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Marxist-Humanist Literature


New from News & Letters


Helen Macfarlane: A Feminist, Revolutionary Journalist, and Philosopher in Mid-Nineteenth-Century England
By David Black

Lexington Books, 2004. 192 pp.

Special introductory offer: $15 (includes postage)

Helen Macfarlane, a young British woman, was living in Vienna when she was radicalized by the 1848 Revolution. On returning to England in 1850, she became a journalist for the radical wing of the Chartist movement. The Chartists received support from such luminaries as Karl Marx and Fredrich Engles; the latter had written on the movement's political significance. It was Marx who described Macfarlane as the most original writer in the Chartist press. Macfarlane was the first English translator of The Communist Manifesto, included in this edition. She is also the first of the British to comment, critically and extensively, on the revolutionary implications of Hegel's philosophy. After having been hidden for a century her stature as a revolutionary, writer, and feminist emerges in David Black's seminal work. With diligent research into her life and work, Black, in Helen Macfarlane: A Feminist, Revolutionary Journalist, and Philosopher in Mid 19th Century England, recreates her intellectual and political world at a key turning point in European history.

"Dave Black has done astute historical detective work to rescue from erasure a key figure in socialist history."-Rosemary Hennessey, author of Profit and Pleasure: Sexual Identities in Late Capitalism

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American Civilization on Trial
Black Masses as Vanguard
By Raya Dunayevskaya

New fifth edition for the 40th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington

News & Letters, 2003. 117 pp.
$8

Contents

New 2003 Introduction by the publisher

Author's Introductions and Prefaces for 1963, 1970, and 1983 editions, including "A 1980s View of the Two-Way Road Between the U.S. and Africa"

Introduction, 1963

  1. Of Patriots, Scoundrels and Slave Masters
  2. Compelling Issues at Stake

Part I • From the First Through the Second American Revolution

  1. Abolitionism, First Phase: From “Moral Suasion” to Harpers Ferry
  2. Abolitionism, Second Phase: The Unfinished Revolution

Part II • The Still Unfinished Revolution

  1. Northern Labor Struggles to Break Capital’s Stranglehold, 1877-97
  2. One and a Half Million Forgotten Negro Populists
  3. Populism and Intellectual Ferment

Part III • Imperialism And Racism

  1. Rise of Monopoly Capital
  2. Racism and Plunge into Imperialism
  3. A New Awakening of Labor: The IWW

Part IV • Nationalism and Internationalism

  1. The Negro Moves North
  2. Garveyism
  3. Marxism

Part V • From the Depression Through World War II

  1. The CIO Changes the Face of the Nation and Makes a Break in Negro “Nationalism”
  2. The March on Washington
  3. The Communists Oppose Independent Negro Movements

Part VI • The Negro as Touchstone of History

  1. Urbanization of Negroes
  2. The Two-Way Road to African Revolutions

Part VII • Facing the Challenge, 1941-1963

  1. The Self-Determination of People and of Ideas
  2. The New Voices We Heard
  3. What We Stand For—Who We Are

Appendix by Charles Denby

  1. "Black Caucuses in the Unions"
  2. "Black Masses Always Fought Militarism"
  3. "25 Years as Editor of News & Letters"
  4. Letter to Raya Dunayevskaya, "American Civilization on Trial"

Appendix by Karl Marx

"To the People of the United States of America"

"American Civilization on Trial... gives an able and excellent review of what the Negro has been through in the past century, and is well documented, too. Is the United States losing the global struggle in the minds of men because of its treatment of the Negro? It gives an answer."—J.A. Rogers, Pittsburgh Courier, from review of original 1963 edition

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Dialectics of Black Freedom Struggles
Race, Philosophy & the Needed American Revolution
By John Alan

News & Letters, 2003. 103 pp.
$8

Contents

Preface

Chapter 1 • Permanent War or "Revolution in Permanence"? The Continuing Challenge of Black Masses as Vanguard

Chapter 2 • The Struggle for Civil Rights and the Limits of Political Emancipation

Chapter 3 • Dialectics and Economics: The New Challenges Posed by Globalized Capital

Chapter 4 • Prisoners Speak for Themselves: People of Color and the Prison Industrial Complex

Chapter 5 • The Self-Determination of the Idea in the African-American Struggle for Freedom

Appendix • "Grenada: Revolution and Counter-Revolution" by Raya Dunayevskaya

"This is a comprehensive statement, written with clarity in spite of the complex and intricate nature of the subject matter... The entire question of political and human emancipation makes this book crucial to the thinking of African Americans."—Gloria I. Joseph, Black feminist writer and teacher

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The Rosa Luxemburg Reader
Edited by Peter Hudis & Kevin B. Anderson

Monthly Review Press, 2004. 432 pp.
$23

Among the major Marxist thinkers of the period of the Russian Revolution, Rosa Luxemburg stands out as one who speaks to our own time. Her legacy grows in relevance as the global character of the capitalist market becomes more apparent and the critique of bureaucratic power more widely accepted within the movement for human liberation.

The Rosa Luxemburg Reader will be the definitive one-volume collection of Luxemburg's writings in English translation. Unlike previous publications of her work from the early 1970s, this volume includes substantial extracts from her major economic writings—above all, The Accumulation of Capital (1913)—and from her political writings, including Reform or Revolution (1898), the Junius Pamphlet (1916), and The Russian Revolution (1918).

The Reader also includes a number of important texts that have never before been published in English translation, including substantial extracts from her Introduction to Political Economy (1916), and a recently discovered piece on slavery. With a substantial introduction assessing Luxemburg's work in the light of recent research, The Rosa Luxemburg Reader will be an indispensable resource for scholarship and an inspiration for a new generation of activists.

“Rosa Luxemburg travels into the twenty-first century like a great messenger bird, spanning continents, scanning history, to remind us that our present is not new but a continuation of a long human conflict changing only in intensity and scope. Her fiery critical intellect and ardent spirit are as vital for this time as in her own. With meticulous care, including valuable endnotes, editors Hudis and Anderson project her in the fullness of her being and thought.” — Adrienne Rich

“Thanks, Rosa. You go on being our source of fresh water in thirsty times.” — Eduardo Galeano

“Intrepid, incorruptible, passionate and gentle. Imagine as you read between the lines of what she wrote, the expression of her eyes. She loved workers and birds. She danced with a limp. Everything about her fascinates and rings true. One of the immortals.”— John Berger

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Philosophy and Revolution
From Hegel to Sartre and from Marx to Mao
By Raya Dunayevskaya

New fourth edition for 2003, on the 30th anniversary of its first appearance. New index.

Includes Forewords by Louis Dupré and Erich Fromm as well as author's introductions, including "New Thoughts on the Dialectics of Organization and Philosophy."

Lexington Books, 2003. 424 pp.
$14.95

Few thought systems have been as distorted and sometimes misconstrued as those of Marx and Hegel. Philosophy and Revolution, presented here in a new edition, attempts to save Marx from interpretations which restrict the revolutionary significance of the philosophy behind his theory. Developing her breakthrough on Hegel's Absolute Idea, Raya Dunayevskaya, who died in the June of 1987, aims at a total liberation of the human person—not only from the ills of a capitalist society, but also from the equally oppressive state capitalism of established communist governments. She assumes within her theory of class struggle issues as diverse as feminism, Black liberation, and even the new nationalism of Third World countries. Moreover, Dunayevskaya combines within herself an incorruptible objectivity with a passionate political attitude, making this work a vibrant and concrete discussion of the vicissitudes of society, justice, equality, and existence.

Contents

Part I • Why Hegel? Why Now?

  1. Absolute Negativity as New Beginning
  2. A New Continent of Thought: Marx's Historical Materialism and Its Inseparability from the Hegelian Dialectic
  3. The Shock of Recognition and the Philosophic Ambivalence of Lenin

Part II • Alternatives

  1. Leon Trotsky as Theoretician
  2. The Thought of Mao Tse-tung
  3. Jean-Paul Sartre

Part III • Economic Reality and the Dialectics of Liberation

  1. The African Revolutions and the World Economy
  2. State Capitalism and the East European Revolts
  3. New Passions and New Forces

"For everyone who is seriously interested in the forces which form and deform the present and the future, this book is to be most warmly recommended." —Erich Fromm, from the Preface to the German Edition 

"An arresting chapter of a new book by the unorthodox revolutionary Marxist Raya Dunayevskaya is entitled 'Why Hegel? Why Now?' ... To the question I have raised about the contemporaneity of Hegel, she answers with a resounding affirmative: 'What makes Hegel a contemporary is what made him so alive to Marx: the cogency of the dialectic of negativity for a period of proletarian revolution, as well as for the "birth-time" of history in which Hegel lived.'" —George Armstrong Kelly, Hegel's Retreat from Eleusis

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Marxist-Humanist Writings on The Middle East
Selected writings by Raya Dunayevskaya 1961–1982 and News & Letters 1988–2002

News & Letters, 2003. 76 pp.
$5

The U.S. military intervention in Iraq resulted in the quick collapse of the corrupt Ba'athist police state and reshaped the political reality of a region formed by decades of national movements, wars and revolutions. The refusal of the Iraqi people to fight for Saddam Hussein's brutal regime, and the subsequent effort to determine their own future against the U.S. occupation provides an opportune moment to revisit the turbulent history of the post-World War II Middle East. This is not only for the sake of knowing this important history, but also an effort toward building the new left that is emerging from the struggle against U.S. imperialism, religious fundamentalism, and all the corrupt forms of state-capitalism that have attempted to substitute themselves for the realities of human liberation.

"Marxist-Humanists work toward the goals of national liberation and social revolution for a totally new society. 'A plague on both your houses' is a religious, not a human solution. But a separation from all plague-ridden houses is the only way at this moment to express the truly independent Marxist stand."—"The Middle East Cauldron Explodes: The Civil War in Jordan," October 1970

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Marx’s Concept of Intrinsic Value
On the Unity of Value, Fetishism, and the Analysis of Capitalist Production in Capital

By Andrew Kliman

Distributed by News and Letters, 2003. 36 pp.
$2

Contents

Introduction

  1. Common Misconceptions
  2. Development of the Value/Exchange-Value Distinction
  3. Capital's Analysis of the Commodity
  4. Significance of the Concept of Intrinsic Value"
    [A]n intrinsic value, i.e. an exchange-value that is inseparably connected with the commodity, inherent in it, seems a contradiction in terms. Let us consider the matter more closely."—Karl Marx,

Capital

"In confronting capital's global expansionism, the movement [against global capitalism] would do well to seriously study Marx's analysis of 'self-expanding value' (his definition of capital)."—from the Preface

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Books available from News & Letters


By Raya Dunayevskaya

The Power of Negativity
Selected Writings on the Dialectic in Hegel and Marx by Raya Dunayevskaya
Edited by Peter Hudis and Kevin B. Anderson.

Lexington Books, 2001. 416 pp.
$24.95

This extensive collection of writings on Hegel, Marx and dialectics captures Dunayevskaya's original insight that, contrary to the prevailing view of Hegelians and Marxists, Hegel was of continuing importance to the theory and practice of Marxism. The Power of Negativity sheds light on the development of Marxist-Humanism, and also provides a fine introduction to one of America's most penetrating and provocative critical thinkers. 

Brilliant theorist, committed activist, and passionate scholar, Raya Dunayevskaya was a role model for my generation. We are fortunate to have her back in this wonderfully edited work.... In contrast to the boring pap of commodified culture and political sound bites, Raya's interpretation makes the logic of Hegel's absolute idea a fascinating and compelling read.—Susan Buck-Morss, Cornell University

Raya Dunayevskaya's writings on Hegelian and Marxian dialectics are highly insightful and relevant to the theory and politics of the contemporary moment. Thus Peter Hudis and Kevin B. Anderson's collection of some of her most important writings provide access to a valuable theoretical and political legacy.—Douglas Kellner, University of California, Los Angeles

With the writings of Raya Dunaveyskaya, the continent of revolutionary thought underwent a seismic shift, the world-historical reverberations of which we are still feeling today and which continue to grow stronger in this new millennium as the crisis of world capitalism intensifies. — Peter McLaren, University of California, Los Angeles

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The Power of Negativity Selected Writings on the Dialectic in Hegel and Marx by Raya Dunayevskaya


Marxism and Freedom, from 1776 until Today

New Introduction by author, "Dialectics of Revolution: American Roots and Marx's World Humanist Concepts." Preface by Herbert Marcuse. Foreword by Joel Kovel.

Humanity Books. 2000. 388 pp.
$24.95

In this classic exposition of Marxist thought, Raya Dunayevskaya, with clarity and great insight, traces the development and explains the essential features of Marx's analysis of history. Using as her point of departure the Industrial and French Revolutions, the European upheavals of 1848, the American Civil War, and the Paris Commune of 1871, Dunayevskaya shows how Marx, inspired by these events, adapted Hegel's philosophy to analyze the course of history as a dialectical process that moves "from practice to theory." The essence of Marx's philosophy, as Dunayevskaya points out, is the human struggle for freedom, which entails the gradual emergence of a proletarian revolutionary consciousness and the discovery through conflict of the means for realizing complete human freedom.

But freedom for Marx meant freedom not only from capitalist economic exploitation but also from all political restraints. Continuing her historical analysis, Dunayevskaya reveals how completely Marx's original conception of freedom was perverted through its adaptations by Stalin in Russia and Mao in China, and the subsequent erection of totalitarian states. The exploitation of the masses persisted under these regimes in the form of a new "state capitalism."

Yet despite the profound derailment of Marxist political philosophy in the twentieth century, Dunayevskaya points to developments such as the Hungarian revolt of 1956, and the Civil Rights struggles in the United States as signs that the indomitable quest for freedom on the part of the downtrodden cannot be forever repressed. The Hegelian dialectic of events propelled by the spirit of the masses thus moves on inexorably with the hope for the future achievement of political, economic, and social freedom and equality for all.

Contents

Part I • From Practice to Theory: 1776 to 1848
Part II • Worker and Intellectual at a Turning Point in History: 1848 to 1861
Part III • Marxism: The Unity of Theory and Practice

Organizational Interlude •

Part IV • World War I and The Great Divide in Marxism
Part V • The Problem of Our Age: State Capitalism vs. Freedom

In Place of a Conclusion: Two Kinds of Subjectivity

"Dunayevskaya . . . has the capacity, rare in people as learned as she is in Western philosophy and theory—including Marxists—to respect and learn from other kinds of thinking and other modes of expression: those of the Third World, of ordinary militant women, of working people . . . to recognize the acute significance of . . . The Black Dimension."—Adrienne Rich, The Women's Review of Books

"Raya Dunayevskaya's book . . . shows not only that Marxian economics and politics are throughout philosophy, but that the latter is from the beginning economics and politics."—Herbert Marcuse, from the Preface

"We fight, in Dunayevskaya's vision, to realize the full being, inner and outer, of the oppressed. Once this is grasped, no bureaucratization, no state capitalism, no recycling of domination, can stain the radical project. Nor can this project be extinguished by the triumph of reaction such as we have witnessed in recent years.... There is a magnificence about Raya Dunayevskaya's thought, well illustrated in this, her path-breaking volume, which provides a real ground for that hope. It is a ground that remains to be built upon.—From new Humanity Books foreword by Joel Kovel

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MF



Rosa Luxemburg, Women's Liberation, and Marx's Philosophy of Revolution

University of Illinois Press, 2001. 240 pp.
$12.95

Contents

Foreword by Adrienne Rich

Author's 1981 Introduction

"Marxist-Humanism's Challenge to All Post-Marx Marxists" by the author

"New Thoughts on Rosa Luxemburg, Women's Liberation, and Marx's Philosophy of Revolution" by the author

Part I • Rosa Luxemburg as Theoretician, as Activist, as Internationalist.
Part II • The Women's Liberation Movement as Revolutionary Force and Reason.
Part III • Karl Marx—From Critic of Hegel to Author of Capital and Theorist of "Revolution in Permanence."

Appendix • First English Translation of Rosa Luxemburg's Address to the Fifth Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party, London, 1907

"What I hear Dunayevskaya saying above all is that we have reached the point in history where real freedom is attainable, if we are willing to commit ourselves to a more inclusive definition of freedom than has ever been attempted. If indeed Marx was moving in such a direction, we can't leap forward from Marx without understanding where he left off, and what he left to us." — Adrienne Rich, from the Foreword

"I doubt whether any commentator since Jean Hyppolite has succeeded better in such a Hegelian interpretation of Capital."—Louis Dupré, The Owl of Minerva

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Women's Liberation and the Dialectics of Revolution: Reaching for the Future
A 35-Year Collection of Essays—Historic, Philosophic, Global

Wayne State University Press, 1996. 294 pp.
$15.95

SPECIAL PRICE: $10 (including shipping!)

Contents

Part I • Women, Labor and the Black Dimension
Part II • Revolutionaries All
Part III • Sexism, Politics and Revolution—Japan, Portugal, Poland, China, Latin America, the U.S.—Is There an Organizational Answer?
Part IV • The Trail to the 1980s: The Missing Link—Philosophy—in the Relationship of Revolution to Organization. Section 1—Reality and Philosophy Section II—The Challenge from Today's Global Crises 

"[I]t is her ability to make lucid, insightful comments about so much in Marxism and feminist political theory that makes Dunayevskaya's book so worth reading. Perhaps most important, Dunayevskaya calls for a return to Marx's ideas in order to appropriate them for the feminist movement. This message makes this book of interest to both feminist theorists and activists."—Janet Afary, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society

"Although this book is a collection of short essays Dunayevskaya wrote over a period of thirty years on such diverse topics as the Iranian revolution, the New Left in Japan, and black women leaders of the American abolition movement, the thread that runs through the essays is the need to realize Marx's original vision: to abolish the division between mental and manual labor and to bring about a fundamental change in the relation between man and woman."—Elizabeth Ring, Idealistic Studies

"These essays...present a useful capsule history of women's liberation with particular emphasis on contributions of Black women, and some excellent, often devastating, critiques of theoreticians ranging from Beauvoir to Rowbotham. An important resource for all libraries."

Kathryn Allen Rabuzzi, Religious Studies Review

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The Marxist-Humanist Theory of State-Capitalism
Selected Writings 1941–1986

Introduction by Peter Hudis. News & Letters, 1992. 168 plus xxvi pp.
$8.50

"Raya Dunayevskaya was one of the most creative Marxist thinkers of our time. Her essays on the nature of capitalist and Soviet societies are full of the kind of scholarly insights and political wisdom that no one interested in these topics can afford to ignore. A mind-stretching exercise for those willing to risk it!"—Bertell Ollman, New York University

"A well-known figure in the American Left since having served as Trotsky's Russian Secretary, 1937-38, [Dunayevskaya] had broken politically with Trotsky, considering Stalin's Russia to have developed into a state capitalist society...Increasingly, her studies of state capitalism brought in elements from both the young Marx and Hegel."—Kevin Anderson, Studies in Soviet Thought

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The Philosophic Moment of Marxist- Humanism
Two Historic-Philosophic Writings by Raya Dunayevskaya

Contains

"Presentation on Dialectics of Organization and Philosophy of June 1, 1987"

"1953 Letters on Hegel's Absolutes"

News & Letters, 1989. 52 pp.
$10 hard cover
$3 paperback 

"During the hard years of McCarthyism, Dunayevskaya made a philosophical breakthrough that would further shape her understanding of society. In Hegel's Absolutes she saw a dual movement from practice that is itself a form of theory and from theory reaching to philosophy... At the same time she was writing important treatises that linked her interpretation of Marx to issues of race and the struggles of colonized peoples. For her, women's liberation was an unnegotiable concern."—Margaret Randall, Gathering Rage: The Failure of 20th Century Revolutions to Develop a Feminist Agenda

"It was her reading of Hegel's Logic in 1953 that gave theoretical focus to the path that she helped work out. While professional Hegel scholars may (and indeed do) disagree with her claim that the 'Absolute Idea is the dialectic of the party' . . . , her insight that Hegel passes beyond transition to liberation led her to read Hegel's works not as a closed system, but as a philosophical beginning vital for helping us understand the meaning of our own times."—Patricia Altenbernd Johnson, The Owl of Minerva

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Hard Cover

Paperback

By Charles Denby 

Indignant Heart: A Black Worker's Journal

Autobiography of the Black worker-editor of News & Letters.

Expanded 1989 edition includes "In Memoriam" to Charles Denby by Raya Dunayevskaya and Introduction by William H. Harris.

Wayne State University Press, 1989. 303 pp.
$14.95

"Denby's is an engrossing account of wildcat strikes, union discord, racial disputes within shops, and the gravest problem facing modern workers: the impersonal assembly line with its foremen, useless union stewards, and the oppressive speed-up...It is a book that is timeless in its analysis of marginality, oppression, character, and work...one which will enlighten your understanding of working-class people and of the history of Afro-Americans."—William H. Harris, from the Introduction

"As literature, as a historical document, and as a political document, Indignant Heart is a classic...A few themes shine out from the book...Perhaps most fundamental is his belief in the power of self-initiated and self-directed action...Second, he opposes the idea that there is 'no Black question outside the class question.' This argument is used to keep Black struggles under the control of the trade union officialdom. A third theme is the development of workers' activities independent of the union officialdom."—Jeremy Brecher, In These Times

"The 75 years of Charles Denby's life are so full of class struggles, Black revolts, freedom movements that they illuminate not only the present but cast a light even on the future...[T]he genius of Charles Denby lies in the fact that the story of his life—Indignant Heart: A Black Worker's Journal—is the story of workers' struggles for freedom, his and all others the world over."—Raya Dunayevskaya, from the Afterword

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By Kevin Anderson

Lenin, Hegel and Western Marxism: A Critical Study

The first full-length treatment of Lenin's studies of Hegel

University of Illinois Press, 1995. 311 pp.
$15.95

"Anderson's book, Lenin, Hegel, and Western Marxism: A Critical Study... makes a substantial contribution to the scholarship on Marxism, on Lenin, and on the interrelationship of philosophy and revolutionary theory. Specifically, this is the first book-length examination of Lenin's own 1914-15 studies of the early 19th century German philosopher, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel."—Paul LeBlanc, Monthly Review

"Thanks to its impressive argumentation and wide scholarship, this book brings to life a new and unexpected Lenin, poles apart from both wooden 'Marxism-Leninism' and dismissive Western scholarship. A follower of the Hegelian Marxist Raya Dunayevskaya, Kevin Anderson gives us a sympathetic but critical assessment of Lenin's attempts to assimilate Hegelian dialectics into revolutionary politics."—Michael Löwy, Radical Philosophy

"A symptom of the primitive state of Lenin studies is the virtual absence of thorough and detailed studies of his major (and allegedly seminal) texts. Kevin Anderson's Lenin, Hegel, and Western Marxism is an attempt to remedy that deficiency as far as Lenin's Philosophical Notebooks is concerned."—Neil Harding, Slavic Review

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News & Letters Publications


Bosnia-Herzegovina
Achilles Heel of  Western 'Civilization'

News & Letters, 1996. 108 pp.
$5

Contains

Part I • "Bosnia's Challenge to Revolutionary Thought" by Peter Wermuth
Part II • Articles, Editorials and Essays in News & Letters, 1992–96
Part III • "A Post-World War II View of Marx's Humanism, 1843–83; Marxist Humanism in the 1950s and the 1980s" by Raya Dunayevskaya

Kosova 

Writings from News & Letters, 1998-1999.

Companion to Bosnia-Herzegovina: Archilles Heel of Western 'Civilization.'

Includes critique of Noam Chomsky's "The New Military Humanism," interview with KLA's Pleurat Sejdiiu, and "Thoughts of a lesbian feminist from Belgrade" by Lepa Mladjenovic.

News & Letters, 2000. 44 pp.
$3.50

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Explorations in Dialectical and Critical Theory
From Hegel to Derrida and from Marx to Mézáros

News & Letters, 2001. 76 pp.
$5

Contains

"Derrida on Marx: (Re)turn or De(con)struction?" by Kevin Anderson

"Habermas' Philosophic Exile of Marx" by Victor Hart

"Feminism and Speculative Philosophy: From de Beauvoir to Butler" by Maya Jhansi

"Hegel's Organizational Critique of Intuitionism" by Ron Brokmeyer

"Revolutionary Feminism, 'Private Enclaves,' Hegel's Notion of Life" by Olga Domanski

"On the 150th Anniversary of the Communist Manifesto: Revolution in Permanence as Marx's Organizing Idea" by Franklin Dmitryev

"Dunayevskaya and the Concept of the Subject in Marx's Capital" by Ted McGlone

"Marx's Law of the Falling Rate of Profit Today" by Andrew Kliman

"On Postone's Time, Labor, and Social Domination: Is Marx's Critique of Capitalism Still Valid?" by Peter Hudis 

"Istvan Mészáros's Beyond Capital: Envisioning a New Society" by Peter Hudis

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Marx's Capital and Today's Global Crisis
By Raya Dunayevskaya

Raya Dunayevskaya's seminal gateway into Marx's greatest work, Capital.

Also includes "Today's Epigones Who Try to Truncate Marx's Capital" (critique of Ernest Mandel) and "Tony Cliff Reduces Lenin's Theory to 'Uncanny Intuition.'"

Preface by Harry McShane.

News and Letters Committees (London, Detroit), 1978. 105 pp.
£1 ($2)

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A 1980s View: The Coal Miners' General Strike of 1949–50 and the Birth of Marxist-Humanism in the U.S.

Contains

"A Missing Page from American Labor History" by Andy Phillips

"The Emergence of a New Movement from Practice that Is Itself a Form of Theory" by Raya Dunayevskaya

News & Letters, 1984. 42 pp.
$2

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25 Years of Marxist-Humanism in the U.S.
A History of Worldwide Revolutionary Developments
By Raya Dunayevskaya

News & Letters, 1980. 27 pp.
$1.50

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The Myriad Global Crises of the 1980s and the Nuclear World Since World War II
By Raya Dunayevskaya

Includes

"Introduction/Overview—Marxist-Humanism: A Half-Century of World Development"

"Retrospective/ Perspective: Thirty Years of News & Letters"

News & Letters, 1986. 64 pp.
$2

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Theory and Practice
By Rosa Luxemburg

First English translation by David Wolff

Also includes "In Conclusion..." from Attrition or Collision

News & Letters, 1980.
$2

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Nationalism, Communism, Marxist-Humanism and the Afro-Asian Revolutions
By Raya Dunayevskaya

Expanded. Includes new Introduction by author.

News & Letters, 1984. 41 pp.
$1.25

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Voices from within the Prison Walls
By D.A. Sheldon

News & Letters, 1998. 71 pp.
$8... Free to prisoners.
$16 for two copies: purchaser and a prisoner.

Contains

Preface by Peter Wermuth
Introduction
Part I • "The Grim Reality of the American Criminal (In)Justice System"
Part 2 • "Organizing the Revolution from Within: a Marxist-Humanist Perspective."

"This is a well executed prisoner treatise, laboriously organized by a prisoner who one can tell has felt the brunt and setbacks of prison life and managed somehow to overcome. He now extends the benefit of his experience to those around him. A dedicated comrade to his own imprisoned class, I would say. Read and believe. Leave your criminality behind, is the message I get, and join in your own liberation."—Luis Talamantez, member of the San Quentin Six and co-founder of the Pelican Bay Information Project

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1 Copy

2 Copies


The Revolutionary Journalism of Felix Martin (Isaac Woods)

News & Letters, 2001. 108 pp.
$10

About Felix Martin...

"He reveals that it is much more than just a question of Black and white unity against the companies in the factory. What is involved is an understanding of the need for unity in order to make changes in our everyday lives."—Charles Denby, author of Indignant Heart: A Black Worker's Journal

"I always read Felix Martin's columns with appreciation and trusted his voice."—Adrienne Rich, author of What is Found There

"A whole man, true to his class, true to his youth, true to his comrades and true to the next generation."—Rudy Sulenta, Local 216, UAW

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Working Women for Freedom
By Angela Terrano, Marie Dignan, and Mary Holmes

Includes "Women as Thinkers and as Revolutionaries" by Raya Dunayevskaya

News & Letters, 1976. 56 pp.
$1

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Dos ensayos por Raya Dunayevskaya

Contains

"Una vision post II Guerra Mundial del humanismo de Marx 1843-1883. Humanismo marxista 1950s-1980s"

Author's introduction to Marxismo y libertad

News & Letters, 1989. 29 pp.
$2

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Marxist-Humanist Archives


The Raya Dunayevskaya Collection
A Half Century of Its World Development

The Raya Dunayevskaya Collection encompasses 12 volumes—over 10,500 pages—arranged under the direction of Dunayevskaya herself. The Supplement to the Raya Dunayevskaya Collection—another three volumes containing some 6,500 pages—was arranged by the Raya Dunayevskaya Memorial Fund. All papers are on deposit at Wayne State University which also makes both the Collection and Supplement available on microfilm.

The Collection covers the full range of the founder of Marxist-Humanism's life and thought, from her 1920s writings on the Black dimension to her original analysis of Russia as a state-capitalist society in the early 1940s, from her creation of the philosophy of Marxist-Humanism in the 1950s to her development of this body of ideas in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.

The Supplement includes notes for her planned book "Dialectics of Organization and Philosophy: The 'Party' and Forms of Organization Born Out of Spontaneity," plus correspondence with Hegel scholars, analyses of ongoing world events, and "retrospective-perspectives" of her own body of Marxist-Humanist thought. It also includes draft chapters, correspondence, and lectures all related to each of her three major works and Women's Liberation and the Dialectics of Revolution.

A brochure describing The Raya Dunayevskaya Collection is available on request from The Raya Dunayevskaya Memorial Fund, 36 S. Wabash, Room 1440, Chicago, IL, USA.

Contents of the entire collection:

Part One • Birth and Development of State-Capitalist Theory
Part Two • Creation of Marxist-Humanism as Organization-News and Letters Committees—and as Theory for Our Age

Guides

Guides to The Raya Dunayevskaya Collection (News & Letters, 1986, 84 pp.) and to The Supplement to The Raya Dunayevskaya Collection (News & Letters, 1998. 153 pp.)
$5

Microfilm

The collection is available on 16 mm microfilm, with printed guides. It includes:

The Raya Dunayevskaya Collection (5 reels), $125

Supplement to The Raya Dunayevskaya Collection (3 reels), $75

Order from Wayne State University Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University, Detroit MI 48202. Or call 313 577 4024. Or email reutherreference@wayne.edu.

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Newspaper


News & Letters is a Marxist-Humanist journal which was created so that the voices of revolt from below could be heard unseparated from the articulation of a philosophy of liberation. Raya Dunayevskaya was Chairwoman of the National Editorial Board from its founding in 1955 until her death in 1987. Charles Denby (1907–1983), a Black production worker, was its Editor from 1955 until 1983.

News & Letters is published six times a year. A free copy is available on request.

Subscription for one year
$5
Domestic First Class
$7
Foreign AirMail
$15
Bound Volume of News & Letters
$30

Available in years

  • 1970–1977
  • 1977–1984
  • 1987–1994
  • 1994–1999

News & Letters is also available on microfilm from ProQuest, 300 Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106.

News & Letters is also available on audiotape. Contact us for information.

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Subscription for one year $5

Domestic First Class
$7

Foreign AirMail
$15

Bound Volume of News & Letters
$30



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