BIRTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF STATE-CAPITALIST THEORY
Part One covers Marxist-Humanism in its origin as State-Capitalist theory: (1) as that theory was developed by its founders, J.R. Johnson (C.L.R. James) and Freddie Forest (Raya Dunayevskaya), within the Trotskyist movement, 1941-1951; and (2) as the State-Capitalist Tendency existed independently from the Trotskyist movement, 1951-1955. The designation “State-Capitalist” was, naturally, intended for the Russian economy, not for the Tendency that made the analysis and to whom the role of labor was pivotal. Dunayevskaya, from the very beginning, analyzed labor in the form in which Marx articulated it as Alienated Labor in his now-famous 1844 Humanist Essays [also known as Marx’s Paris Manuscripts or Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts]. (See “Labor and Society” in Vol. I, Section II.) But the full development of Humanism in our age was made possible only after C.L.R. James broke from the Tendency in 1955. (See Vols. III and IV.) The twin aims of what was to become Marxism and Freedom were to discover the American roots of Marxism and to re-establish Marxism in its original form, which Marx called “a thoroughgoing Naturalism or Humanism.”
The Appendix to Part One, “Leon Trotsky: Letters, Conversations, Unpublished Documents,” includes:
- (1) Leon Trotsky’s letter to Dunayevskaya that accepts her as his secretary and then acknowledges her work on behalf of the Russian Bulletin of the Left Opposition as well as some research work regarding Stalin;
- (2) the translations she made during her stay in Mexico;
- (3) a very rare copy of the Bulletin in the form in which it was published for underground transmission to Russia.
Volume 1:
1941-1947 — Beginnings of State-Capitalist Theory (in the Workers Party)
Volume 2:
1947-1951 — From the “Interim Period” to the Final Split from the Socialist Workers Party
Volume 3:
1949-1955 — From the Miners’ General Strike to the East German Revolt; From the Appearance of Differences in the Johnson-Forest Tendency to the Historic Reemergence of Marx’s Humanism
Appendix 1 (included with Volume 3 listing):
Leon Trotsky: Letters, Conversations, Unpublished Documents