Spring 2008

Introducing the Marxist Left

[PDF]

Session 1: February 10, 2008

The absence of the Left

"However difficult the task of grasping and confronting global capital might be, it is crucially important that a global internationalism be recovered and reformulated. . . . None of the massive demonstrations against the war featured oppositional progressive Iraqis who could provide a more nuanced and critical perspective on the Middle East, a telling political failure on the part of the Left." (Postone 2006)

"We have to note, with regret, that the Iraqi democratic forces have not received, in their difficult struggle, effective solidarity and support from international forces of the Left." (Iraqi CP 2006)

· Moishe Postone, "History and Helplessness: Mass Mobilization and Contemporary Forms of Anticapitalism" (2006)

Fred Halliday, "Who is Responsible? [interview with Danny Postel in Chicago]" (2005)

Iraqi Communist Party, Letter to Fraternal and Friendly Parties About the Situation in Iraq and the Position of the Iraqi Communist Party (Jan. 2006)

Session 2: February 24, 2008

Marxism as theory and practice

"In socialism, freedom is to become a reality. But because the present system is called 'free' and considered liberal, it is not terribly clear what this might mean. . . . Not only [the Little Man's] lack of freedom but that of [his betters] as well spells his doom. His interest lies in the Marxist clarification of the concept of freedom. . . .
The socialist order of society is not prevented by world history; it is historically possible. But it will not be realized by a logic that is immanent to history but by men trained in theory and determined to make things better. Otherwise, it will not be realized at all." (Horkheimer 1926-31)

· Max Horkheimer, selections from Dämmerung (Notes 1926-31)

· Theodor W. Adorno, part X. "Imaginative excesses" from "Messages in a Bottle" (orphaned from Minima Moralia 1944-47)

Liza Featherstone, Doug Henwood, and Christian Parenti, " 'Action Will Be Taken': Left Anti-Intellectualism and its Discontents" (2002)

Session 3: March 9, 2008

Adorno contra Marcuse on the New Left

"I think that you are deluding yourself in being unable to go on without participating in the student stunts, because of what is occurring in Vietnam or Biafra. If that really is your reaction, then you should not only protest against the horror of napalm bombs but also against the unspeakable Chinese-style tortures that the Vietcong carry out permanently. If you do not take that on board too, then the protest against the Americans takes on an ideological character." (Adorno to Marcuse 1969)

· Esther Leslie, Introduction to the 1969 Adorno-Marcuse correspondence (1999)

· Theodor W. Adorno and Herbert Marcuse, correspondence on the German New Left (1969)

Paul Berman, "The Passion of Joschka Fischer: from the radicalism of the '60s to the interventionism of the '90s" (2001)

Rudi Dutschke, "On Anti-Authoritarianism" (1968)
[in Carl Oglesby, ed., New Left Reader (1969), 243-253]

Daniel and Gabriel Cohn-Bendit, "The Battle for the Streets — C'est Pour Toi Que Tu Fais La Révolution" [from Obsolete Communism: A Left-Wing Alternative (1968)]
[in Oglesby, ed., New Left Reader, 254-266]

Session 4: April 6, 2008

The concept of the Left

"The concept of the Left remains unclear to this day." (Kolakowski 1968)

· Leszek Kolakowski, "The Concept of the Left" (1968)
[in Carl Oglesby, ed., New Left Reader (1969), 144-158]

Session 5: April 20, 2008

What was the New Left?

"It is with [the] problem of agency in mind that I have been studying the intellectuals. . . . [I]f we try to be realistic in our utopianism — and that is not fruitless contradiction — a writer on the Left today must begin there. For that is what we are, that is where we stand." (Mills 1960)

· C. Wright Mills, "Letter to the New Left" (1960) [PDF]

· Mills, "The Politics of Responsibility" (1960)
[in Carl Oglesby, ed., New Left Reader (1969), 23-31]
[includes excerpts from "Letter to the New Left" (1960) [PDF] ]

Carl Oglesby, "Introduction: The Idea of the New Left" (1969)
[in Oglesby, ed., New Left Reader, 1-20]

Session 6: May 4, 2008

The question of "revolutionary leadership"

"The historical crisis of mankind is reduced to the crisis of revolutionary leadership." (Leon Trotsky 1938)

· Cliff Slaughter, "What is Revolutionary Leadership?" (1960)

Rosa Luxemburg, The Junius Pamphlet, or, The Crisis of German Social Democracy Part I (1915/16)

Session 7: May 18, 2008

Women and revolution

"The situation of women is different from that of any other social group. This is because they are not one of a number of isolable units, but half a totality: the human species. . . . They are fundamental to the human condition, yet in their economic, social and political roles, they are marginal. It is precisely this combination — fundamental and marginal at one and the same time — that has been fatal to them." (Mitchell 1966)

· Juliet Mitchell, "Women: the Longest Revolution" (1966)
[revised version from Women's Estate (1971)]

Quintin Hoare, "On Mitchell's 'Women: the longest revolution' " (1967)

Mitchell, reply to Quintin Hoare (1967)

Clara Zetkin and V. I. Lenin, "My Recollections of Lenin: an interview on the woman question" (interview 1920)

Lynne Segal, "Psychoanalysis and Politics: Juliet Mitchell then and now" (2000)

Session 8: June 1, 2008

For a return to Marx

· Georg Lukács, "The Phenomenon of Reification" (Part I of "Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat," 1923) [PDF]
[in History and Class Consciousness, 83-110]

Karl Marx, selections from The Grundrisse (1857-61, A. "Introduction: (1) Production: Independent Individuals, 18th Century Ideas, and (3) The Method of Political Economy," C. "The Dynamics of Capitalism," G. "Capitalism, Machinery and Automation," H. "The End of Capitalism" [PDF], and "(1) Value" [PDF])
[in Robert C. Tucker, ed., Marx-Engels Reader, 222-226, 236-244, 247-250, 283-290, and 291-292, and Martin Nicolaus, transl., Grundrisse, 881-882]

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, selections from the Manifesto of the Communist Party (1847-48, Prefaces to various language editions, I. "Bourgeois and Proletarians," II. "Proletarians and Communists," and IV. "Position of the Communists in Relation to the Various Existing Opposition Parties" [PDF])
[in Robert C. Tucker, ed., Marx-Engels Reader, 469-491, and 499-500]

Karl Marx, selections from the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 ("Estranged Labour," "Private Property and Labour," "Private Property and Communism," and "The Meaning of Human Requirements" [PDF])
[in Robert C. Tucker, ed., Marx-Engels Reader, 70-101]

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