Class description: This week’s class discusses the development and status of China's economy. The first part begins by clarifying the debate over China's economy and emphasizing the historical, material, and...
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China class 3: Twin tasks of the revolution (1949-1979)
Class description: This week’s class covers the first 30 years of the People’s Republic, the period of the initial construction of socialism and the struggle between two lines. After liberation in 1949, China set about...
China class 2: National liberation and class struggle (1919-1949)
Class description: This second class covers the 30 years from 1919 to 1949, during which the revolution grew from a collection of Marxist reading groups to the establishment of the People’s Republic. We examine the founding...
China class 1: From Imperial China to the Century of Humiliation (1800-1919)
Class description: The first class in the series is devoted to tracing the decline of the ancient imperial order in China under the combined attacks of Western imperialism and domestic rebellion in the course of the 19th and...
Nadezhda Krupskaya: Revolutionary woman and educator
Nadezhda Krupskaya was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary. A feminist who contributed to the women's question, Krupskaya was also involved in establishing International Women’s Day. Her contributions to educational policy and theory were so immense that the Soviet...
Production, overproduction and overproduction crises
Author’s note: The following article was mostly written before Donald Trump became president-elect. His electoral victory if anything strengthens the thesis presented that imperialist governments, led by the U.S., will soon shift from a focus on monetary policy toward...
System Change not Climate Change
As humanity teeters on the brink of irreversible climate change, world leaders joined the COP21 UN Climate Change Conference in Paris in December 2015. But are international conferences like these really capable of resolving the issue? The two-week long conference...
Revolution Manifesto Class 6: Conclusions and the Cuban Revolution
Introduction: The purpose of this final class is to investigate another concrete example of a workers’ state and how this has developed over time. We will summarize our study of The State and Revolution by using it to discuss revolutionary organizing in the U.S....
Revolution Manifesto Class 5: From the Paris Commune to the Soviet Union
Introduction: The purpose of this class is to develop a more sophisticated understanding of the withering away of the state as it relates to economics and the mode of production. The class will also focus on the historical experience of the Soviet Union to investigate...