Calendar
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
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
