Calendar

Today we face criminal wars abroad, budget cuts at home, skyrocketing incomes for the upper crust, falling living standards for the rest of us, and an economy that can’t seem to survive without $85 billion per month in life support from the federal reserve. We didn’t vote for this, and the ruling elite knows very well that we never would. The status quo cannot be maintained through democratic forms of rule.

It is no accident that today we see unconstitutional drone assassination programs and NSA spying programs openly defended by all branches of government, the militarization of police, and core constitutional rights shredded under the false pretext of the war on terror.

The US ruling class is preparing to fight two sorts of enemies: rivals abroad, such as Russia, China, Iran, Syria and any other country that challenges US strategic interests, and the working class at home. Only the US and international working class has the power to halt the drive toward war abroad and dictatorship at home.

We invite you to join us for a discussion of sections 4-end of Lenin’s ‘What is to be Done?’

Here is a link to a PDF version: https://www.dropbox.com/s/svjglfdimf2wyfc/WITBD121011.pdf

Lenin’s definitive work on the role of a political party in catalyzing a mass socialist movement of the working class lays out the fundamental task, the fight to bring a scientific socialist perspective to workers. Lenin makes a case for the creation of mass newspaper, whose perspective is guided by an uncompromising Marxist analysis of world events, to help workers understand how their immediate struggles are related to the broader struggles of workers across the Russia and the world, and to expose and study the class relations that underly society. This is the perspective behind the World Socialist Website, wsws.org.

Lenin comes out both barrels blazing against an orientation toward spontaneity or a rejection of the political struggle in favor of a struggle simply for better wages and working conditions. More broadly, Lenin makes the case for an unrelenting fight to expose the class interests behind opportunist and reformist political tendencies of all sorts. This work’s continuing significance is demonstrated perhaps most vividly by the unrelenting efforts of so-called “left” tendencies of all sorts to falsify, obscure and attack Lenin’s unambiguous arguments. Lenin is labeled an elitist, an authoritarian, a revisionist of Marxism (among pseudo-Marxists), a true adherent of Marxism (among anti-Marxists), and ridiculous claims are made that Lenin himself backed away from these views because he didn’t immediately reprint the work after the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia.

So, what is the truth? In the current rapidly changing period of history, what is to be done? We invite you to join us on October 8 to discuss “What is to be Done?”.

This week we are reading Results and Prospects, Leon Trotsky’s groundbreaking 1906 work. Results and Prospects explains the political implications of Russia’s particular course of historical development, with a feudal autocracy grafted on top of a rapidly growing industrial base owned by foreign investors. Through this historical analysis, Trotsky lays out, with striking accuracy, a prediction of the revolutionary role the working class would come to play, and the tasks ahead for the instigation of a global socialist transition after the proletariat had seized power in Russia.

In the wake of the 1905 revolutionary upsurge in the Russian Empire, serious questions faced the global socialist movement. The Russian working class had proved itself as the leading revolutionary force against the Tsarist autocracy, while the bourgeois democratic movement the Mensheviks and others expected to replace the Tsar had failed to substantively materialize. Why had this happened? What was the way forward, in Russia and in the rest of the world? These are the questions Trotsky seeks to answer in Results and Prospects.

Here is a link to a PDF that contains both Results and Prospects and Permanent Revolution, which fleshes out many ideas put forward in R&P: https://www.dropbox.com/s/iho8sj7au67odh9/LDTPermRev121104_2.pdf

The Transitional Program, authored by Leon Trotsky in 1938, clearly laid the theoretical groundwork for the construction of a mass socialist party in the US. Trotsky proposes a set of concrete transitional demands, such as the expropriation of super-wealthy individuals, and the creation of independent factory committees, while explaining that the uncompromising struggle to achieve these demands will inevitably lead the working class to fight independently for political power.

Although much has changed since the outbreak of WWII, many of the basic points laid out in the transitional program are just as relevant today as they were then. We hope to see you there.

Here is a link to the text:https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2008/10/prog-o21.html

“Tsar to Lenin” is the only documentary film comprised entirely of actual film footage from the Russian Revolution, and the periods immediately before and after. This extraordinary footage was compiled by Herman Axelbank, who spent years traveling through Eastern Europe, gathering it using any means at his disposal. Released in 1937, at the height of Stalin’s Great Terror, in which the bulk of the Soviet revolutionary generation was physically exterminated, the film received a warm reception from critics, but was quickly suppressed by the Stalinist Communist Party in the US.

Narrated by Max Eastman, sometimes known as the first American Trotskyist, this film is required viewing  for anyone trying to understand the historical significance of Russian Revolution, and its implications in the present period.

You can watch the preview at: http://tsartolenin.com/

We invite you to join us for a weekly discussion of pressing current topics and equally pressing lessons from classic Marxist historical and theoretical works.

We will be discussing the escalating tensions in the East China Sea since the establishment of China’s Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) in late November.

By proclaiming an ADIZ that contains the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, also claimed by Japan, and a submerged rock claimed by South Korea, China has played right  into Washington’s hands. Through its military and diplomatic “Pivot to Asia”, US imperialism is playing a reckless game of chicken in the East China Sea and elsewhere in an attempt to use its residual military supremacy to offset its China’s economic ascendency amid the US terminal economic decline. The result is eerily similar to the European powder keg in 1913, stoked by tensions between a declining Britain and an ascendant Germany  in 1913.

Please read the following articles for background knowledge on the developments:

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/11/25/chin-n25.html https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/11/29/adiz-n29.html https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/05/adiz-d05.html https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/06/wolf-d06.html https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/06/bide-d06.html

In this weekly course, we study foundational Marxist works by Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, as well as contemporary works by the International Committee of the Fourth International. From these groundbreaking works, we aim to draw powerful political lessons for the present day.

For more information, visit: http://www.decal.org/courses/2986

In this weekly course, we study foundational Marxist works by Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, as well as contemporary works by the International Committee of the Fourth International. From these groundbreaking works, we aim to draw powerful political lessons for the present day.

For more information, visit: http://www.decal.org/courses/2986

In this weekly course, we study foundational Marxist works by Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, as well as contemporary works by the International Committee of the Fourth International. From these groundbreaking works, we aim to draw powerful political lessons for the present day.

For more information, visit: http://www.decal.org/courses/2986