Anarchist Studies Network – 2008 conference

The Anarchist Studies Network (a Political Studies Association specialist group for the study of anarchism) holds its first annual conference between 4-6 September 2008 hosted by the Department of Politics, IR and European Studies, Loughborough University, UK.

Themed sessions include:

• Proudhon and Modern Anarchism
• Anarchism and Ethics
• Religious Anarchisms
• Re-imagining Revolution
• Libertarian Communism
• Anarchism, Labour & Syndicalism
• Anarchist Approaches in Empirical Political Analysis

More information from the Anarchist Studies Network.

Book Announcement: “The Betrayer, Stalin, is you!” (Published in German)

Bernhard H. Bayerlein. 2008.“The Betrayer, Stalin, is you!” :The End of Left Solidarity. Soviet Union, Comintern and Communist Parties During World War II. 1939–1941. Berlin: Aufbau Verlag. (Published in German; with a contemporary witness report by Wolfgang Leonhard.) ISBN 978-1-934110-80-5, hardback, €29,95.

“Der Verräter, Stalin, bist Du!”. Vom Ende der linken Solidarität. Sowjetunion, Komintern und kommunistische Parteien im Zweiten Weltkrieg 1939 – 1941, von Bernhard H. Bayerlein. Unter Mitarbeit von Natal’ja Lebedeva, Michail Narinskij und Gleb Albert. Mit einem Zeitzeugenbericht von Wolfgang Leonhard. Vorwort von Hermann Weber, Berlin, Aufbau-Verlag, 2008. 540 Seiten, mit 200 Abbildungen. Erschienen in der Reihe: Archive des Kommunismus – Pfade des XX. Jahrhunderts. Band IV. Das Buch kostet 29,95 Euro. ISBN 978-3-351-02623-3.

In due time before the 70th anniversary of the conclusion of the Stalin-Hitler-Pact and the beginning of World War II Aufbau Publishers in Berlin present an elaborate and thoroughly commentated chronicle of hitherto highly confidential, unpublished and less known documents from Russian, German and Swiss Archives. The thematic spectrum of this innovative presentation of still controversial historical context and original sources ranges between two central turning points of global history:

• The rupture of Antifascism and Solidarity perpetrated by the Soviet Union and the Communist Parties at the beginning of the Second World War during the „dark years“ following the Stalin-Hitler-Pact from 1939 to 1941.

• The beginning of antifascist resistance within the new symbiosis of Soviet Patriotism and Antifascism since the proclamation of the “Great Patriotic War” after Hitler’s attack against the Soviet Union in June 1941.

The success story of the Soviet Union as victorious force of World War II outshined the collaboration of the two dictators Stalin and Hitler and the official “German-Soviet Friendship” from September 1941 to June 1941 when it was “Midnight in the Century” (Victor Serge). The main focus of this book is the double turn-over of the communist parties, their adaptation to the pact with Germany, and their new role during World War II after Germany’s attack against the Soviet Union. It sheds light on the decisive role played by Soviet and Comintern leaders like Stalin, Molotov, Manuil’skiy and Dimitrov and national communist functionaries like Earl Browder, Walter Ulbricht, Palmiro Togliatti; yet, room is given to reflect the role of legal and illegal communist cadres and connections all over the world, from Iceland to Yugoslavia, from China to the Unites States, from Italy to Germany.

For a first period, the book uncovers the unconcealed support to the Nazi Regime, going as far as the applause for Hitler’s War against Europe and the whole civilization – but also the hesitations, the disoriention, the discomfort and the opposition within the communist movement, as well as the intermediate positions of the Comintern since summer 1940. Resistance against the Pact came from the highest ranks of international communism, like the German communist propaganda genius Willi Münzenberg, who shortly before his mysterious death wrote a furious article against the volt-face of Soviet politics, concluding with “The betrayer, Stalin, is you!”

Further, the documents substantiate the change of polarity to anti-German resistance by all means as a consequence of the invasion of the Soviet Union by the Wehrmacht after June 21, 1941, the beginning of communist resistance in Europe and some of the consequences and contradictions immanent to the concept of the “Great Patriotic War” including the use of individual terror as war tactics by the Communist parties.

The innovative visualisation by means of collage techniques reflects the multiplicity of the new documents which became accessible through the opening of the archives: Politbureau decisions, instructions by the Comintern leadership or the Foreign Commissary Molotov, coded telegrams, diary entries, informal remarks and decisive corrections by Stalin towards the Communist Parties, letters and correspondences, programs and manifestos, orders for operations behind the lines of the occupied countries, manuscripts and manuals for radio propaganda on one hand, public statements and other types of reaction by the left and liberal intellectual elites on the other.

The elucidation of communist politics and its resonance in public opinion as a transnational and European phenomenon induces to overcome the predominance of mostly national cultures of historical memory which are still vigorous in Europe, characterized by concealment, a very late appropriation of the own history, or rhetorical readjustments and diplomatic tactics. In this sense, the book touches major taboos of historical memory and questions some of the original myths of German, French, Russian, Yugoslavian or Bulgarian history. It allows inside views into the mechanisms of manipulative mass propaganda and rhetorics described by George Orwell (elucidating Walter Benjamin’s paradigm of “inner betrayal”), which in the name of Communism and the defence of the Soviet Union until 1941 contributed to surrender Europe and the world to Hitler’s war machinery.

Read more about “The Betrayer, Stalin, is You!” at:

• http://www.aufbau-verlag.de/index.php4?page=28&&show=15678 (under construction)
• http://www.dr-bayerlein.eu/index.php?act=recentbooks_verraeter

• Contact the author at bernhard.bayerlein@mzes.uni-mannheim.de (+49 221 422706).
• For review copies, contact Mrs. Andrea Doberenz at doberenz@aufbau-verlag.de (+49 30 28394233).
• For inquieries concerning book presentations, contact Mrs. Monika Rettig, rettig@buero-frankfurt.aufbau-verlag.de (+49 69 63151463) and the author.

CPGB online bibliography

With the support of the Barry Amiel and Norman Melburn trust, a bibliography of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) compiled by Dave Cope is now available online.

Cope reports that the bibliography is: “divided into material by and about the Communist Party of Great Britain. While such a bibliography could never be complete, I am confident I have unearthed at least 95% of material published nationally by the CPGB, most local material and the vast majority of key books and many of the articles written about the CPGB. I have tried to see all the items listed – only very occasionally have I failed with Party publications. I have a further list of books and articles I am in the process of researching that will eventually be listed.”

The bibliography can be browsed by index entry or searched by keyword, and can be accessed here: http://www.amielandmelburn.org.uk/cpgb_biblio/searchfrset.htm

Looking For Lukács symposium

Looking For Lukács: A symposium in the School of Social Science, Media and Cultural Studies, University of East London, June 25th 2008 1:00pm – 5:00pm, Room EB.G.11

In an era when the hegemony of capitalism within Western culture appears to be almost unchallengeable, can we afford to ignore one of the greatest critics of capitalism’s fundamental cultural processes? A range of recent and current work to be presented here has taken up the challenge of Györky Lukács, arguably the father of ‘Western Marxism’.

Speakers and Titles

Andrew Hemingway

Totality vs. Reification: The Significance of Romantic Anti-Capitalism in History and Class Consciousness

Andrew Hemingway is Professor in History of Art at University College London. His publications include Artists on the Left: American Artists and the Communist Movement, 1926-1956 (2002) and the edited volume Marxism and the History of Art: From William Morris to the New Left (2006).

Tim Hall

Materialism and Metaphysics: Lukács & Adorno

Tim Hall is senior lecturer in International Politics at the University of East London where he teaches courses on the history of political thought and contemporary political philosophy. He is the co-author of Theories of the Modern State: theories & ideologies (Edinburgh University Press, 2007) with Erika Cudworth and John McGovern and has written various articles and reviews on Critical Social Theory. He is currently working on a book on Adorno and Hegelian Marxism.

Timothy Bewes

How to Escape from Literature: Lukács, Cinema, and The Theory of the Novel

Timothy Bewes is Associate Professor at Brown University. He is the author of Cynicism and Postmodernity (1997) and Reification, or the Anxiety of Late Capitalism (2002), both published by Verso, and is currently working on a book called The Event of Shame: Literature after Colonialism.

Andy Fisher

Allan Sekula’s ‘Novelistic Fantasy’: Lukács, Aesthetic Totality and the Literary Problematisation of Photographic Form.

Andy Fisher is an artist and Lecturer in Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths College. Most recent publication, ‘Beyond Barthes: Rethinking the Phenomenology of Photography’, Radical Philosophy, No. 148, March / April, 2008. Coeditor of Photography and Literature in the Twentieth Century, eds. David Cunningham, Andrew Fisher and Sas Mays, Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2005.

Stewart Martin

The art of capital in Lukács

Stewart Martin is a member of the editorial collective, and reviews editor, of Radical Philosophy, and teaches philosophy and art at Middlesex University.

Attendance is free and open to all.

To register email Jeremy Gilbert: J.Gilbert@uel.ac.uk

For transport info: http://www.uel.ac.uk/ssmcs/about/location.htm

Phillip Bonosky: new web resource

Dan Rosenberg of Adelphi University, New York writes: “Phillip Bonosky, native of Duquesne, Pennsylvania, longtime labor organizer, steelworker, Communist, and writer, has opened a new website.”

The site can be accessed here: http://www.phillipbonosky.com.

The Making of a Revolutionary, Otto Wilhelm Kuusinen, 1881-1918

Maurice Carrez, 2008. La Fabrique d’un Revolutionnaire, Otto Wilhelm Kuusinen (1881-1918): Réflexions sur l’engagement politique d’un dirigeant social-démocrate finlandais. (The Making of a Revolutionary, Otto Wilhelm Kuusinen, 1881-1918. Reflections on the Political Engagement of a Finish Social-Democrat Leader). Vol. 1: 466 pages – Vol. 2: 396 pages. ISBN: 2-912025-39-7 – Vol. 1 : 2-912025-40-0 – Vol. 2 : 2-912025-41-9. €40.

Otto Wilhelm Kuusinen is especially known as having been a Kommintern secretary and, later on, a member of the Polit-bureau of the Soviet Union Communist Party. Historians have often centred their studies on his activity as leader of the Finish Communist Party in the pre-war years and on his role as a reformer under Krustchov.

But before his career outside Finland, O. W. Kuusinen was one of the most well-known leaders of the Finish Social-Democratic Party for twelve years and outright leader between 1911 and 1913. Furthermore, his influence on political life was particularly important from March 1917 to March 1918. From this angle, he can be considered as one of the major protagonists of the road towards independence ant the revolution that followed.

The aim of this book, that arose from research from a work destined for the ‘Habilitation à diriger des recherches (HDR)’ qualification, is to come to understand how an upwardly mobile young man, at first under the influence of conservative nationalism, a man who came from humble origins, entered Socialism at the beginning of the 20th century and then went on to construct between 1905 and 1918 a relatively original political and intellectual career.

This work is no a mere biography of an individual, albeit a brilliant individual, it is a study that strives to relate the personal elements of his life with the social and cultural framework of the age, taking equally into account the political upheavals that shook Finland and the Russian Empire. Readers of this book will become familiar with the history of the Baltic region, at the extreme ends of the Scandinavian and Slav worlds before and during the First World War. They will find in these pages important representatives of the Nordic political world as well as the workers’ mouvement during the so called Belle Époque.

€40 (plus €5 post and packing) – Payable to: l’Agent Comptable de l’UTM / FRAMESPA

Université de Toulouse-Le Mirail – FRAMESPA CNRS-UMR 5136 -
5, allées Antonio Machado – 31058 Toulouse Cedex 9
Tél. : 05 61 50 44 17 - Fax : 05 61 50 49 64
Mel : meridiennes@univ-tlse2.fr
http://w3.framespa.univ-tlse2.fr/boutique

Book launch: ‘Syndicalism and the Transition to Communism’

To celebrate the launch of his new book ‘Syndicalism and the Transition to Communism’, Ralph Darlington will appear at the Salord University branch of the Blackwells bookshops on Thursday 19 June between 1.00pm-2.00pm. Wine and light refreshments will be provided. To confirm that you would like to attend please contact: r.r.darlington@salford.ac.uk

Salford Crescent railway station (with links to Oxford Road and Piccadilly) is just around the corner from the bookshop; car parking is available at Irwell Place, just off The Crescent (A6) and the main University campus/reception.

During the first two decades of the twentieth century, amidst an extraordinary international upsurge in strike action, the ideas of revolutionary syndicalism developed into a major influence within the world wide trade union movement. Committed to destroying capitalism through direct industrial action and revolutionary trade union struggle, the movement raised fundamental questions about the need for new and democratic forms of power through which workers could collectively manage industry and society.

This study provides an all-embracing comparative analysis of the dynamics and trajectory of the syndicalist movement in six specific countries: France, Spain, Italy, America, Britain and Ireland. This is achieved through an examination of the philosophy of syndicalism and the varied forms that syndicalist organisations assumed; the distinctive economic, social and political context in which they emerged; the extent to which syndicalism influenced wider politics; and the reasons for its subsequent demise.

The volume also provides the first ever systematic examination of the relationship between syndicalism and communism, focusing on the ideological and political conversion to communism undertaken by some of the syndicalist movement’s leading figures and the degree of synthesis between the two traditions within the new communist parties that emerged in the early 1920s.

The Public Intellectual and the Left in the 21st Century

The Public Intellectual and the Left in the 21st Century:
A conference to celebrate Shelia Rowbotham’s intellectual and political contribution

Helena Kennedy, Peter McMylor, Shelia Rowbotham, Lynne Segal, Hilary Wainwright

Saturday 7th June 2008

1.45pm-6.00pm

Cross Street Chapel, Cross Street, Manchester M2 1NL (opposite Ann Street)

Admission free

Sponsored by the Lipman Miliban Trust; Sociology, Cultural Theory Institue and Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change, University of Manchester

Gareth Stedman-Jones speaking on his biography of Marx

Gareth Stedman-Jones will be speaking on his biography of Marx at 2.00pm on Saturday 17 May 2008 at Marx House, 37a Clerkenwell Green, London EC1 (nearest tube: Farringdon). Admission to the public meeting: £1.50.

The meeting follows the AGM of the Socialist History Society which convenes at the same venue at 1.00pm.

1968: Turning Point – call for conference papers

Multi-disciplinary Postgraduate Conference

1968: Turning Point

10th – 11th October 2008
Queen’s University, Belfast, Institute of Irish Studies

*CALL FOR PAPERS*

1968 was a crucial year in the history and politics of Northern Ireland as the civil rights movement took to the streets, but this agitation was, if anything, defined as much by its global as local character. Across the world the year witnessed scenes of mass street protests and demonstrations, confrontation between states and their citizens, and calls for revolutionary action and social change. 1968 would prove to be an epoch-making year not just for Northern Ireland.

Forty years on, Queen’s University has organised a series of events to reflect upon and re-evaluate the events of 1968 both within and beyond the Northern Irish context. As part of this commemoration Queen’s is planning a two-day postgraduate conference entitled “1968 Turning Point.”

We invite scholars to give 20-minute papers on the political, social and cultural significance of 1968 from a wide range of disciplinary and international backgrounds, including anthropology, history, film studies, political science, sociology, social movement theory, literary studies and cultural theory.

Topics to address may include:

• The Northern Ireland civil rights movement and other civil rights movements; movements for social change; anti-Vietnam and CND demonstrations;
• The New Left and the Old Left;
• The role of women and women’s rights movements;
• Student agitation and demonstrations (both specific case studies and comparative analyses);
• The literature, culture and media representations of 1968 and ’68ers; the legacies and influences of ’68;
• State responses and the role of counter-demonstration groups (both specific case studies and comparative analyses)

* This should not be viewed as an exhaustive list. Papers will be considered on related themes. *

Please send a 300-word abstract in Microsoft Word format to the following e-mail address: conference-1968@hotmail.com. Abstracts should be submitted by no later than Friday, 4th July 2008.

We are planning to publish a volume of selected papers presented at this conference.