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History 181b
Spring 2015
Professor Mark Hulliung
Red Flags/Black Flags: Marxists vs. Anarchists, 1845-1968
From Marx’s first major book in 1845 to the French upheavals of 1968, the history of left-wing politics and ideas has been, in large part, that of struggles between Marxists and anarchists, or between Marxist orthodoxy and anarchist-inspired, left Marxist alternatives. The battle between bearers of the red and black flags is the topic of this course.
I. The First Debate: Marx vs. Stirner
Stirner, The Ego and Its Own, pp. 5-7, 19-40, 55-60, 68-111, 155-161, 174-175, 182-187, 198-199, 209-211, 226-239, 257-258, 270, 279-280, 282-284, 288-290, 294-295, 298, 311-313
Marx & Engels, Collected Works, vol. 5, pp. 119, 137, 145, 150, 160, 176-178, 184, 193-196, 212, 234, 245-246, 262, 277, 282, 293, 314-315, 378-379
II. Marx and the Revolutions of 1848
Marx & Engels, The Communist Manifesto
Marx, “Address to the Communist League [March 1850]”
Marx, “Speech to the Central Committee of the Communist
League [Sept. 1850]”
III. The First International: Marx vs. Bakunin
James Joll, The Anarchists, ch. on Proudhon
Marx, “Inaugural Address to the First International [September 1864]”
Sam Dolgoff, ed., Bakunin on Anarchism, pp. 55-57, 177-181, 184-209, 286-300, 318-320, 325-335, 351-353
Bakunin, Statism and Anarchy, chs. 1 & 7
Marx, Engels, Lenin, Anarchism & Anarcho-Syndicalism, pp. 49, 53-54, 57-59, 69-76, 80-84, 102-108, 120, 139-141, 148-153, 172-173
Marx, “Critique of the Gotha Program”
IV. The Paris Commune in Marxist and Anarchist Mythology
Marx, The Civil War in France
Dolgoff, ed.,Bakunin, pp. 259-273
Kropotkin, Selected Writings on Anarchism and Revolution, pp. 119-132
Bernstein, The Preconditions of Socialism, pp. 1-8, 66-78, 136-159, 189-210
Lenin, What is to be Done?, pp. 8-11, 24-44, 54-68, 74-108, 121-122, 137-38, 147-149, 175-177
Lenin, State and Revolution
Kautsky, Terrorism and Communism, chs. 5, 6, & pp. 198-234 of ch. 8
Trotsky, Terrorism and Communism, pp. 20-27, 48-97
V.Episodes in the Russian Revolution
Lenin, One Step Forward, Two Steps Back, section Q
Rosa Luxemburg, “Leninism or Marxism?” & “The Russian Revolution”
Lenin, Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder
Kropotkin, “Conversation with Lenin” & “Two Letters to Lenin” in Selected Writings, pp. 325-339
Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Obsolete [Senile] Communism, ch. 4 (“The Strategy and Nature of Bolshevism”)
VI.Anarcho-Syndicalism
George Lichtheim, “Marxism, Anarchism, Syndicalism” in Marxism: an Historical and Critical Survey, pp. 222-233
Sorel, Reflections on Violence, pp. 20-36, 65-86, 101-119, 131-142, 204-214, 224-251
VII. Art and Revolution
Richard Sonn, Anarchism and Cultural Politics in Fin de Siècle France, chs. 3, 9
Breton, Manifestoes of Surrealism, pp. 3-47, 119-187
Breton, “What is Surrealism?” in Franklin Rosemont, ed., Selected Writings, pp. 112-41
VIII.May ‘68
Ken Knabb, ed., Situationist International Anthology, pp. 50-54, 314-317, 319-337, 343-352
Cohn-Bendit, Obsolete [Senile] Communism, intro., pp. 13-84, 96-103, 225-231
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Students are required to attend all class meetings and to keep up with the readings so that they can contribute to discussions. Participation in the classroom will be one of the criteria used to determine final grades. Any student who cuts class on a more or less regular basis will receive a failing grade for the course. Lesser offenders will be graded down one or more letter grades, as the professor deems fit.Students who text message during class should except to be penalized.
Students will be required to submit three essays. These papers will be based on the assigned readings. Extensions will not be granted and late papers will be heavily penalized.