Marxist Humanism

Don't Forget Vorkuta: A Soviet Holocaust

June 2003

Introduction

PRACTICING PHILOSOPHY AND REVOLUTION

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Editor's Note:

When Raya Dunayevskaya wrote the following letter to her colleagues on the National Editorial Board of News and Letters Committees, she had just completed a draft of her second book, PHILOSOPHY AND REVOLUTION (published 1973). In it, she takes up the just completed class series on philosophy that the organization had undertaken and the need to go beyond merely "understanding" dialectics to "practicing" dialectics. The full text of the letter can be found in THE RAYA DUNAYEVSKAYA COLLECTION, Microfilm no. 14036-14038.

Women's liberation, then and now

"Life itself becomes too dear, So vast are one's dreams." -Louise Michel

"A work is never beautiful, unless it in some way escapes its author." -D.H. Lawrence

I. YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW

We have reached a turning point in our work which can by no means restrict itself only to Luxemburg and Marx. We must go both backwards and forwards in history and cover the globe. I dare say, since life itself began, woman has had to struggle; and in order to see the dialectic of development, both of our age and other historic periods, we will need to gather disparate strands that may, at first, look quite disconnected. I trust, however, that at the end a direction will manifest itself.

The uniqueness of Marxist-Humanism
Editor's note

Black History Month 2001 is an important moment in which to view the historic-philosophic contributions of Marxist-Humanism for the ongoing efforts to uproot this racist, sexist, class ridden society. For this reason we here publish excerpts of a Perspectives Thesis presented by Raya Dunayevskaya to a national convention of News and Letters Committees in 1963, just after the pamphlet AMERICAN CIVILIZATION ON TRIAL had come off the press. The speech was entitled "The Need to Transform Reality." We here publish excerpts of Parts 1 and 4 of the talk. The original can be found in THE RAYA DUNAYEVSKAYA COLLECTION, 3279. All emphases and titles of subheads are in the original.

Marxist-Humanism's concept of 'Subject'

Editor's Note: In early years of the 1970s leading up to the completion of her book, PHILOSOPHY AND REVOLUTION: FROM HEGEL TO SARTRE AND FROM MARX TO MAO, Raya Dunayevskaya engaged young revolutionaries in the ideas presented in that work. An example is a Jan. 15, 1971 letter, excerpted here, to young members of News and Letters Committees. Her discussion of the connection between subjects of revolt and philosophy speaks to concerns presented in our "Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives" (See pp. 1, 5-8). The original can be found in Supplement to THE RAYA DUNAYEVSKAYA COLLECTION, 14110-11. Footnotes are by the editors.

Notes on the LOGIC from Hegel's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHICAL SCIENCES
Part I Introduction and Preliminary Notion

Editor's Note: Over the next three issues we will be publishing Raya Dunayevskaya's 1961 notes on Hegel's Smaller LOGIC as part of our continuing effort to stimulate theoretical discussion on the "dialectic proper." Written on Feb. 15, 1961, these notes on Hegel's Smaller LOGIC-the first part of his ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHICAL SCIENCES-comment on all sections of the work.

Dialectics: The Algebra of Revolution
Editor's Note

The following consists of excerpts of comments made by Raya Dunayevskaya during the 1978 Convention of News and Letters Committees, in response to a question from the floor about the meaning of dialectical philosophy. It has never before appeared in print. We publish it now as part of our ongoing effort to raise and work out the question "Why Dialectics? Why Now?" (See the announcement for an upcoming series of discussions on this.) The original can be found in THE RAYA DUNAYEVSKAYA COLLECTION, 5791.

Savio, Mario; Walker, Eugene; Dunayevskaya, Raya. The Free Speech Movement and the Negro Revolution

"A Restatement of Some Fundamentals of Marxism against 'pseudo-Marxism'"

Editor's Note: As a continuation of our discussion of the "Dialectics of Marx's CAPITAL and Today's Global Crisis," as our just concluded class series was titled, we print for the first time an excerpt from the polemic Raya Dunayevskaya wrote in 1943 against a leading theoretician of the Workers Party, Joe Carter, on Marx's concept of capitalist "production for the sake of production."

Practicing Proletarian Reason
On seniority and labor's emancipation

Editor's note

As the 1960s "Freedom Now!" struggles against racism and segregation continued into the 1970s fights against discrimination in hiring and union representation, union bureaucrats and even left labor activists limited the given choices to either supporting Black and women workers' rights or supporting seniority rights. Raya Dunayevskaya, in a letter to autoworker and colleague Felix Martin in 1975, posed a more total view of the issue of seniority in relationship to liberation.

Excerts from Raya Dunayevskaya's Philosophy & Revolution

1973

Julius Nyerere, African socialist

I have turned "Black World" over to Kevin Anderson this month for the following in memoriam to former Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere who died in October.-Lou Turner

by Kevin Anderson

With the death of Julius Nyerere, the world has lost one of the foremost proponents of African Socialism. Nyerere's humanist vision known as UJAMAA influenced several generations of Africans as well as many throughout the world concerned with African liberation.

The Death of the Death of the Subject

Peter Hudis

The conversion of the subject into the predicate, and of the predicate into the subject, the exchange of that which determines for that which is determined, is always the most immediate revolution.

- Karl Marx, Kreuznach Notebooks 1

Can capital be controlled?

by Peter Hudis

The protest against the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Seattle at the end of 1999 has brought us to a new stage of development. It wasn't just a protest against the WTO. It was a protest against what the WTO stands for-a world capitalist system based on vast income inequities, sweatshops, environmental destruction, and racial and sexual discrimination. The way thousands of workers, students, feminists, gays and lesbians, environmentalists, and Third World activists came together to oppose globalization has raised questions like: What is the alternative to the WTO? Is it possible to go beyond global capitalism? And if so, what road must be taken to get there?

Marx's unchaining of the dialectic

Editors Note: As part of our ongoing effort to spur new discussion on the relation of philosophy and organization, we republish excerpts of a speech given by Dunayevskaya on Jan. 1, 1983 to the National Editorial Board of NEWS & LETTERS. The introduction and first part of the presentation appear here. Unless otherwise indicated, footnotes are by the author. The original can be found in THE RAYA DUNAYEVSKAYA COLLECTION, 7639.

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by Raya Dunayevskaya, founder of Marxist-Humanism in the U.S.

Marxism and 'the party'

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Editor's Note:

As part of our commemoration of the 150th anniversary of Marx's COMMUNIST MANIFESTO, we publish Raya Dunayevskaya's 1980 critique of John Molyneux's MARXISM AND THE PARTY, a 1978 work by a British Trotskyist which largely focused on the MANIFESTO. Written as a letter to an Iranian Marxist-Humanist on Sept. 4, 1980, the critique has been slightly edited and shortened; we have also supplied headlines, footnotes, and the material in brackets. The original is in the SUPPLEMENT TO THE RAYA DUNAYEVSKAYA COLLECTION, microfilm no. 15235.

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By Raya Dunayevskaya/Founder of Marxist-Humanism

Marxism & Freedom

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Written: 1957
Source: Chapter 6 of From Marxism & Freedom, from 1776 until today. 4 pages of 380.
Publisher: Columbia University Press, 1958.
HTML Markup: Andy Blunden

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The 'Philosophy' of the Yenan period: Mao Perverts Lenin

'We are opposed to the die-hards in the
revolutionary ranks ... We are opposed
to the idle talk of the left.'
Mao Tse Tung.

50 years after the revolution-Mao, Hegel, and dialectics in China

Editor's Note: The 50th anniversary of the foundations of the People's Republic of China is the occasion of our publishing the following 1957 letter to a comrade by Raya Dunayevskaya on the significance of Mao Zedong and his Feb. 27, 1957 speech "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People." Written from the vantage point of the dialectical categories of Hegel's PHENOMENOLOGY OF MIND, this early philosophic critique of Mao would later be developed by Dunayevskaya in her works, MARXISM AND FREEDOM and PHILOSOPHY AND REVOL,UTION. (See below for these and other writings on Mao and China by Dunayevskaya.) The original letter can be found in THE RAYA DUNAYEVSKAYA COLLECTION, 12179-12181. The footnotes have been supplied by the editor.

From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Marxist-Humanist Archives
January-February 1999

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Rough Notes on Hegel's SCIENCE OF LOGIC

Part I Preface and Introduction
Editor's Note: As part of our effort to stimulate new study and discussion of dialectical philosophy, News and Letters Committees is breaking new ground in the radical movement by publishing the following detailed commentary on Hegel's SCIENCE OF LOGIC in the next four issues of our newspaper.

Simultaneous valuation vs. the exploitation theory of profit
Author: Kliman, Andrew J Source: Capital & Class 97-112 no. 73 (Spring 2001): p. 97-112 ISSN: 0309-8168 Number: 70073393 Copyright: Copyright Conference of Socialist Economists Spring 2001