Toward A Dialectic Of Philosophy And Organization

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.

"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

• Introduction: Philosophy, Organization, and the Work of Raya DunayevskayaI. The Contradictory Reality of the Present Moment and Its Relation to a Dialectic of Philosophy and OrganizationII. The Project of Dunayevskaya: Dialectics of Organization and PhilosophyIII. The Form for the Present StudyPrologue: The Dialectic in Philosophy ItselfI. 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 PARTIES1: Marx’s Concept of Organization: From the Silesian Weavers’ Uprising to the First Years of the International Workingmen’s AssociationI. A Preliminary Note—Marx: Revolutionary Organization and the Organization of ThoughtII. 1843-52, Critique of Ideas/Tendencies—and the Movement of the WorkersIII. 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 Association2: The Commune of Paris, 1871: Mass Spontaneity in Action and Thought; Responsibility of the Revolutionary Intellectual: The Two-War Road Between Marx and the CommuneI. 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 CapitalIII. The Commune Deepens Marx’s Concept of Organization-- The First International After 1871Appendix: Marx excerpts from first and second drafts of The Civil War in France3: The Second International, The German Social Democracy, and Engels after Marx—Organization without Marx’s Organization of ThoughtI. A Preliminary Note on LassalleII. Fetishism of Organization: The Second International and the Germany Social DemocracyIII. 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 Russia4: The 1905 Russian Revolution: Mass Proletarian Self-Activity and Its Relation to the Organizational Thought of Marxist RevolutionariesI. 1905 in Life and in Books: New Forms of Struggle; New Forms of OrganizationII. Lenin, Trotsky, Luxemburg: Attitudes Toward and Theoretical Ramifications of 1905, Particularly with Regard to Revolutionary Organization5: The Russian Revolution of 1917 and BeyondI. February-October, 1917: Forms of Organization From Below; Developments and Struggles Within BolshevismII. Russia post-October: Workers, Bolsheviks and the State—New Beginnings and Grave Contradictions in the Revolution6: Out of the Russia Revolution: Legacy and Critique—Luxemburg, Pannekoek, TrotskyI. Luxemburg and Two Revolutions—Russia, 1917-18; Germany, 1918-19II. Pannekoek’s Council CommunismIII. In Exile: A Brief Note on Trotsky’s Concept of Revolutionary Organization and View of Proletarian Subjectivity7: Organizational Forms from the Spanish RevolutionI. The Revolution Begins and DevelopsII. The Communist Party Works to Dismantle the Revolution8: The Hungarian Workers’ Councils in the Revolution: A Movement from Practice that Is a Form of Theory Prelude: East Germany, 1953 I. The First DaysII. The Turning PointIII. The Counter-Revolution and the Proletarian ResponseIV. Postscript: East Europe post-Hungary 1956—Resistance-in-Permanence; Contradictions WithinPART II: HEGEL AND MARX9: Can “Absolute Knowing” in Hegel’s Phenomenology Speak to a Dialectic of Organization and Philosophy?I. A Note on Hegel’s Method in Absolute KnowledgeII. 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 Dunayevskaya10: Rereading Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Program TodayAppendix: Marx on Necessity, Freedom, Time and LaborPART III: HEGEL AND LENIN11: Lenin and Hegel—The Profound Philosophic Breakthrough that Failed to Encompass Revolutionary OrganizationI. IntroductionII. A Preliminary Note on Lenin’s Philosophic Exploration of HegelIII. 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 BreakthroughV. Organizational Ramifications12: Hegel’s Critique of the Third Attitude to Objectivity—Its Relation to OrganizationI. Introduction: The Three Attitudes to Objectivity II. Dunayevskaya’s 1961 Reading of the Third Attitude to ObjectivityIII. Dunayevskaya’s New 1986 Reading of the Third Attitude to ObjectivityPART IV: DIALECTICS OF ORGANIZATION AND PHILOSOPHY IN POST-WORLD WAR II WORLD: THE WORK OF RAYA DUNAYEVSKAYA13: Moments in the Development of Dunayevskaya's Marxist-HumanismI. 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-HumanismII. 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 CommitteesIV. Dunayevskaya’s Presentation on Dialectics of Organization and Philosophy, June 1, 1987—A New Philosophic Category and a Challenge for News and Letters PraxisAppendices: 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, 1956PART V: CONCLUSION14: What Philosophic-Organizational Vantage Point Is Needed?I. Recent Challenges to Hegel’s Dialectics of NegativityII. 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 TodayBibliograhyIndex