2005 Solidarity Cadre School Required Reading List

Don’t be intimidated by the large number of readings on this required reading list! Many of them are very short (1-2 pages) and were selected precisely because they were easy to digest.

That said, many people have indicated that they are severely time constrained, that the reading list is long, and they will have trouble completing everything on the "required" list. In an effort to respond to this, the planning committee has sent out a hard copy reader to all participants with a streamlined set of "core" readings, marked below with a **. These core readings are not a subsititue for the the required readings!

1. Revolutionary Moments (Spanish Civil War)

George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia, Chapter 11
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George Orwell, “Looking Back on the Spanish Civil War”

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2. Marxism as a Theory of Liberation: Understanding the Intersections of Class, Race, Gender, and Sexuality

** Johanna Brenner, “Intersections, Locations, and Capitalist Class Relations: Intersectionality from a Marxist Perspective.” Concluding chapter of Women and the Politics of Class (New York, NY: Monthly Review Press, 2000) pp. 293-324.
pdf

3. Marxist Analysis: What is Class and Why Does it Matter?

Karl Marx and Frederich Engels, The Communist Manifesto

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** Ellen Meiksins Wood: "Why Class Struggle is Central" Against the Current, Sept. 1987.

pdf

Hal Draper, Karl Marx’s Theory of Revolution, vol. 2 (excerpts)
Exerpt 1: “A Special Class" pdf
Exerpt 2: "Anatomy of Proletariat” pdf

4. Socialist Organization Past and Present

Steve Zeluck, " The Evolution of Lenin’s Views on the Party or, Lenin on regroupment," Against the Current (Old Series) 1985.
pdf

** Ernest Mandel: "Vanguard Parties."

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Isaac Deutscher, 1964 (1972): ‘On Internationals and Internationalism’. In Marxism in Our Time.

pdf

Traditions of Revolutionary Socialism, a Solidarity working paper

pdf

Charlie Post and Kit Wainer , "Socialist Organization Today"
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5. Race, the National Question, and the U.S. Left

** Christopher Phelps Introduction to Max Schactman Race and Revolution.
pdf

** CLR James, "The Revolutionary Answer to the Negro Problem in the USA"
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Solidarity 1989 Convention Resolution: The Politics of Black America
pdf

Franz Fanon, “Reciprocal Bases of National Culture and the Fight for Freedom”
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Barbara Fields, "Slavery, Race, and Ideology in the United States of America," New Left Review 181 (May/June 1990), 95-118.
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Adolph Reed, Jr. “Tokens of the White Left,” Class Notes: Posing as Politics and Other Thoughts on the American Scene. (New York, NY: The New Press, pp. 71-76)
pdf

Ruckus Collective ( Arizona anarchists) “Bring the Ruckus”
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David Roediger, “From the Social Construction of Race to the Abolition of Whiteness”
pdf

** W.E.B. Du Bois, selections:
“Pan-Africa, and Of Giving Work ” pdf

Audre Lorde, “Age, Race, Class, and Sex”
pdf

** Malik Miah, "A Critique of Norm Dixon’s Article, ‘Marx, Engels and Lenin on the National Question’" html

6. Case Studies in Radical Nationalism: the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, the Young Lords and La Raza Unida Party

Young Lords Party and La Raza Unida Party

** Plan Aztlan
html

Corky Gonzales, "Yo Soy Joaquin"
html

Jennifer Nelson, Women of Color and the Reproductive Rights movement (chapter 4) on the Young Lords Party and how the women in the group developed the Lords’ politics on reproductive rights.
pdf

League of Revolutionary Black Workers

** “League of Revolutionary Black Workers” from Dan Georgakas and Marvin Surkin, Detroit, I Do Mind Dying.
pdf

7. Revolutionary Film: Mortu Nega (about

Guinea Bissau)

Amilcar Cabral “The Politics of Struggle” International Socialist Journal August 1964.
pdf

8.What is socialist feminism and what makes Solidarity a socialist feminist organization?

Jo Freeman, “The Tyranny of Structurelessness” Berkeley Journal of Sociology, v. 17. 1972-23.
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Solidarity, Building a Movement for Reproductive Freedom
pdf

9. Sexual Liberation and Socialism: What is the Connection?

** United Secretariat of the Fourth International "On Lesbian/Gay Liberation"
html

10. Imagining Socialism: What Would a Revolution in the U.S. Look Like?

Rosa Luxemburg “Mass Strike”
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Johanna Brenner and Janice Haaken, 2000. "Utopian thought: re-visioning gender, family, and community." Community, Work & Family, Volume 3, Number 3.
pdf

11. Reforms vs. Reformism: Movement Building and the Fight for Socialism from Below

** Bob Brenner, "The Problem of Reformism" Against the Current 43 (March-April 1993)
pdf

Kathy McAfee, Socialism and the Housing Movement, Lessons from Boston. Against the Current (Old Series) 1984.
pdf

Antonio Gramsci "Unions and Councils"
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Foundational Readings:

Solidarity Founding Statement
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Kim Moody, "The Rank & File Strategy"
html

12. Case Studies in Transitional Politics

** Solidarity 2004 election pamphlet Elections and the Movements (pp. 13-29)
pdf

** Yoshie F. and Joanna D on March for Womens’ lives
html

** Dianne F. Book Review of Bearing Right, Against the Current 109.
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13. Building a Culture of Ongoing Internal Education

Antonio Gramsci “Working-Class Education and Culture” (section from The Gramsci Reader)
pdf

Simmi Gandhi, notes on Solidarity’s internal education (coming soon!)
pdf