Theoretical Lessons of the Russian Revolution- Los Angeles, 18 February

Theoretical Lessons of the Russian Revolution

Sunday, February 18

6:30-8:30 PM

Westside Peace Center

3916 Sepulveda Blvd., near Venice Blvd. (free parking in rear)

Suite 101-102, press #22 at door to get into building

Culver City (LA area)

Speakers:

Kevin B. Anderson, author of Lenin, Hegel, and Western Marxism

Edward Tapia, writer on imperialism and dependency theory for New Politics and other journals

One hundred years ago, the Russian revolution of 1917 became the first anticapitalist revolution to succeed in coming to power. Its thinkers and activists, both workers and intellectuals, created new ground for new forms of Marxist theory and of practice, above all in Lenin’s writings. Among these were theories of (1) the state and revolution, (2) the soviet (workers’ council), the party, and other forms of revolutionary organization, (3) imperialism and national liberation, and (4) Marxist dialectical method. This meeting will analyze critically this legacy, which was at the center of debate on the Left in the twentieth century. That debate also encompassed theories of how the revolution’s emancipatory direction got transformed into the Stalinist dictatorship over the proletariat, beginning with Rosa Luxemburg’s prescient 1918 critique of the single party revolutionary state then being led by Lenin and Trotsky. The Russian revolution’s huge impact on the Global South has included more than a century of debate over, extension of, and attempts to move beyond Lenin’s theory of imperialism, from Dependency Theory to Marxist-Humanism.

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