Toward A Dialectic Of Philosophy And Organization: Studies in Critical Social Sciences, Volume 45(Studies in Critical Social Sciences)

About the Book

This work takes as its starting point the question "What Philosophic-Organizational Vantage Point is Needed for Revolutionary Transformation Today?" Gogol offers an answer by exploring organizational practices in the Paris Commune, the 2nd International, the Russian Revolutions, and several other epochal struggles, as well as the theoretical-organizational concepts of such thinkers as Lenin, Trotsky, and Luxemburg.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Philosophy, Organization, and the Work of Raya Dunayevskaya
I. The Contradictory Reality of the Present Moment and Its Relation to a Dialectic of Philosophy and Organization
II. The Project of Dunayevskaya: Dialectics of Organization and Philosophy
III. The Form for the Present Study

Prologue: The Dialectic in Philosophy Itself
I. What Is Hegel’s Journey of Absolute Spirit?
II. Why a Negation of the Negation?
III. Can We See Hegel’s Absolutes, Not as a Closed Totality, but As New Beginning?

PART I: ON SPONTANEOUS FORMS OF ORGANIZATION VS. VANGUARD PARTIES

1: Marx’s Concept of Organization: From the Silesian Weavers’ Uprising to the First Years of the International Workingmen’s Association
I. A Preliminary Note—Marx: Revolutionary Organization and the Organization of Thought
II. 1843-52, Critique of Ideas/Tendencies—and the Movement of the Workers
III. From the Early 1850s to the Early 1860s: A Brief Note on Marx’s Organization of Thought and the “Party”
IV. A New Organizational Form: Marx and the International Working Men’s Association

2: The Commune of Paris, 1871: Mass Spontaneity in Action and Thought; Responsibility of the Revolutionary Intellectual: The Two-War Road Between Marx and the Commune
I. A Non-State State: The Paris Commune as a Form of Workers’ Rule
II. The Civil War in France— Drafts and Address, and the French Edition of Capital
III. The Commune Deepens Marx’s Concept of Organization-- The First International After 1871
Appendix: Marx excerpts from first and second drafts of The Civil War in France

3: The Second International, The German Social Democracy, and Engels after Marx—Organization without Marx’s Organization of Thought
I. A Preliminary Note on Lassalle
II. Fetishism of Organization: The Second International and the Germany Social Democracy
III. Engels’ Relation to German Social Democracy and to Marx’s Marxism: What Tactics? What Theory? What Philosophy?
Appendix: “The Interlude that Never Ended Organizationally”

Forms of Organization and Struggle in Revolutionary Russia

4: The 1905 Russian Revolution: Mass Proletarian Self-Activity and Its Relation to the Organizational Thought of Marxist Revolutionaries
I. 1905 in Life and in Books: New Forms of Struggle; New Forms of Organization
II. Lenin, Trotsky, Luxemburg: Attitudes Toward and Theoretical Ramifications of 1905, Particularly with Regard to Revolutionary Organization

5: The Russian Revolution of 1917 and Beyond
I. February-October, 1917: Forms of Organization From Below; Developments and Struggles Within Bolshevism
II. Russia post-October: Workers, Bolsheviks and the State—New Beginnings and Grave Contradictions in the Revolution

6: Out of the Russia Revolution: Legacy and Critique—Luxemburg, Pannekoek, Trotsky
I. Luxemburg and Two Revolutions—Russia, 1917-18; Germany, 1918-19
II. Pannekoek’s Council Communism
III. In Exile: A Brief Note on Trotsky’s Concept of Revolutionary Organization and View of Proletarian Subjectivity

7: Organizational Forms from the Spanish Revolution
I. The Revolution Begins and Develops
II. The Communist Party Works to Dismantle the Revolution

8: The Hungarian Workers’ Councils in the Revolution: A Movement from Practice that Is a Form of Theory
Prelude: East Germany, 1953
I. The First Days
II. The Turning Point
III. The Counter-Revolution and the Proletarian Response
IV. Postscript: East Europe post-Hungary 1956—Resistance-in-Permanence; Contradictions Within

PART II: HEGEL AND MARX

9: Can “Absolute Knowing” in Hegel’s Phenomenology Speak to a Dialectic of Organization and Philosophy?
I. A Note on Hegel’s Method in Absolute Knowledge
II. Marx’s “Critique of the Hegelian Dialectic”
III. Spirit’s Journey in Absolute Knowledge: Externalization (Entäusserung) and
Recollection/Inwardization (Erinnerung)
IV. The Dialectic in Philosophy Itself: Does It Bring Forth a Dialectic of Organization?—A Reading of Absolute Knowing from Dunayevskaya

10: Rereading Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Program Today
Appendix: Marx on Necessity, Freedom, Time and Labor

PART III: HEGEL AND LENIN

11: Lenin and Hegel—The Profound Philosophic Breakthrough that Failed to Encompass Revolutionary Organization
I. Introduction
II. A Preliminary Note on Lenin’s Philosophic Exploration of Hegel
III. A Brief Survey of Dunayevskaya’s Explorations of Lenin’s Hegelian Vantage Point Prior to 1985-87.
IV. Dunayevskaya’s ‘Changed Perception of Lenin Philosophic Ambivalence’: Fusing a mid-1980s Vantage Point with a 1953 Philosophic Breakthrough
V. Organizational Ramifications

12: Hegel’s Critique of the Third Attitude to Objectivity—Its Relation to Organization
I. Introduction: The Three Attitudes to Objectivity
II. Dunayevskaya’s 1961 Reading of the Third Attitude to Objectivity
III. Dunayevskaya’s New 1986 Reading of the Third Attitude to Objectivity

PART IV: DIALECTICS OF ORGANIZATION AND PHILOSOPHY IN POST-WORLD WAR II WORLD: THE WORK OF RAYA DUNAYEVSKAYA

13: Moments in the Development of Dunayevskaya's Marxist-Humanism
I. A Preliminary Note on War and Revolution as Turning Points for Radical Thought: The Moment of the Theory of State-Capitalism as Needed Ground for Marxist-Humanism
II. Dunayevskaya's Letters on Hegel's Absolutes, May 12 and 20 1953: “The Philosophic Moment of Marxist-Humanism”
III. The Organization of Thought which Determines Organizational Life: Developing Marxist-Humanism and News and Letters Committees
IV. Dunayevskaya’s Presentation on Dialectics of Organization and Philosophy, June 1, 1987—A New Philosophic Category and a Challenge for News and Letters Praxis
Appendices: 1) Dunayevskaya Letter on Meeting a Cameroonian Revolutionary; 2) Andy Philips on Dunayevskaya's Participation in 1949-50 Miners' General Strike; 3. Preamble to the Original Constitution of News and Letters Committees, 1956

PART V: CONCLUSION

14: What Philosophic-Organizational Vantage Point Is Needed?
I. Recent Challenges to Hegel’s Dialectics of Negativity
II. What Is the Dialectic of Marx’s Capital?
III. Once Again Hegel’s Dialectic of Negativity—Its Concretization/Praxis as Organizational Expression; Its Meaning for Today

Bibliograhy
Index

About the Author :

Eugene Gogol is a Marxist-Humanist activist-writer. His books include The Concept of Other in Latin American Liberation and Raya Dunayevskaya: Philosopher of Marxist-Humanism.

Review :
"Toward a Dialectic ought to be taken as an important contribution to an on-going project to reveal the logic of the development of emancipatory organizations for Marxists, the detailed tracing of the forms of working class organization from its inception up to today is a precondition for solving the deep conundrums facing emancipatory projects today. And for bringing this to our attention and making a first attempt, Gogol deserves considerable praise."
Andy Blunden, Marx and Philosophy Review of Books "Toward a Dialectic ought to be taken as an important contribution to an on-going project to reveal the logic of the development of emancipatory organizations … for Marxists, the detailed tracing of the forms of working class organization from its inception up to today is a precondition for solving the deep conundrums facing emancipatory projects today. And for bringing this to our attention and making a first attempt, Gogol deserves considerable praise."
—Andy Blunden, Marx and Philosophy Review of Books