Philosophy and Revolution book group, hybrid meeting in Chicago
Philosophy and Revolution: From Hegel to Sartre and from Marx to Mao
Learning about Marxist-Humanism: Philosophy and Revolution book group
August 11, 2026Philosophy and Revolution book group, hybrid meeting in Chicago
Learning about Marxist-Humanism: Philosophy and Revolution book group
July 14, 2026Philosophy and Revolution book group, inaugural hybrid meeting in Chicago
The totalitarian attack on thought
July 20, 2025Part I of Franklin Dmitryev’s Organization Report, The Idea of Freedom Strikes Back, given to the Convention of News and Letters Committees on May 31, 2025, takes up the attacks on freedom movements as not just an attack on facts. It is a rush to totalitarian thought control. It is an attempt by the oppressors to project the false idea that resistance is futile, and you are powerless. It is also a confession that radical ideas are dangerous which implies a recognition that the ideas, imagination and philosophy are consequential.
Philosophic Essay: Meeting the challenge not alone from practice but from Karl Marx’s Idea
May 6, 2024This essay explores Marx’s Idea of Absolute Freedom as the foundation for overcoming today’s retrogression. Marx’s view of labor as “the prime necessity of life” connects with his whole dialectical view. The essay explores Dunayevskaya’s reading of this passage, and criticizes partial outlooks.
Draft Perspectives, 2024-2025: Part Five, Lenin and today’s contradictions
May 4, 2024Part V of the 2024-2025 Draft Perspectives. Takes up the need to rediscover, for today, Lenin’s philosophical preparation for revolution, plunging into the study of Marx’s roots in Hegel’s philosophy at the time of the collapse of the Second International during the first years of World War I.
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: The African Revolutions and the World Economy
September 19, 2023The contributions and contradictions of the African revolutions of the 20th century speak to today’s very different situation. These excerpts from Dunayevskaya’s ‘Philosophy and Revolution, from Hegel to Sartre and from Marx to Mao’ aim not only to recapture the greatness of those revolutions, but also grapple with why they retrogressed after independence, so as to aid the creation of new beginnings now.
Readers’ Views: November-December 2022, Part Two
November 11, 2022Revolutionary Thinkers’ Dialogue; Trans and Queer Solidarity; U.S. Slavery Today; Prison Kangaroo Courts; Guilty Police and State; FBI’s Aretha Files; Why Read N&L?; Voices from Behind Bars
Attitudes to the climate crisis and technology
November 10, 2022Today’s divide in attitudes to technology and climate solutions is more than a political question. It is a deep divide in philosophy. As crucial as are technological advances and the “energy transition,” they are liable to turn into their opposite if they are the focus instead of struggles of people trying to take control over their own lives.
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Letter to Adrienne Rich–Women’s liberation, Gay liberation & dialectic
September 13, 2022This letter expands on the reason for writing Philosophy and Revolution, and on the concepts of “woman as revolutionary reason as well as force” and “new forces and new passions” of revolution. It illuminates Dunayevskaya’s view of multilinearity in Marx’s late writings as a dimension of his concept of revolution in permanence concerning not only class but all social relations, and speaks to the question of method in today’s debates about sexuality, women’s liberation and new subjects of revolution.
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Hegel’s call to grasp spirit of the times
July 5, 2022Because nothing is more urgent in a time of such crisis than grasping and acting on the spirit of the time in a revolutionary manner, we excerpt a lecture given by Dunayevskaya taking up Hegel’s Absolutes for our day.
Youth: Marx speaks to youth alienation
May 8, 2021Young people keep taking matters into our own hands. Our time of total crises calls for a philosophy to help us understand the problems at the root of our misery and give us hope we can create a new society. This makes Marx a contemporary for youth, looking for a way out of life under capitalism’s hopeless future.
Youth: Learning from Amazon protest
March 11, 2021A young revolutionary writes about participating in a protest for the first time, in solidarity with Alabama Amazon workers.
From the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Uncivilized U.S.: Murder of Rev. King
January 30, 2021Originally titled “These Uncivilized United States: Murder of Rev. King, Vietnam War,” this piece speaks to King’s actual, non-sanitized life and legacy, as well as to the ingrained violence of U.S. racism, including what was seen on Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol.
From the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: What is philosophy? What is revolution?
November 27, 2020This Political-Philosophic Letter of Raya Dunayevskaya speaks to the need to return to philosophical roots at times of deep crisis, including addressing the question of how to maintain independence when fighting counter-revolution.
From the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: The methodology of Perspectives
May 1, 2020History warns us of other critical periods…which give us historic proof that mere opposition to such monstrous degeneration (of capitalism) does not lead to new societies. On the contrary. It only assures the transformation of that type of bare opposition into one form or another of a halfway house.
Readers’ views, May-June 2020
April 29, 2020Readers’ views on The dialectic in thought and in liberation; labor and pandemic; pandemic and ecology; pandemic and school; women’s liberation; and voices from behind bars.
News and Letters Committees Call for Convention 2020
March 2, 2020POSTPONED: Official Call for national gathering of News and Letters Committees to work out Marxist-Humanist perspectives for 2020-2021
Readers’ Views, January-February 2020, Part Two
January 22, 2020Readers’ Views on Philosophy and Revolution; disorder is the order; anti-Semitism; Black August, and voices from behind bars.
From the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Crises of retrogressive Changed World
Raya Dunayevskaya explores the concept of the “Changed World’ of the 1980s, which followed the economic crisis and the restructuring that capitalist rulers imposed, with political retrogression, intensified militaristic imperialism, and ideological pollution.
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Urgently needed in a time of political crisis: Philosophy and revolution as process
November 13, 2019Recalling the Watergate break-in and cover-up that led to President Richard Nixon’s 1974 resignation, the text goes into the discussion of practicing dialectics and working out the unity of philosophy and revolution for the current moment of crisis.
From the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: The economy and dialectics of liberation
April 23, 2019Raya Dunayevskaya’s archives column explores taking “a further look into the [1976] economy, to measure the depth of the recession, not for statistical purposes, but for the relationship of dialectics of liberation to economic ills.” It bears striking relevance for what is happening in 2019.
50 Years later…The 1968 French general strike–its meaning today.
May 5, 2018A participant looks at the 1968 French general strike, filled with potential to transform society, and discusses why it failed and the ramifications of that for today.
Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, 2018-2019: Fighting Trump and his fascist allies in practice and theory
May 1, 2018Part I of the Draft Perspectives Thesis: Trump’s war show.
The real threat of war reflects Trump’s extremeness as a product of failing capitalism, which is not an aberration but an index of the nature of U.S. capitalist imperialism.
Call for Convention 2018
February 25, 2018OFFICIAL CALL FOR CONVENTION
to Work Out Marxist-Humanist Perspectives for 2018-2019
February 25, 2018
To All Members of News and Letters Committees
Dear Friends:
The deeply ingrained rape culture, already widely known but often hushed up, has been exposed in the broadest way yet by the #MeToo movement. How deep and total is the needed uprooting [=>]
Readers’ Views: The Dialectic and the Meaning of the Russian Revolution
January 31, 2018The dialectic and the meaning of the Russian Revolution.
Readers’ Views, November-December 2017: Part 2
November 14, 2017Readers’ Views on: Concepts that unite philosophy & revolution; Lies poison us; Class justice, and Voices from behind bars
From the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: A concrete universal: Marx’s ‘Capital’–Part 2
August 28, 2017Continuing to mark the 150th anniversary of Karl Marx’s Capital, we present excerpts from “Marx’s Transcendence of and Return to Hegel’s Dialectic,” taking up the profound humanist transformation from Marx’s Grundrisse into Capital.
From the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: A concrete universal: Marx’s “Capital”–Part 1
July 2, 2017Continuing to mark the 150th anniversary of Karl Marx’s Capital, Vol. I, we present excerpts from “Marx’s Transcendence of and Return to Hegel’s Dialectic,” a draft chapter for Dunayevskaya’s book Philosophy and Revolution, taking up the profound humanist transformation from Marx’s Grundrisse into Capital.
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.
V. Toward organizational new beginnings
May 13, 2016Part V of the Draft Perspectives 2016: Together with the depths of counter-revolution, the passion for philosophy points to both the need for and the potential for totally new beginnings in the transformation of society, for new banners of freedom as a polarizing force.
Call for Convention 2016
February 28, 2016Official Call for national gathering of News and Letters Committees to work out Marxist-Humanist perspectives for 2016-2017
In memoriam Olga Domanski, 1923-2015
January 24, 2016The world has lost a great fighter for liberation. Olga Domanski, one of the founders of News and Letters Committees, whose life’s work was the development and projection of Marxist-Humanism and the growth of its organizational expression.
From The Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Women as thinkers and revolutionaries
Olga Domanski’s summary of the series on “Women as Thinkers and as Revolutionaries” by Raya Dunayevskaya.
Olga Domanski, 1923-2015
January 7, 2016The world has lost a great fighter for liberation. Olga Domanski, one of the founders of News and Letters Committees, whose life’s work was the development and projection of Marxist-Humanism and the growth of its organizational expression.
From The Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Black masses, youth and the needed U.S. revolution: philosophy and reality
December 10, 2015From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: “Black masses, youth and the needed U.S. revolution: philosophy and reality” looks at the possibility of revolution in the U.S. and the importance of Black masses as vanguard.
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.
After the referendum: The ongoing Greek crisis
July 8, 2015The two opponents facing off in Greece for five years have been the Greek masses vs. the European rulers and their institutions. The No vote manifested the revolt against austerity. We explore the meaning of these events.
Letter from Mexico: The Zapatistas and Critical Thought
July 4, 2015An appreciative and critical look at the Zapatistas’ seminar held in Chiapas, Mexico, May 3-9 on “Critical Thought in Face of the Hydra of Capitalism,” by a participant.
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: The meaning of revolutionary archives
June 27, 2015In celebrating the online publication of the Raya Dunayevskaya Collection, we present excerpts of her Introduction/Overview to Volume XII, which takes up the Marxist-Humanist concept of archives as not only retrospective but perspective, in the quest to establish “continuity with the historic course of human development.”
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: The dialectic and women’s liberation
April 30, 2015The article excerpts a summary of a talk by Dunayevskaya to a conference on Women’s Liberation in Detroit. The purpose of the meeting was to help Dunayevskaya work out the final chapter of her book then in progress, Philosophy and Revolution. That last chapter would take up the “New Passions and New Forces” for the reconstruction of society. The Conference was also the beginning of the News & Letters—Women’s Liberation Committee.
World In View: Africa, oh Africa!
March 11, 2015Today’s African tragedies compel one to return to the great promise, and then great tragedy and betrayal, of the African Revolutions that emerged after World War II.
Greece: postmodernism in power
March 7, 2015Yanis Varoufakis, the Finance Minister in Greece’s Syriza government, shows where postmodernist attacks on Marx lead politically, declaring that the task of today’s Left is to save capitalism from itself.
Essay: The Syrian Revolution and its philosophy
November 30, 2014The confrontation between differing classes and worldviews has been most intense in Syria, making it the test of world politics—and of philosophy and revolution. The Syrian Revolution has pushed thought about revolution to a new level.
Another look at Hegel’s ‘Phenomenology of Mind’
September 14, 2014From the January-February 2002 News & Letters
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya
Editor’s Note: We publish here a discussion of what Marx considered Hegel’s greatest philosophic work—The Phenomenology of Mind. The first piece is a letter written by Raya Dunayevskaya to an Iranian colleague on June 26, 1986[1] ; the original can be found in the [=>]
Readers’ Views, July-August 2014, Part 2
July 7, 2014From the July-August 2014 issue of News & Letters
UNCHAINING THE DIALECTIC
Raya Dunayevskaya’s 1953 breakthrough on Hegel’s Absolute Idea enabled her to illuminate a path not traveled by previous generations of revolutionaries. She is quite emphatic in raising the importance of “Unchaining the Revolutionary Dialectic” (May-June 2014 N&L), and capturing what [=>]
On THE Philosophic Point and Dialectics of Organization and Philosophy
March 14, 2014To understand today we must begin at the beginning, that is to say, as always, with Marx. Specifically the two periods are: the first and the last, the first being the philosophic moment, 1844 [Marx’s Humanist Essays or Economic-Philosophic Manuscripts]. That laid the ground for all future development. The last being the long hard trek and process of developments–all the revolutions, as well as philosophic-political-economic concretizations, culminating in Capital. Yet the full organizational expression of all came only then, i.e., the last decade, especially the 1875 Critique of the Gotha Program. Why only then?
Spontaneity and new beginnings
November 11, 2011From the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya
Editor’s note: As the world experiences a new stage of revolt–from the Arab Spring to Wall Street–and seeks ways to make it a revolutionary new beginning, we present excerpts of Raya Dunayevskaya’s Perspectives Report to the 1977 national gathering of News and Letters Committees. Originally titled, “IT’S LATER, ALWAYS LATER–except when [=>]
Subjects of revolution: theory/practice
May 12, 2011From the new issue of NEWS & LETTERS, May-June 2011:
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya
Letter to the youth
Subjects of revolution: theory/practice
Editor’s Note: Excerpted from Jan. 15, 1971, letter to Will Stein and other young revolutionaries in News and Letters Committees who had questions about the relationship of theory and practice, and about the “Subject.” The [=>]
Readers’ Views (March-April 2011)
April 2, 2011THE MIDDLE EAST EXPLODES: WHAT HAPPENS AFTER?
The Middle East events are bringing lots of people to talk about 1979 as well as the 2009 movements in Iran. I appreciated Raha’s essay in the Jan.-Feb. issue, Philosophy and Iran’s revolution: Where to now? because it raises the question of what could go wrong right now in [=>]