Rememberances of a News and Letters Committees founder, Andy Phillips, coal miner, activist, writer, thinker.
Raya Dunayevskaya
In Memoriam: Andy Phillips (1924-2018)
May 1, 2018We mourn the loss of a founding member of News and Letters Committees, who participated in the first national strike against automation in the coal mines and later co-wrote its history in “The Coal Miners’ General Strike of 1949-50 and the Birth of Marxist-Humanism in the U.S.”
Review: Specters of Revolt
March 12, 2018Richard-Gilman Opalsky is a rare intellectual who recognizes revolt as a form of theory. Does his book “Specters of Revolt” grasp theory in a one-sided way and restrict the movement of negation of the negation? .
West Virginia teachers extend general strike
West Virginia public school teachers carried out a general strike across the state beginning Feb 22, first striking for two days with union approval, then forcing the union to extend the strike for two more days until the governor offered a 5% raise.
Charles Denby’s life story: the story of the struggle for freedom
March 8, 2018Excerpts from the introduction to the new French edition of Charles Denby’s book “Indignant Heart: A Black Worker’s Journal.”
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Rosa Luxemburg as feminist
In celebration of International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, we present excerpts from Dunayevskaya’s “Luxemburg as Feminist; Break with Jogiches.”
Woman as Reason: Iranian women embody revolt
On Dec. 28, 2017, demonstrations broke out in the city of Mashhad, Iran, the first of many that swept across Iran for weeks. Women were a vital part of the events, including strikes as well as protests against veiling, drawing on a long radical history.
#MeToo, Women’s Marches show the resistance deepens
Women have changed the world through an incredible and sustained activism based on a humanism that runs like a revolutionary red thread through an amazing array of actions, demonstrations and statements. This development is based on over 50 years of a movement that the founder of Marxist-Humanism, Raya Dunayevskaya, characterized as “Woman as Revolutionary Force and Reason.” .
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 [=>]
Woman as Reason: The humanism of #MeToo
February 1, 2018The #MeToo movement, with roots in the 1960s, is part of a humanist revolutionary red thread that shows in a visceral way that revolution must deepen at every point in order to finally make the relationships we have with each other into actually human relationships.
Readers’ Views: January-February 2018, Part II
Readers’ Views on Women’s Liberation struggle continue and voices from behind bars.
Readers’ Views: The Dialectic and the Meaning of the Russian Revolution
January 31, 2018The dialectic and the meaning of the Russian Revolution.
In Memoriam: Narihiko Ito (1931-2017)
January 30, 2018We honor the life of Narihiko Ito, one of the world’s foremost scholars on Rosa Luxemburg and a correspondent of Raya Dunayevskaya, and mourn his death.
New French edition of ‘Indignant Heart: A Black Worker’s Journal’
Announcement of the French edition of “Indignant Heart: Autobiography of a Black American Worker,” by Charles Denby, followed by English excerpts of Denby’s “Indignant Heart: A Black Worker’s Journal.”
Raya Dunayevskaya y la filosofía del humanismo marxista: su significado hoy
December 16, 2017Raya Dunayevskaya y la filosofía del Raya Dunayevskaya y la filosofía del humanismo marxista: su significado hoy
Eugene Gogol
Introducción: sobre aniversarios, conmemoraciones y nuevos comienzos
El centenario de la Revolución Rusa, el 150 aniversario de la primera edición de El capital, de Marx, así como el bicentenario del nacimiento de este último, son momentos cruciales en los [=>]
Readers’ Views: Remembering Judy Tanzawa and Dan Perron
November 15, 2017Basho, S.B., and Terry Moon remember their Marxist-Humanist comrades, Judy Tanzawa and Dan Perron.
On the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. Historic initiative of the masses and Lenin’s philosophic break
November 14, 2017Raya Dunayevskaya’s outline for a 1948 speech in Pittsburgh for the Russian Revolution’s anniversary; and “Lenin and the Dialectic: A Mind in Action,” taking up Lenin’s philosophical preparation for revolution. .
New book–Russia: From Proletarian Revolution to State-Capitalist Counter-Revolution: Selected writings by Raya Dunayevskaya
New collection of writings by Raya Dunayevskaya on the 100th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution titled: Russia: From Proletarian Revolution to State-Capitalist Counter-Revolution. .
Judy Tanzawa (Judy Tristan) 1939-2017
November 12, 2017In Memoriam for Judy Tanzawa who was a radical union organizer, Los Angeles Local Organizer for News and Letters Committees, fighter for human liberation in all its dimensions. .
Rising U.S. racism challenges all freedom movements
September 2, 2017A Marxist-Humanist analysis of the history and meaning of the rising of the right-wing neo-Nazi white supremacist movement, its relationship to President Donald Trump and his administration, and its challenge to the freedom forces arrayed against it who are fighting for a humanist world. .
Now online! Guide to the Raya Dunayevskaya Collection, the Marxist-Humanist Archives
August 29, 2017The new online Guide at www.rayadunayevskaya.org contains clickable links to all the documents in the Archives. .
New book: Dunayevskaya on Russian Revolution
On the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, a new book collects writings by Raya Dunayevskaya on the Revolution, counter-revolution, and their consequences, aiming to help create new revolutionary beginnings today. .
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.
Now available online! Guide to the Raya Dunayevskaya Collection, the Marxist-Humanist Archives
July 29, 2017The new online Guide with links to all the documents is an extremely useful finding tool that helps the reader or researcher locate items and grasp the structure of the Archives. The website of the Raya Dunayevskaya Memorial Fund presents the Raya Dunayevskaya Collection as she organized it, together with the Supplement.
Readers’ Views: July-August 2017, Part 2
July 6, 2017Readers’ Views on Cooperative Form of Labor vs. Abstract Labor; Marx vs. Trump-Putin; Voices From Behind Bars
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.
Learning from miners
June 30, 2017Former miner Andy Philips speaks about the interest in Marxist-Humanism at his assisted living facility.
VII. Tasks
May 17, 2017Although we do not have a daily newspaper, this crisis-ridden period compels us to strive to act as if we do. Organizational tasks as always are meant to include, not exclude, friends and new contacts who are not yet Marxist-Humanists.
VI. The Russian Revolution, 100 years ago and its meaning today
Whatever lip service is paid to the Russian Revolution’s 100th anniversary, its significance as a historic event and as a link to the thought and practice of Marx has been obscured because of the abandonment of revolutionary perspectives. It is high time to push to the forefront the role of the philosophy of revolution in permanence in facing the reality of dialectics of liberation, 1917 and 2017.
IV. International crises
The people’s revolutionary struggles form the ground for approaching developments including Trump’s attack on a Syrian military base. The human-to-human communication found in places like Kafranbel has been a form of theory in itself. The deadliest weapon of mass destruction in the Syrian conflict has been the lie that there is “no good alternative” to Assad, echoing the bourgeoisie’s “no alternative” to capitalism. The state of Europe today illustrates the central importance of revolutionary solidarity.
III. U.S. forces of revolt as reason; philosophy as force of revolution
The unprecedented Women’s March on Washington the day after Trump’s inauguration revealed the blossoming of a universal movement with many particulars, from women’s demand to control their own bodies, to Black Lives Matter, to the struggle at Standing Rock.
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya, May-June 2017: The cooperative form of labor vs. abstract labor and despotic plan
May 2, 2017As part of observing the todayness of Marx’s Capital on its 150th anniversary, we present Raya Dunayevskaya’s analysis of Marx’s concept of Cooperative Form of Labor vs. Abstract Labor, as preparation for her book “Marxism and Freedom.”
Readers’ Views: May-June 2017
May 1, 2017Reader’s Views on Women vs. Reaction; Women and Philosophy; Syria and Humanity; Support Trans Children!; Animals and Us; Repression vs. Justice; Why Read “N&L”; Voices from Behind the Bars
Women’s liberation, in fact and in philosophy
March 21, 2017Raya Dunayevskaya on the first and second women’s movements, the Black dimension, working women, and a total philosophy of liberation.
Essay: Marx’s Marxism vs. Trump-Putin’s barbarism
Trump’s barbarism in power is a crisis for bourgeois democracy and revolutionary thought. Opposition from below is far deeper than bourgeois opposition to Trump. To have efficacy today, Marx’s body of ideas must be grasped and projected as a whole. The movement from theory needs to meet the challenge of history, of freedom struggles and revolution.
Reader’s Views: March-April 2017, Part 2
March 16, 2017Readers’ Views on Hegel’s dialectic and today’s retrogression; Why read N&L?; La Raza unida; Education and freedom; Racism in Burma and U.S.; Voices from behind the bars
News and Letters Committees Call for Plenum 2017
February 26, 2017Official Call for national gathering of News and Letters Committees to work out Marxist-Humanist perspectives for 2017-2018
Readers’ Views: January-February 2017, Part 2
February 2, 2017Readers’ Views on: Practical and Theoretical Intervention; Syria and Humanism; International Crises; and Prisoners Speak.
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.
Chinese translation of Marxism and Freedom available on pdf
December 18, 2016Now available at the News and Letters Committees website as a pdf file:
Marxism and Freedom, from 1776 until Today: Chinese translation
Raya Dunayevskaya’s classic explication of Marxism in Chinese. The first book on Marxist-Humanism, it was originally published in 1958 and has been in continuous publication. It has been translated into Spanish, French, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, [=>]
Readers’ Views, November-December 2016, Part 2
November 27, 2016Readers’ Views on The Dialectic of History Vs. Retrogression; Prisoners, Supporters Speak.
Spontaneity of action and organization of thought: In memoriam of the Hungarian Revolution
On the anniversary of the Hungarian revolution, we present a letter by Dunayevskaya whose concept of the relationship of spontaneity and party, and its inseparability from organization of thought, speaks to the dialectics of organization and philosophy.
Lead-Editorial: No to Trump’s counter-revolution! No to fascism! Fight for a new human society!
November 26, 2016Trump’s electoral victory by appealing to racism and sexism menaces all freedom movements. It is the index of this system’s crisis and bankruptcy of thought, which needs to be met with a truly revolutionary vision.
No to Trump! No to fascism! Fight for a new human society!
November 12, 2016Trump’s electoral victory by appealing to racism and sexism menaces all freedom movements. It is the index of this system’s crisis and bankruptcy of thought, which needs to be met with a truly revolutionary vision.
How can we, once and for all, end sexism?
September 17, 2016From the September-October 2016 issue of News & Letters
Art by Paul Tanzawa
Women have been fighting for our freedom for centuries and yet we are still raped, beaten, enslaved–treated as less than human. We will never be free under capitalism, which has only made women’s lives worse and now threatens our [=>]
Humanism: a way forward for prisoners
Prisoner and hunger striker Faruq looks at the way forward after the historic California prisoners’ hunger strike and emphasizes the importance of “the banner of our humanism that allowed the forging of a tremendous unification across the racial divides.”
Readers’ Views: September-October 2016, Part 2
September 16, 2016Readers’ Views includes: Politics; revolution and the power of philosophy; remembering Olga Domanski; the sports section; national prison action; and voices from behind the bars.
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: Nigeria: a retreat, not a victory
September 11, 2016Raya Dunayevskaya gives a revolutionary history of the war for independence of Biafra from Nigeria while commenting on Conor Cruise O’Brien’s article published in the New York Review of Books, Dec. 21, 1968.
Help keep News & Letters going and growing
September 7, 2016An appeal for funds to help keep the paper, News & Letters, going and growing; and to help us expand our subscriptions to prisoners.