Dérive

  Delegates to the 2nd RSDLP congress in 1903 The following is a list of important points from Lenin's 1901-2 work "What is to be Done." Important works to read to understand the context of the work include Lars Lih's "Lenin Rediscovered," Neil Harding's "Lenin's Political Thought," and Hal Draper's " The Myth of Lenin's 'Concept of the Party .'" I have selected three points from each chapter.  Preface: The polemical side of this work against RD was tacked on at the end after they published a piece against Iskra. It was originally intended to be a work directed towards building the party, not a statement against economism. The Social Democrats and Economics exist within the same party but speak "different languages." This must be resolved prior to any unity.  Lenin knows that true economism ended years ago, but RD epitomizes the same sense of disorganization and confusion within the party. If any remnants...

The following is an interview with John Reimann, a socialist activist (with roots in the union movement) and writer in Oakland, CA. I’ve known John for several years and wanted to learn more about his life. John touches on many topics, including his upbringing in New York, his participation in the civil rights movement and the anti-Vietnam War movement, his experiences as a union dissident, and his travels abroad. He concludes with a look at the present and future of capitalist society. Luke: I'm curious about your life as it relates to your politics and your organizing. Tell me about your upbringing and early years.  John: I was born into a non-religious Jewish family in New York in 1946. My father had been the economics page editor for the newspaper of the German Communist Party. Then he left the party over political differences. That was due to Stalin's takeover of the party. He was then involved in the anti-Nazi underground. (He told me that his group had a policy of worki...

This is my presentation abo ut Marxism, democracy, and republicanism for the series Why Marx? The thesis statement for my presentation read:  “Socialism is the period of workers’ political rule during the transition from capitalism to communism: the dictatorship of the proletariat. A radical republican and insightful critic of the labor movement, including the Paris Commune, Marx explained why the dictatorship of the proletariat would take the form of a social republic. In essence, Marx understood socialism as the fullest extension of democracy.”

Several months ago I spoke about Huey Newton for Lives of the Left. Newton was co-founder of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (Later, the Black Panther Party) and a prominent figure throughout the turbulent 60s and 70s. 

 Several months ago I spoke about Lucy Parsons for Lives of the Left. Parsons was an important figure in the early anarchist and later socialist movements in the United States. She is often remembered because of her husband, Albert Parsons. 

I’m searching for the essence of Marx’s concept of socialism, the essence of Marxism, one might say. That essence - the thread weaving through all of Marx’s work, and much of Engels’ too - is criticism, or, critique. As a younger Marx wrote in 1843, “…if constructing the future and settling everything for all times are not our affair, it is all the more clear what we have to accomplish at present: I am referring to ruthless criticism of all that exists, ruthless both in the sense of not being afraid of the results it arrives at and in the sense of being just as little afraid of conflict with the powers that be.” Marx’s socialism - his understanding that the working class is the world-transforming force of history - emerges from criticism of religious critique: man alienates himself in religion, but what is it about material existence that compels man to seek this flight from reality? It’s the conditions of modern industrial labor. Marx’s most fundamental critique arguably lies in his e...