On November 4, 2015, the Loyola University Chicago chapter of the Platypus Affiliated Society hosted a panel discussion entitled “Women: The Longest Revolution?” The panelists were Margaret Power, professor of History at the Illinois Institute of Technology and the author or editor of several books on Latin American history and the political right; Brit Schulte, a grassroots organizer, founding editor of Red Wedge magazine, and current graduate student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; and Yasmin Nair, a Chicago-based writer, academic, and activist in Chicago, co-founder of the Against Equality editorial collective, and volunteer policy director of Gender JUST.

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On November 7, 2015, the Platypus Affiliated Society hosted a panel discussion at its 2nd European Conference in Frankfurt entitled “Women: The Longest Revolution?” The panelists were Cornelia Möser, who earned her PhD in gender studies and political science and is a researcher for the CNRS at the CRESPPA-GTM in Paris; Lucy Parker, a member of Platypus based in London; Joy McReady, a journalist and revolutionary social activist who writes a monthly column on women’s liberation for Workers’ Power, the British section of the League for the Fifth International; and Ursula Jensen, a founding member of the International Bolshevik Tendency and a longterm member of the works council within the IG Metall.

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On April 11, 2015, at the closing plenary of the 7th annual Platypus Affiliated Society international convention in Chicago, Chris Cutrone of Platypus, Mike Macnair of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), Adolph Reed, Jr. (University of Pennsylvania), and Tom Riley of the Internationalist Bolshevik Tendency (IBT) spoke on the topic “What is a political party for the Left?”

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On April 11, 2015, The Platypus Affiliated Society hosted a panel discussion on democracy and the Left at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago as part of the seventh annual Platypus International Convention. In conversation were Mike Macnair, member of the Provisional Central Committee of the Communist Party of Great Britain, and author of numerous works including Revolutionary Strategy (2008); August Nimtz, author of numerous works including Marx and Engels: Their Contribution to the Democratic Breakthrough (2000); Aaron Smeaton, a member of the International Communist Tendency and a contributor to leftcom.org; and Peter Staudenmaier, teacher at the Institute for Social Ecology, and veteran of anarchist, environmentalist, and anti-capitalist movements.

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On February 6, 2015 the Platypus Affiliated Society hosted a discussion at the Goethe-University in Frankfurt am Main on the subject of 1989 and its significance for the Left. The event’s speakers were Gerd Bedszent, a former member of the East German [GDR] opposition group Initiative für eine Vereinigte Linke [United Left] and presently of the Exit! group; Patrick Köbele, chairman of the German Communist Party; and Stefan Bollinger, author of 1989—Eine Abgebrochene Revolution (1999) and a member of Die Linke’s Historical Commission.

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