CREATION OF MARXIST-HUMANISM AS ORGANIZATION — NEWS AND LETTERS COMMITTEES — AND AS THEORY FOR OUR AGE
Part Two–which includes Volumes IV through X, and an Appendix to the whole containing the entire collection of “Two Worlds” columns–covers the period 1955 to 1981, and details the development of Marxist-Humanism as philosophy and as an organization, News and Letters Committees.
The 1955 split between the two founders of the State-Capitalist Tendency did not break the continuity of ideas. On the contrary. Between the death of Stalin in March 1953, and the spontaneous outburst of the first mass revolt under state-capitalist totalitarianism in East Berlin on June 17, 1953, came the philosophic breakthrough which discerned in Hegel’s “Absolute Idea” a movement from practice to theory as well as the movement from theory to practice. The split allowed some fresh air to come in, with the majority of the group, especially the workers, following Dunayevskaya, both theoretically on Humanism and practically in the establishment of a new paper, News & Letters, to be edited by a Black production worker, Charles Denby, author of Indignant Heart: A Black Worker’s Journal. The new paper was first published under the motto taken from Marx’s Humanist Essays: “The Root of Mankind Is Man.” As the Women’s Liberation Movement arose, the motto chosen came from Marx’s Capital: “Human Power Is Its Own End.” Women had been singled out in 1956 in the very Constitution of Marxist-Humanism as one of the four forces of the American Revolution, rank-and-file labor, Black masses, and Youth being the other three.
News & Letters, the newspaper of the Marxist-Humanist organization, News and Letters Committees, is available 1955 to the present online at www.newsandletters.org/category/newspaper/.
Volume 4:
1955-1958 — Laying New Theoretical and Practical Foundations, Culminating in Marxism and Freedom, From 1776 Until Today
Volume 5:
1959-1964 — The Emergence of a Third Afro-Asian, Latin American World and a New Generation of Revolutionaries Also in the U.S.
Volume 6:
1964-1968 — As Against Decadent Capitalism on the Rampage, New Stages of Mass Revolt
Volume 7:
1968-1973 — Objective Crises Compelling Theoretic Clarification of Revolution, Culminating in the Work Around Philosophy and Revolution
Volume 8:
1973-1975 — Philosophy and Revolution as Book, as Characteristic of the Age
Volume 9:
1976-1978 — Forces of Revolution as Reason; Philosophy of Revolution as Force
Volume 10:
1979-1981 — What is Philosophy? What is Revolution? How the Revolutions of Our Age Relate to Those since Marx’s Age: Rosa Luxemburg, Women’s Liberation, and Marx’s Philosophy of Revolution
Appendix 2:
“Two Worlds” Columns by Raya Dunayevskaya, 1955-1981
Volumes 11 and 12 were added by Dunayevskaya after the original ten volumes had been donated. Her special introductions to Volumes 11 and 12, as well as the listings of their contents, can be found by clicking on the links below.
Volume 11:
1981-1985 — Dialectics of Revolution: American Roots and World Humanist Concepts
Volume 12:
Retrospective and Perspective — The Raya Dunayevskaya Collection, 1924-1986
Volume 12 – Section 1
Section I: From the Impact of the Russian Revolution to the Outbreak of World War II
Volume 12 – Section 2
Section II: The Birth of State-Capitalist Theory and Marx’s Early Essays
Volume 12 – Section 3
Section III: Philosophic Correspondence, Miners’ Strike and the Beginning of the Break-Up of the State-Capitalist Tendency, 1948-55
Volume 12 – Section 4
Section IV: Marxist-Humanist Archives and International Relations
Volume 12 – Section 5
Section V: The Battle of Ideas
Volume 12 – Section 6
Section VI: The Marxist-Humanist Archives — the New Additions as well as New Findings from the Old