On April 2, 2022, the Platypus Affiliated Society hosted this panel at Northwestern University as a part of the 2022 Platypus International Convention. The panelists were Benjamin Studebaker (formerly of Whatâs Left?, PhD from the University of Cambridge, benjaminstudebaker.com), Donald Parkinson (editor-in-chief of Cosmonaut magazine and a member of the Marxist Unity Group organizing committee), James Heartfield (historian and activist, author of Britainâs Empires (2020) among others, heartfield.org), and Chris Cutrone (original lead organizer of the Platypus Affiliated Society, teaches philosophy and critical social theory at SAIC and the Institute for Clinical Social Work).
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Die umstrittenste Annahme des Marxismus ist die Diktatur des Proletariats. Und in der Tat bildet sie das, wodurch sich der Marxismus politisch, ideologisch und theoretisch, intellektuell, praktisch und organisatorisch auszeichnet. Der Tod der Linken misst sich an der Abkehr von dieser These.
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WHY IS THERE WAR? Because capitalism is self-contradictory, and this is expressed in conflicts among workers as well as among capitalists, and between ânationalâ working classes and capitalist states, between politicians and political parties both within and between nation-states, and often these conflicts are violent.
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BENEDICT CRYPTOFASH CRITICIZES me for using the âLeftâ as a concept for its alleged idealism and metaphysical essentialism. But by identifying the âLeftâ with a group of people, e.g. members of Jacobin/DSA et al., Cryptofash reifies the phenomenon of the Left, and in the worst possible way, by personalizing it.
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LESZEK KOĆAKOWSKIâS âTHE CONCEPT OF THE LEFTâ (1958) is useful for addressing what it means to say that there is a Left and a Right in Marxism. The actual occasion for KoĆakowskiâs article was Soviet Premier and Communist Party head Nikita Khrushchevâs denunciation of Stalin for âcrimes against Leninismâ and against socialism. What did this mean?
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