2011 Marxism 101 Class Links
Click here to download Class 1 Readings
Allies + Sister Organizations
Coming soon…
Movement Building Resources
Slides from the CPE Introduction to Political Economy & Radical Economics Class (August 2007) and the Recession 101 and Housing Crisis classes (June 2008, in adobe pdf form)
Class #1: Introduction to Political Economy
Class #2: US Macroeconomics
Class #3: The Global Economy, International Trade & Finance
Class #4: Reforming & Replacing Capitalism
Class #5: Introduction to Economic Crisis and Recession
Class #6: Introduction to the Subprime Mortgage and Housing Crisis
• Suresh Naidu’s presentation on Housing Finance
• Amie Fishman, East Bay Housing Organizations, presentation on Housing Policy and the Crisis
• Kevin Stein, California Reinvestment Coalition, presentation on Predatory Lending, Housing Advocacy, and the Crisis
Left Strategies in a Perilous Time
Center for Political Education
Syllabus, December 2003, Max Elbaum
Following are readings for Max’s class on Left Strategies in a Perilous Time given at the Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library in Oakland, CA and at the Center for Political Education in San Francisco. Readings can be viewed or downloaded here, in Microsoft Word or Acrobat format. Click on the links to view in your browser, or right-click to download the file. If you need the free Acrobat Reader, you can download it from Adobe.
Class Description
What are fruitful discussions for the U.S. left on the new political landscape of the 21st century? What can be carried over from past eras and what needs to be left behind as we face the post-Cold War, post-911, permanent “war on terror” world? This seminar/class will look at the current moment both in terms of the new alignment of world and national politics and the left-in-transition which confronts them. We will look especially at prospects for cohering a mass-based peace-and-justice bloc that can exercise real clout in U.S. politics, and the necessary and potential social base for such an alignment.
Session One
The Current Moment: Where Do We Stand in History? Getting Organized:
This seminar is intended as a collective exploration; it offers no recipes and few if any answers.
Everyone has a contribution to make, and all of us are responsible to create a comradely, supportive atmosphere so everyone can make their contribution.
A challenging topic, challenging readings, about 50 pages per session.
Three sessions:
Session One:. The Current Moment: Where Do We Stand in History?
Session Two: What Can We Learn from the Strategies of the 1930s & the 1960s/70s?
Session Three: What May Be Fruitful Strategic Directions Today?
Each class will being with a short kick-off presentation. We will then break down into groups of 8-12 for 45 minutes of small group discussion. Discussion questions for each session are found at the end of this syllabus. After that we will all gather for report-backs from each small group and an hour of discussion in the whole group.
Finally, at this first session, let’s take a few moments to introduce ourselves and say what each of us wants to get out of the class.
Readings (in class packet):
- “Notes to Prepare for War Times August 17 Retreat,” prepared by Max Elbaum, August 2003. (download in Word or Acrobat)
- “The Crisis of the Globalist Project,” speech by Walden Bello, July 15, 2003. (download in Word or Acrobat).
- Presentations on “War and Peace as the New Axis of Politics” and “War, Racism, United Fronts, and the Left,” by Max Elbaum and Bob Wing, October 5, 2001. (download in Word or Acrobat).
- Excerpt from The Age of Extremes, by Eric Hobsbawm, 1994
- Excerpt from The Clash of Civilizations, by Samuel P. Huntington, 1996 (A view from an ideologue of the other side….)
Recommended/Optional Readings:
1. Articles by
“…there can be no serious doubt that in the late 1980s and the early 1990s an era in world history ended and a new one began….” —Eric Hobsbawm
“…with George W. Bush, we are entering a new phase of U.S. imperial democracy. Globalization to promote the collective interest of the global capitalist class is out, the nationalist pursuit of supremacy of U.S. corporate interests is in. Multilateralism as a system of global governance is out, unilateralism is in. Managing the empire by relying on a mixture of political and ideological hegemony and force is out, force as the first resort in dealing with threats to the global order is in. Hardt and Negri’s Empire as an explanation of the global conjuncture is out, Lenin’s Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism is back….” —Walden Bello
Who are the key players in this new phase of history, what is the relative balance of power between them? What are likely contours of the fight between the peoples of the global South and the corporate powers of the imperial North, how will this fight intersect/interact with inter-imperialist rivalries, contradictions within the US ruling class, class and democratic and antiwar struggles within the capitalist heartlands, battles between different classes in the Third World and so on? What are realistic prospects/scenarios for the next, say, 3-5 years?
Session Two
What Can We Learn from the Strategies of the 1930s and the 1960s/1970s?
- “Notes on the Revolution and the 1930s,” Chapter 8 (pp. 220-249) from A Long View from the Left, by Al Richmond, 1972.
- Excerpts (pp. 53-59, 63-65, 83-94, and 136-141) from Detroit: I Do Mind Dying: A Study in Urban Revolution, by Dan Georgakas and Marvin Surkin, 1975.
Recommended/Optional Readings:
- Detroit: I Do Mind Dying: A Study in Urban Revolution is without question worth reading cover to cover.
- Chapters 1-3, 6, and 13-14 of Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao and Che, by Max Elbaum, 2002.
Key themes for this session:
- Politics is millions: “…politics begin where millions of men and women are; where there are not thousands, but millions” —Lenin; “…changing the consciousness of millions requires a politics that is, rather than ought to be, relevant to them…”—Al Richmond
- Alliances, united fronts and popular fronts: “…the problem is not, to coalesce or not to coalesce, but the character of the coalition, and how the Left retains independence and integrity and exerts influence…”—Al Richmond
- International links/counterweights/”models”: in the 1930s, the USSR; in the 1960s, Third World national liberation movements, as leading edges of a worldwide front against imperialism and war.
- Often one sector drives forward the entire progressive alignment: in the 1930s, workers in the mass production industries. in the 1960s, the Civil Rights and freedom movements rooted in the Black masses. How this pattern is shaped by the relationships and intersections of class exploitation, racism and sexism in the U.S.
Session Three (Monday, December 15)
What May Be Fruitful Strategic Directions for Today?
Readings (in class packet):
- Look again at the presentation “War, Racism, United Fronts, and the Left,” by Bob Wing from Session One.
- “Listening to the Women,” the introduction to Sweatshop Warriors: Immigrant Women Workers Take On the Global Factory, by Miriam Ching Yoon Louie, 2001.
- “Raza Sí! Nationalism…?” chapter 29 of De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century, by Elizabeth Martínez, 1998.
- “Open Letter to Our African American Sisters And Brothers,” initiated by the Institute for MultiRacial Justice, Spring 2003. (download in Word or Acrobat)
- Excerpts from “Opening Report to the CPUSA National Committee Meeting,” by Sam Webb, June 28, 2003. (download in Word)
- War Times/Tiempo de Guerras Issue #13 October-November 2003, especially page 4, “Peace or Permanent War? Democracy or Empire?”
Recommended/Optional Readings:
- Sweatshop Warriors: Immigrant Women Workers Take On the Global Factory and De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century.
- Articles by
- Michael Klare (download in Word or Acrobat)
- Carl Davidson & Marilyn Katz (download in Word or Acrobat)
- Steve Bloom (download in Word or Acrobat)
- Cynthia Peters (download in Word or Acrobat)
- the full report by Sam Webb. Acrobat).
- Mariana Mora’s “The Imagination to Listen: Reflections on a Decade of Zapatista Struggle.” (download in Word or Acrobat.)
- Christopher Hayes’ “Door by Door Progressives Hit The Streets In Massive Voter Outreach.” (download in Word)
Key themes for this session:
- Politics is millions: “…Only a [broad, all-people's] coalition has the political muscle to slow down and reverse the ultra-right offensive…Labor, racially and nationally oppressed people, and women are at the core of this coalition. Placing it this way brings into sharper focus what are the essential social forces and alliances that are the bedrock of an all-people’s coalition. It also elevates the struggles for racial and gender equality, which are the glue that binds the larger whole. Finally, it captures how the movement is actually developing on the ground….” —Sam Webb
- Alliances, united fronts and popular fronts: “…we urgently need to build broad coalitions of all who desire peace and freedom and against the attacks on civil liberties, social programs, women, immigrants, economic and social security, that can check and ultimately defeat the Bush program. These coalitions will be strongest and most lasting to the extent they are anchored by communities of color, labor, women, lesbians/gays and other oppressed sectors …One of the key strategic challenges we face will be to restrategize/politicize the fights in each sector and issue around their intersections (back and forth) with war & racism….” —Bob Wing
- International links/counterweights/“models”: “The camp of Davos vs. the camp of Porto Allegre,” —Immanuel Wallerstein. Note the gatherings of the global justice movement in Porto Allegre (World Social Forum) and the anti-racist movement in Durban (World Conference Against Racism); and the linkage of these streams with the international peace movement and the Group of 21 which spearheaded the walkout at the WTO in Cancun. Are these possibly current-day counterparts of the socialist bloc and/or the national liberation/Non-Aligned Movement of earlier times?
- Often one sector drives forward the entire progressive alignment: Might immigrant workers be playing a role today similar to other “driving force” sectors in the past? “…This book shines a spotlight on grassroots immigrant women as agents of change, and argues that they are, indeed, the very heartbeat of the labor and anti-sweatshop movements….” —Miriam Ching Yoon Louie
