Second International
Socialism and the Avant-Garde, 1880-1914 - Eric Hobsbawm
Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm's account of the relationship between the prewar artistic avant-garde and the workers' movement of that period. Both converged in the late nineteenth century, diverged quite sharply in the first phase of radical 'modernism', but found each other again - at least for a few passionate years - under the impact of the Great War and the October Revolution.
Both socialism as a mass movement and the cultural and artistic avant-garde as a widely recognized, self-conscious and sometimes separately organized representative of 'modernity' and 'progress’ within the arts are, as European phenomena, children of the last. decades of the nineteenth century. In this paper I propose to consider their relationship.
Second International - further reading guide
Libcom's guide to further reading on the Second International.
*Critique of The Gotha Program - Marx
*Critique of the Erfurt Program - Engels
The Second International - Joll
The First Three Internationals - Novack
History of Socialist Thought, Vols. 2-4 - Cole
German Social-Democracy: 1905-1917 - Schorske
Lenin's Struggle for a Revolutionary International, 1907-16
Karl Kautsky and the Socialist Revolution - Salvatori
Marxism is Dead! Long Live Marxism - Mike Rooke
An examination of the limits of 2nd & 3rd International 'Orthodox Marxism' and the later theoretical contribution of the Situationist Guy Debord.
From; 'What Next' no. 30, 2005
Marxism and Philosophy - Karl Korsch
On the philosophical content of Marxism, the role of dialectics and consciousness.
