What is Left?

100 years after Lenin

[ VI. Platypus European Conference ]

25 - 27 Jan. 2024Berlin

Agenda

A century after Lenin’s death, the Platypus Affiliated Society aims to critically examine the legacy of the failure of world revolution. Our sixth annual European Conference provides the time to reflect on the nightmare of the twentieth century through teach-ins, panel discussions and presentations by international Leftist organizations. We hope thus to contribute to overcoming the present obstacles to any future emancipatory Left.

The Left is dead! Long live the Left!

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19.00 - 21.00

[ Location ]

Teach-in (English): Lenin's Marxist Critique of Marxism[ read more ]

One of the essential changes from Marx to Lenin's time was the emergence of Marxism as a mass movement. This teach-in will trace Lenin's reception and prosecution of the crisis of Marxism and in particular, his recovery of Marx through the critique of Marxism

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11.00 - 13.00

[ Location ]

Teach-in (German): Gramsci und der Marxismus[ read more ]

Antonio Gramsci wird heute auf der Linken breit rezipiert – von ihm geprägte Begriffe wie der des Stellungskriegs und der Hegemonie scheinen mitunter viel aktueller als die Politik Lenins.
Die Begeisterung für Gramsci ist nicht neu: insbesondere nachdem der Stalinismus 1956 in eine Krise geraten war, erschien Gramsci der Linken als eine vielversprechende Antwort. Die spezifischen Formen, in denen Gramsci rezipiert wurde, unterschieden sich dabei deutlich. War Gramsci ein großer Philosoph oder Parteiaktivist, Stalinist oder Anti-Stalinist, orthodoxer oder heterodoxer Marxist?

Gramsci selbst war der Auffassung, der Begriff der Hegemonie sei Lenins „wichtigster theoretischer Beitrag“ zum Marxismus gewesen.
Dieses Teach-In soll Gramsci in den Kontext der Dritten Internationale einordnen und anhand seiner Rezeption die Entwicklung der Linken im 20. Jahrhundert verfolgen.

Live Stream: YouTube

15.00 - 16.00

[ Location ]

Workshops (English/German): Presentations by various leftist organizations[ read more ]


Marxismus als politische Strategie für die Gegenwart
In diesem Workshop wird ein crashkurs in das strategische Denken von Marx und Engels angeboten. Anschließend werden Anstöße zu ihrer Neuanwendung in unserer Zeit gemacht.

Sprecher:
Katja Wagner
Sergio Maletti

How we built a Youth Party in three Years

Speaker:
Marcel Bostelaar (Rood/NL)

16.30 - 17.30

[ Location ]

Workshops (English/German): Presentations by various leftist organizations[ read more ]


Embeddings, Aufhebung & Denkökonomie
Connecting some dots between machine learning, neurobiology, and the 19th-century German philosophy.

Speaker:
Alexander Berezin (Union of Marxists/RUS)

The Communist Party of Iran (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist)
was founded in 2001 and is an Iranian communist party working for revolution to establish a new socialist republic in place of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
At this workshop activists of the CPI (MLM) will introduce their party. They want to discuss the party's thinking on what revolution is, the universal application of communist revolution in countries like Iran or Germany, as well as the concepts developed by Bob Avakian, which CPI (MLM) adheres to, as the basis and cornerstone of proletarian internationalism.


Speaker:
tba

19.00 - 21.00

[ Location ]

Panel Discussion (German): Krise im sozialistischen Lager ‒ Revisionismus und Anti-Revisionismus[ read more ]

Die "kommunistische Welt" erlebte nach dem Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs eine Periode der Ausdehnung unter Josef Stalin, der den Anspruch erhob, der einzige Erbe Lenins zu sein. Doch kurz nach Stalins Tod stürzte das, was nach außen hin als sozialistischer "Monolith" erschien, in eine tiefe Krise, in welcher alte marxistische Debatten wiederbelebt wurden. Eine dieser Debatten ist die um den Vorwurf des "Revisionismus", repräsentiert durch die Figuren Chruschtschow und Mao, aber auch die europäischen und nordamerikanischen Anhänger Leo Trotzkis. Debatten um Revisionismus hatte es in der marxistischen Linken an historischen Wendepunkten seit dem Auftauchen sozialistischer Massenparteien gegeben, als Debatten darüber, welche Politik dem Erbe des Marxismus gerecht wird - nun wurden sie erneut um das Erbe Lenins und der Revolution von 1917 geführt. Was bedeutete der Kampf um das Erbe Lenins damals und zur Zeit der Neuen Linken? Was ist Revisionismus, was Anti-Revisionismus? Kann die Kritik am Revisionismus für die Linke heute noch etwas bedeuten?

Speakers:
- Ewgeniy Kasakow
- Dieter Ilius (MLPD)
- Spartakist-Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands

Live Stream: YouTube

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11.00 - 13.00

[ Location ]

Panel Discussion (English): Building a Marxist Mass Party Anew[ read more ]

Lenin could look back on half a century of experience of Marxist mass parties, first and foremost the SPD. The Marxist mass party was thus a condition for the possibility of his revolutionary politics. Numerous projects from the Millennial Left have set themselves the goal of rebuilding something similar in order to make revolutionary politics possible again. This task raises questions that go all the way back to Marx’s dispute with the anarchists in the First International: What would it mean for the Left to take "political action" today? What is the point of a political party for the Left? Where do we stand with respect to the task of building this political party today? What is the meaning of the political party for Marxism? Can Marxism help clarify this task?

Speakers:
- Johannes Regell (Socialisterna Välfärdspartiet/S)
- Jakob Hundsbichler (Junge Linke/A)
- Robby Breejen-Bender (Rood/NL)
- Jim Igor Kallenberg (Kampagne für eine sozialistische Partei/D)

Live Stream: YouTube

15.00 - 17.00

[ Location ]

Teach-in (English): Marcuse: Defended Against his Devotees[ read more ]

By engaging with the Marxism of Herbert Marcuse, this teach-in hopes to shed light on a central figure of Critical Theory: What is the meaning of theory and praxis, history and society for Marcuse? What were his differences with Theodor Adorno over the New Left?

Live Stream: YouTube

19.00 - 21.00

[ Location ]

Panel Discussion (English): The Legacy of Lenin[ read more ]

"The actuality of the revolution: this is the core of Lenin's thought and his decisive link with Marx. For historical materialism as the conceptual expression of the proletariat's struggle for liberation could only be conceived and formulated theoretically when revolution was already on the historical agenda as a practical reality; when, in the misery of the proletariat, in Marx's words, was to be seen not only the misery itself but also the revolutionary element 'which will bring down the old order'."
— Georg Lukács

Commemorating the 100th anniversary of Lenin's death this month, the Left refers to the most controversial figure in the history of Marxism, and perhaps one of the most controversial figures in all of history. What is the legacy of Lenin's politics today? Should we even remember him? How has the Left in different moments of the past 100 years attempted to take up Lenin's politics? What do these attempts and their outcomes express about our present moment?

Speakers:
- Benjamin Studebaker (political scientist and author)
- Spartakist-Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands (German section of the International Communist League/Fourth Internationalist)
- Erin Hagood (Platypus Affiliated Society)

Live Stream: YouTube

Admission is Free.

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