"Lenin was a dialectician who understood that the consciousness and leadership of the working class underwent qualitative changes historically... The question of centralism and discipline derives its significance only in context." -Spartacist League, "Lenin and the Vanguard Party"

Lenin and the vanguard party - 1/25
Syllabus
docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Spartacist League, Lenin and the Vanguard Party (1978)
Appignanesi & Zarate; Lenin for Beginners / Introducing the Russian Revolution (1977)

What is the Left? What is Marxism?
An introduction to revolutionary Marxism

No power on earth can arrest this concentration [monopolization]. It is paving the way for a new economic system, a new social order. Socialists understand its trend... They are organizing their forces beneath the conquering banner of economic reality. -Debs, "Competition vs Cooperation," 1900

What is the Left? What is Marxism?
Reform or revolution
An introduction to revolutionary Marxism - syllabus
docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Rosa Luxemburg, Reform or Revolution? (1900/1908)
Eugene V Debs, Competition versus Cooperation (1900)

What is imperialism? How should Marxists critique it? Has imperialism changed in the century since Lenin's pamphlet? Does overcoming it mean an overcoming of capitalism?

How do you view the relation between progressivism and socialism from the Progressive Era to the present?

"Self-criticism, remorseless, cruel, and going to the core of things is the life's breath and life of the proletarian movement...the socialist proletariat in the present world war is unprecedented...socialism will be lost only if the international proletariat refuses to...learn from it." - Luxemburg

What is the Left? What is Marxism?
Revolutionary leadership
docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Rosa Luxemburg, Crisis of German Social Democracy (1915)
Nettl, The German SPD 1890-1914 as Political Model (1965)
Slaughter, What is Revolutionary Leadership? (1960)