The Self-Emancipation of the Working Class and the Case for a Revolutionary Party
Saturday * February 6 * Noon to 6PM
UMass Campus Center #803
A mini-conference: local socialists and radicals will be reading the books below and then meeting to discuss an introduction to Marxism, featuring a talk by Ashley Smith, who is on the editorial board of the International Socialist Review (www.isreview.org)
The ultimate goal of Marxism is the liberation of humanity from all forms of exploitation and oppression through the creation of a classless society in which, as The Communist Manifesto famously puts it, “the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.” The Manifesto outlined a strategy of class struggle to achieve this goal. The basic premise of this strategy, as Frederick Engels later wrote, was that “the emancipation of society must be the act of the working class itself.”
Please join us in this day school to collectively examine the lessons of working class struggle. Is socialism possible in the twenty-first century without a revolutionary party?
Readings (order these titles today to get started on the reading!):
V.I. Lenin, State and Revolution (New York: International Publishers), $5.
http://www.haymarketbooks.org/pb/State-and-Revolution
Lenin’s book is also available online at the Marxists Internet Archive:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/index.htm
John Molyneux, What is the Real Marxist Tradition? (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2003). $7
http://www.haymarketbooks.org/pb/What-is-the-Real-Marxist-Tradition
Chris Harman, “Party and class,” and Duncan Hallas, “Towards a revolutionary socialist party.” In Tony Cliff and others, Party and Class (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2003). $7
http://www.haymarketbooks.org/pb/Party-and-Class
Todd Chretien, “Lenin’s Theory of the Party,” International Socialist Review #56. Available online at http://www.isreview.org/issues/56/feat-lenin.shtml
Useful supplemental readings:
Shaun Harkin, “State and Revolution,” Socialist Worker, Issue 676, July 22, 2008:
http://socialistworker.org/2008/07/22/state-and-revolution
John Molyneux, “On party democracy,” International Socialism, Issue 124, October 2009:
http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=586&issue=124
