Permanent Revolution: Marxism Without its Head or its Heart

Marxism Without its Head or its Heart: A Reply to David North was first published on
Permanent Revolution web site in eleven installments beginning on Sept 1, 2007.

This is our reply to a polemic by David North, Marxism, History and Socialist Consciousness.
The latter in turn was a reply to our Open Letter to the International Committee, Objectivism or Marxism.

As we explain in our document, we wrote Objectivism or Marxism only after waiting
3 years for North to reply to our two earlier documents, Frank Brenner’s “To Know a Thing is to Know its End" and Alex Steiner’s The Dialectical Path of Cognition and Revolutionizing Practice.

All these documents, including North's response, are posted on the Permanent Revolution website. The World Socialist Web Site serialized North’s polemic, which has also been published in a printed version. In the interest of readability, when quoting from North’s Marxism, History and Socialist Consciousness we provide page references to the printed version of his document rather than footnotes.

For a recent evaluation of the history and significance of this polemic see the final chapter of the Downward Spiral series, A new stage in the degeneration of the International Committee.

For a general evaluation of the entire series of polemics with North and the ICFI, see the discussion on the 'About' page for this website.

Chapter 1: Rationalizing Objectivism and Abandoning Marxism

Protest at the Zocalo in Mexico City against stolen election of 2006

Chapter 2: The WSWS as a Left Apologist for Bourgeois Nationalism in Iraq

Muqtada al-Sadr

Chapter 3: Their Science and Ours

Chapter 4: The Long Road Back to Pragmatism

Richard Rorty

Chapter 5: Abandoning the Struggle for Socialist Consciousness in the Working Class

NYC 2005 transit strike

Chapter 6: The Real Dialectic of the Enlightenment

Chapter 7: Objectivism and Socialist Consciousness – Part 1

Chapter 8: Objectivism and Socialist Consciousness – Part 2

Chapter 9: Remarks on Bernstein, ‘Neo-Utopianism’ and Political Amalgams

Chapter 10: Mass Psychology and Marxism

Conclusion: The International Committee at the Crossroads

Afterword: A Vulgar Critique of Vulgar Materialism

The gutter politics of David North

The World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) edition of May 17 featured a hysterical diatribe against me by the leader of that organization, David North.

Here we are today, 33 years after the split with Healy. Does the fact that North was on the right side of that split confer upon him the legitimacy of a hereditary monarch? Reading North’s comments, one would think that for him the Fourth International is some kind of franchise that he alone can operate. If the continuity of the Fourth International is to have any meaning, other than a ritualistic invocation meant to shore up the flagging morale of one’s followers, it can only be in one’s adherence to the program and theoretical conceptions of the Fourth International. If we examine the political conceptions and organizational practices of the group North has led for all these years it is clear that in all respects it bears little resemblance to the organization Trotsky founded in 1938. It is in fact our exposure of the hollowness of North’s claims to be the inheritor of the mantle of Trotsky that has so infuriated him. Why else would he be spending more time writing about me and Frank Brenner, two individuals, than about the Stalinists, Pabloites and state capitalists?

Read More ----> The gutter politics of David Norh

Trump and the crisis of liberalism

by Frank Brenner

It is tempting to say that 2016 marks the death of liberalism, but that's probably wishful thinking. What is dead, though, is the old 'centrist' political consensus, i.e. the pendulum swings from centre-left to centre-right that made mainstream politics in the West about as predictable (and stable) as an old grandfather clock. Now the swings are much more extreme - or rather the swings to the right are. (One might add that what led up to this was a major shift rightward of the 'center' itself from Reagan/Thatcher on – what Tariq Ali rightly dubbed the “extreme center”.

Link to full essay: Trump and the crisis of liberalism

Link to Greek translation: Ο Τραμπ και η κρίση του φιλελευθερισμού

Lecture: Dialectics of Revolutionary Strategy and Tactics

Alex Steiner gave a talk at the Locomotiva Cooperative Cafe in Athens, Greece on July 9, 2015, shortly after the historic vote for NO - OXI -in the Referendum of July 5. The event was a huge success attracting a packed audience of about 50 people. The talk was sponsored by the Workers Revolutionary Party of Greece (EEK) and was chaired by Savas Michael-Matsas. A Greek translation of this talk is now available. The translation was first published in the theoretical journal of the EEK, Revolutionary Marxist Review, in the issue of November 2015-February 2016. The translation was the work of Eve Manopoulou.

Link to English version: --->Dialectics of Revolutionary Strategy and Tactics

Link to Greek translation: ----> Η Διαλεκτική της Επαναστατικής Στρατηγικής και Τακτικής