Part one of Dunayevskaya’s presentation on “Hegelian Leninism.” Here, the author deals with the revolutionary meaning of the break in Lenin’s thought with his return to Marx’s roots in the Hegelian dialectic in 1914-15 after the betrayal of the Second International and the beginning of World War I.
Frederick Engels
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Challenge to all post-Marx Marxists
March 18, 2022In this talk on the new developments in ‘Rosa Luxemburg, Women’s Liberation, and Marx’s Philosophy of Revolution’, Dunayevskaya takes up her original category of Post-Marx Marxism as a pejorative, as well as the question of the relationship of philosophy to organization
Melda Yaman: ‘New vistas for socialist feminists’
March 15, 2022Interview with Melda Yaman, the Turkish translator of Rosa Luxemburg, Women’s Liberation, and Marx’s Philosophy of Revolution.
DISCUSSION ARTICLE: Was Marx a materialist?
January 21, 2022Many post-Marx Marxists have painted Marx as a materialist. While no one denies the aspects of Marx that are materialistic, to call his philosophy materialist is as accurate as calling his philosophy idealist. Both are key aspects that play a part in shaping human life. Both are important to understanding human life and human activity.
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: A Post-World War II View of Marx’s Humanism, 1843-1883; Marxist Humanism, 1950s-1980s
September 8, 2021This essay probes ways to make new beginnings in a period of reaction. It includes some of the themes of her work toward the book she had tentatively titled “Dialectics of Organization and Philosophy: ‘The Party’ and Forms of Organization Born out of Spontaneity.”
Essay: Ecosocialism and post-Marx Marxism
March 8, 2020Franklin Dmitryev explores the limitations of how “ecosocialism” rethinks, partially, post-Marx Marxism, focusing on theoreticians Michael Lowy and Joel Kovel.
Essay: What is socialism? Socialism, labor, and the Black dimension
May 1, 2019Marxist-Humanist Bob McGuire looks through history to Marx’s relationship to labor and the Black movement for freedom and then to our day and the relationship of Marxist-Humanism to labor and the Black struggle for freedom in speaking to the question many are asking today: What is socialism?
Essay: Marx’s concept of permanent revolution as philosophy: Exploring it today with Dunayevskaya
December 5, 2018On the occasion of the publication of the new book “Marx’s Philosophy of Revolution in Permanence for Our Day: Selected Writings by Raya Dunayevskaya,” this essay explores Marx’s ideas on the basis of Dunayevskaya’s writings on them as a philosophy of revolution needed for our age.
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: New moments in Marx form trail to today
May 10, 2018To observe the 200th birthday of Karl Marx, we present excerpts of a speech given by Raya Dunayevskaya for the Marx centenary year, originally titled “Marxist-Humanism, 1983: The Summation That Is a New Beginning, Subjectively and Objectively.”
As Others See Us: The new French edition of Marxism and Freedom ‘To retake the historical initiative’
January 31, 2017Frédéric Monferrand introduces the new French edition of Marxism and Freedom. This excerpt concentrates on how the work reconstructs the Hegelian philosophical consistency of Marx’s Marxism so that it comes to life–from the 1844 Manuscripts to “Capital,” through the idea that history is the history of the efforts of humanity to make itself free.
Essay: Epigones discard Marxist-Humanist philosophy
September 12, 2016The retreat of former Marxist-Humanists into post-Marx Marxism is analyzed by Franklin Dmitryev through the books “Marx at the Margins” by Kevin Anderson and “Marx’s Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism” by Peter Hudis, which appropriate some of Raya Dunayevskaya’s conclusions while quietly dismantling their philosophical framework.
From the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: A revolutionary attitude to Archives
August 30, 2015To highlight the new online availability of the Raya Dunayevskaya Collection, we present excerpts of her 1985 Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, which take up the development of the Marxist-Humanist concept of Archives out of the category made of the totality of Marx’s Archives as a new beginning for today.
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Miners inspired Marxist-Humanism
March 7, 2015From the News and Letters pamphlet The Coal Miners’ General Strike of 1949-50 and the Birth of Marxist-Humanism in the U.S. we excerpt from Raya Dunayevskaya’s “The Emergence of a New Movement from Practice that Is Itself a Form of Theory,” on miners’ contributions to the philosophic birth of Marxist-Humanism.
Dialectics of revolution: American roots and world Humanist concepts, Part II
September 14, 2014From the November-December 2010 News & Letters
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya
Editor’s note: For the centenary of Raya Dunayevskaya’s birth, we present excerpts from her March 21, 1985, lecture at the Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University, Detroit, at the opening of a three-month exhibition of the Raya Dunayevskaya Collection (RDC). The [=>]
‘On political divides and philosophic new beginnings’
September 7, 2014From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya
From the May-June 2012 issue of News & Letters.
Editor’s Note: “On political divides and philosophic new beginnings,” written 25 years ago, is the last writing of Raya Dunayevskaya, who died on June 9, 1987. It was first published in the In Memoriam special issue of News & [=>]
Essay: Karl Marx’s ground for organization
August 30, 2014Today’s vital debate about revolutionary organization is illuminated by Marx’s concept of organization in his “Critique of the Gotha Program.”
Left still can’t fathom Women’s Liberation
March 30, 2013Women’s struggle for freedom has continued to develop into a worldwide movement with revolutionary content (see page 1). Unfortunately, much of the Left seems unable to hear this radical dimension of women’s struggles. A recent example is Sharon Smith’s essay,
Women’s freedom and Marx’s dialectic
March 22, 2011Essay
Woman as Reason
by Terry Moon
The contemporary nature of Marxist-Humanism is evident when one views the theory and practice of women’s liberation. Today that involves both an unprecedented attack on women’s rights–especially reproductive rights–now taking place in the U.S., and women’s creative activism in the revolutionary developments in the Middle East, where they are fighting repressive [=>]