become less useful for distinguishing politically and indicating potential future developments. Trends have defied historical or expected trajectories – if these in fact ever applied properly – and so call for a new and different approach to sort out what we’re dealing with today and are likely to encounter going forward. [Read More]

Platypus International Convention 2011 Anti-fascism Anti-imperialism Anti-Stalinism Authoritarian Leftism Liberal Libertarian Socialism Stalinism

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

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

Is the funeral for the wrong corpse?

April 8, 2010 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

_HAL FOSTER IS a prominent critic and art historian who contributes regularly to Artforum, New Left Review*, and The Nation. He is also an editor of October. In the fall of 2009, he sent out a questionnaire to 70 critics and curators, asking them what “contemporary” means today. Foster notes that the term “contemporary” is not new, but that “What is new is the sense that, in its very heterogeneity, much present practice seems to float free of historical determination, conceptual definition, and critical judgment. [Read More]

1917 Art Art and Culture Artforum Artists Contemporary art Guy Debord Hal Foster Modernism Postmodernism Robert Smithson Stalinism Theodor W. Adorno

An Unmet Challenge

Race and the Left in America

January 8, 2010 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

IN HIS 1932 NOVEL BANJO, the radical black intellectual Claude McKay portrays the vibrancy of black cosmopolitanism in the French port city of Marseilles in the decade following the end of World War I. McKay’s characters – boys of the docks, mendicants, and drifters – grapple with the racism of the wider society, while in their relations to one another live beyond race’s narrowness. One in particular, the novel’s protagonist, an itinerant intellectual named Ray, is driven by French police brutality to reflect on the reality of his race. [Read More]

AFL America American Communist Party Black Belt thesis Claude McKay Communist League of America James P. Cannon Max Shachtman Nationalism Race Reconstruction Richard Fraser Joseph Stalin Stalinism Leon Trotsky

2001

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 2001 presentation by Spencer A. [Read More]

Afghanistan Fred Halliday Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Iran Iranian Revolution Michel Foucault Moishe Postone New Left Stalinism Left Forum Theodor W. Adorno

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