1968/2008

The 49th Street Underground is a local anti-capitalist reading group that has been doing an excellent job in recent years surveying challenging questions and histories related to the contemporary left. This series they have been doing about the Soviet Union is really important, because they are showing that they need to have a clear understanding of this history before proceeding into discussions about contemporary leftist politics. Interesting that they too, in their inquiry into the Soviet Union, need to mark time with the 68 moment.
http://www.49underground.org/nextevents.php.

Tuesday, July 10th, 6pm*
Place: 36 S. Wabash, Room 1440
(the office of News & Letters <http://newsandletters.org/>)

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*Discussion Series on Soviet Bloc Society, Part IV: Reform or Revolution? 1953-1968*

We continue to ask 2 central questions in this series: 1) How
should we understand the changing social system in the Soviet
sphere, both internally and as it relates to the world at large? 2) How was this social system critically understood and opposed by people living within it; and what forms of opposition were possible
but not realized? Texts presented will include some written at a
critical distance from the time and place in question, and others
written by people critiquing the Soviet system from within.

One of the tasks of this discussion will be to compare “the 60s” in the Soviet sphere with the “the 60s” in the West and in other parts of the world. What can we learn from the developing left/opposition in the Soviet sphere, as it relates both to the Soviet system and to the global left of this period?

This will help lead into our future discussions on the changes in
contemporary capitalism after 1968, and a possible discussion on the
1960s or 1968 in the West. More generally, this can help us to
understand the current state of capitalism and anti-capitalism, which
bear the legacy of these developments.

Central readings:
- Jacek Kuron and Karol Modzelewski, /Open Letter to the Party/ <http://www.49underground.org/downloading.php?file=Kuron%20and%20Modzelewsi%20-%20Open%20Letter.pdf>:
An important historical document of opposition to Communist Party rule in Poland; a critique of the system and a program for revolution from a relatively traditional, but still radical and original,
Marxist-Leninist position.
- Karel Kosik, “Our Current Crisis” (to
be posted soon): An analysis of Czechoslovakia and the world during a
critical moment in 1968; written by one of the age’s most original
Marxist humanists.

Additional readings (to be presented or useful as background material):
- Herbert Marcuse, *Soviet Marxism* (a critique of Soviet ideology in the late 1950s)
- Peter Hudis,  ”The 1956 Hungarian Revolution with Eyes of Today” <http://www.newsandletters.org/Issues/2007/Dec-Jan/essay_Dec-Jan_07.htm>
- Leszek Kolakowski, “The Concept of the Left” <http://home.comcast.net/%7Eplatypus1848/kolakowskileszek_conceptleft1968.pdf> (another prominent Marxist humanist)
- Ron Suny, /The Soviet Experiment/ “Khrushchev and the Politics of Reform” <http://www.49underground.org/downloading.php?file=Suny%20-%20Soviet%20Exp%20-%20Khrushchev.pdf> (for historical background)

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/anticapdiscuss/

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