Summary: Based on an intervention at a Los Angeles International Marxist-Humanist Organization meeting in response to the argument that immediate action was more important than theoretical reflection — Editors

Summary: Conversation about Peter Hudis’s new book, Frantz Fanon: Philosopher of the Barricades, hosted by Doug Storm on “Interchange,” a program on WHFB, Bloomington (Indiana) Community Radio (1 hr.) — Editors

Audio Link

Summary: Repression has deepened in Turkey, targeting the Kurds, the left, and intellectuals, in an attempt to wipe out the emancipatory spirit of the past several years, whether at Gezi Park or in the Kurdish movement in Turkey and Syria — Editors

Summary: — In November 2015, the student organization Decolonizing Our Minds at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, brought out several hundred youth to a discussion by Selim Nadi, Tithi Bhattacharya, and Peter Hudis of the latter’s new book, Frantz Fanon: Philosopher of the Barricades (2:14) — Editors

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Summary: US nationalism underlies a feeling of superiority toward other nations and peoples. This can been seen in the outright rejection of the Syrian refugees, despite our common humanity — Editors

Summary: The severe water contamination in Flint, Michigan, which has already impacted the health of the population, especially the youth, stems from the poisonous legacies of both racial oppression and capital accumulation — Editors

Summary: In the face of the Rouhani government’s austerity policies and continued repression, worker protests and strikes have increased in Iran in recent weeks, including in the petroleum and other large industries — Editors

Iran: A New Chapter in Workers’ Protests

Summary: Strong rank-and-file mobilization in the auto industry leads to a contract that limits two-tier pay scales, improving the initial one negotiated by the “business unionists” of the United Auto Workers Union (UAW), while UAW Kohler workers in Wisconsin end up with a less favorable contract — Editors

Summary: Peter McLaren’s Pedagogy of Insurrection represents an effort to ground revolutionary approaches to education in a critique of the fundamental principles of global capitalism—such as wage labor, value production, racism and sexism. This review highlights the contributions as well as some of the contradictions found in this important work of revolutionary theory—Editors

Summary: Mahmoud Beheshti Langroodi, a member of the Iranian Teachers’ Trade Association in Tehran, has gone on hunger strike after being sentenced to nine years in prison for his union activities — Editors

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Summary: Determined protests against police brutality and murder continue in Chicago amid attempts at whitewash and questions over the meaning of changing “the system” — Editors

Summary: The November 29 climate rally in downtown Los Angeles addressed the need for a local shift from fossil fuels to renewables, as well as issues of race and class — Editors

Summary: The murder of Laquan McDonald reveals not only the depravity of the Chicago cop who killed him but also of the entire police department, criminal justice system, and political forces that sought to conceal this crime and that of others against people of color all over the U.S. — Editors

Summary: University of California, Santa Barbara experiences one of the nation’s largest turnouts for the November 12 nationwide Million Student March, where student-worker solidarity came to the fore — Editors

Summary: The despicable ISIS attacks on Paris and elsewhere have unleashed intensified war and imperialist machinations over Syria and Iraq, as well as repression of immigrants and renewed Islamophobia. Can the Left oppose the carnage on all sides without losing sight of its emancipatory aims? Approved in a membership vote on Nov. 24, 2015 as a statement of the International Marxist-Humanist Organization — Editors

(Kurdish Translation) (Persian Translation)

Summary: Discusses Peter Hudis’s Frantz Fanon: Philosopher of the Barricades in terms of Fanon’s rejection of an ontology of Blackness; his dialectic of race, class, and colonialism; and Fanon in relation to contemporary postcolonial thought. Bhattacharya’s comments were delivered at a meeting at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, where Selim Nadi, Hudis, and she spoke on the book. Sponsored by the Decolonising Our Minds student group, it was attended by nearly 400. These remarks first appeared on the Pluto Press blog, HERE  — Editors

Summary: Interview by Andy Heintz with Bill Weinberg, the noted anarchist blogger. Covers politics of imperialism, anti-imperialism, and anti-intervention, especially on issues controversial on the left like Kosovo, Syria, Ukraine, etc. Originally appeared in Balkan Witness and then World War 4 Report, September 28, 2015, HERE  – Editors

Summary: Maati Monjib, the Moroccan historian, human rights activist, and translator into Arabic of Dunayevskaya’s Marxism and Freedom, has suspended his hunger strike in its 20th day, having forced the authoritarian Monarchy of Mohammed VI to back down and restore his right to travel – Editors

Summary: Both the recent moves over Syria and the Iran agreement are part of a broader realignment of global and regional powers that above all want to restore “order” in the Middle East — Editors

Summary: Peter Hudis on the contemporary relevance of his 2015 book, Frantz Fanon: Philosopher of the Barricades, for intersectional discussions of race and class. Originally appeared on Pluto Press blog, Oct. 7, 2015 — Editors

Summary: — On worsening situation in Russia after Nemtsov assassination and intervention in Syria, as well as continuing efforts by independent left — Editors

Summary: An argument for preventing the Paris climate summit (Conference of the Parties or COP21) from finishing its work, as any foreseeable agreement in Paris would be mere window-dressing while the climate continues to burn. Originally appeared in Resilience  — Editors.

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Summary: In 1961, Erich Fromm’s writings against nuclear weapons and on Marx’s 1844 humanist writings brought him into conflict with Cold War liberals like Sidney Hook, Richard Bernstein, and into new contact with Raya Dunayevskaya. Author’s last version of chapter published in Towards a Human Science: The Relevance of Erich Fromm for Today, edited by Rainer Funk and Neil McLaughlin (Gessen: Psychosozial-Verlag, 2015), pp. 209-19 and available on eScholarship  — Editors.

Article PDF  Booklet PDF

Labour Party election poster, 1909

Summary—The remarkable and decisive victory of the socialist Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour Party leadership election appears to revive the Left-Right divisions of the 1980s. But there are other historical precedents for the current surge of radicalism, in particular the birth of the Chartist movement nearly two centuries ago—Editors.

Image by Santos A.

Summary—In the run-up to the second general election in Greece this year, Karel Ludenhoff assesses the thinking and strategies of the Greek Left following the capitulation of the Syriza government under the leadership of Alexis Tsipras–Editors

Summary: Despite the resurgence of military authoritarianism and fundamentalism in Egypt and Syria, several more positive outcomes of the Arab revolutions are seen in the Tunisian constitution, the rise of the Syrian Kurds, and continuing ferment in Turkey. Originally appeared in Logos 14:2-3 (Summer 2015)  – Editors

(Persian Translation)

Summary: A discussion — in light of the Great Recession and of current debates over economic crisis and its causes — of Henryk Grossman’s 1929 critique of  Rosa Luxemburg’s thesis in Accumulation of Capital that overproduction is the cause of crises, and Grossman’s (and Raya Dunayevskaya’s) defense of Marx’s notion of the tendential fall in the rate of profit  — Editors

Summary: Interview with Peter Hudis on his Marx’s Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism and on his work on Rosa Luxemburg. This article was first published in The Ritual, Issue 0 – Editors

Michaeler Square, Vienna, during the 1848 Revolution

Summary: Dave Black and Ben Watson celebrate the publication of the collected writings of Helen Macfarlane and her translation of the Communist Manifesto, serialized in the Chartist Red Republican in 1850. First published in Radical Philosophy, issue 187 (Sept/Oct 2014) /  Reprinted in The Assassin: an Unkant Reader (2015).  – Editors

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Summary: This article connects the concepts of the self-emancipation and self-consciousness of the oppressed in Rosa Luxemburg to those of Frantz Fanon and G.W.F. Hegel, also drawing a contrast to Lenin’s concept of the vanguard party. First published in Turkish in Felsefelogos No. 52 (2014/1) — Editors

Summary: Heather Brown, author of the acclaimed book, Marx on Gender and the Family: A Critical Study, is interviewed by Estelle Cooch on differences between the approaches of Marx and Engels to gender, feminism today, and intersectionality; originally published in the Autumn 2014 issue of rs21 magazine and can be accessed HERE – Editors

Summary: Statement of support for Moroccan historian, journalist, and activist Maati Monjib. Maati leads a human rights group that defends journalists and is the translator into Arabic of Raya Dunayevskaya’s Marxism and Freedom and of works by Victor Serge — Editors

Summary: A letter from Iran to Kobanî resistance forces, the Federation of Young Socialists, the members of People’s Democratic Party, and all other activists of the path of socialism and democracy (in Persian, English, Persian-Kurdish, and Turkish) — Editors

Vanis Varoufakis and Alexis Tsipras before the split in Syriza

Summary — Karel Ludenhoff assesses the climbdown of the Tsipras government in the Brussels bailout negotiations days after the Greek people voted down the EU’s austerity demands — Editors

(Persian Translation)

Summary: As interviews with participants make clear, the Ukrainian Maidan movement was a political revolution. How can we avoid similar lost opportunities to create a revolutionary movement that can save humankind? — Editors

Summary: Response to Gerald Horne’s recent book portraying the American Revolution as a pro-slavery rebellion by Alan Gilbert, author of Marx’s Politics: Communists and Citizens. Originally appeared in Journal of American History — Editors