Archives of Marxist-Humanism

Selected writings and talks by Raya Dunayevskaya
and other Marxist-Humanist writings

 

The full archive of Dunayevskaya’s works, The Raya Dunayevskaya Collection–some 17,000 pages in addition to her books, audios and videos–is housed in Wayne State University’s Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Walter P. Reuther Library in Detroit, MI 48202. The Guide to the Collection is available here, and the papers are on sale on microfilm from Wayne State.

The Collection is now digitized here. Paper copies of the Guide and Supplemental Guide to the Collection are available from MHI upon special request.

Dunayevskaya’s books are not digitized; they are available for purchase through our Literature page, along with some of her pamphlets and some writings by others.



Donations Requested Some writings below, marked Please Donate to Obtain, are available electronically from MHI after payment of a $3 donation. When you make your donation, please be sure to click on “Special instructions to the seller” in PayPal’s form, and enter the name of the item you’re requesting and your email address.

Please also consider making a donation for our having made any of these documents available. MHI has no paid staff and relies on contributions of time and money to pay our bills, including costs incurred to digitize delicate old documents and to publicize their availability.



 

Writings by Raya Dunayevskaya

1940s

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is a Capitalist Society (1941)

An Analysis of Russian Economy (1942-43)

A Letter on Rosa Luxemburg and Capital Accumulation (1943)

A Restatement of Some Fundamentals of Marxism Against Carter’s Vulgarization (1944)

Marxism and Black Liberation (1944)

A New Revision of Marxian Economics (1944)

Negro Intellectuals in Dilemma (1944)

Negroes in the Revolution (1944)

Outline of Marx’s Capital, Volume 1 (1946)

Abstract of Com. Coolidge’s Document on the Negro Question (1946)
Unpublished typed notes by Dunayevskaya (“F. Forest”) in preparation for a May 1946 Workers Party debate with David Coolidge; pp. 296-310 of the Raya Dunayevskaya Collection.

The Nature of the Russian Economy (2 parts, 1946-47)

 

1950s

On Women in the Post-War World and the Old Radicals (1951, unpublished until 1970)

Letters on Hegel’s Absolutes, May 12 and 20, 1953
These letters to her co-leaders in the Johnson-Forest Tendency were later considered by Dunayevskaya to be her “philosophic moment.” They were first published by her in 1955, with the introductory note here. Also here is the response from “H” (Grace Lee [Boggs]), a co-leader along with “Johnson” (C.L.R. James). The original is in The Supplement to The Raya Dunayevskaya Collection at page 1797.

Draft Resolution on the Book Marxism and Freedom: Method, Heritage, and Principles (1958)

Translation of Marx’s 1844 essays, “Private Property & Communism” and “Critique of the Hegelian Dialectic” (1958)
Dunayevskaya’s translation, the first published in English ever. An appendix to her first book (1958), Marxism and Freedom, From 1776 Until Now.

Translations of Excerpts from Lenin’s “Abstract of Hegel’s Science of Logic” (1958)
Dunayevskaya’s translation, an appendix to her first book (1958), Marxism and Freedom, From 1776 Until Now.

Nationalism, Communism, Marxist-Humanism, and the Afro-Asian Revolutions (1959)

 

1960s

Draft Resolution on War and Peace (1960)
The original is in The Raya Dunayevskaya Collection at page 2750.

On the 20th Anniversary of the State-Capitalist Tendency (1961)

The Syrian Revolt: The Cold War in the Middle East (1961)

American Civilization on Trial: Black Masses as Vanguard (1963)
1983 expanded edition with new essay by Dunayevskaya and appendix by Charles Denby.

The Free Speech Movement and the Negro Revolution (1965)
Includes Dunayevskaya’s Essay “The Theory of Alienation: Marx’s Debt to Hegel” and an article by Mario Savio

State-Capitalism and Marx’s Humanism, or Philosophy and Revolution (1967)
Includes Analysis of Rosa Luxemburg’s Accumulation of Capital from 1946.

The Arab-Israeli Collision, the World Powers and the Struggle for the Minds of Men (1967)

Czechoslovakia: Revolution and Counter Revolution by Raya Dunayevskaya, Ivan Svitak, and X (1968)

The Black-Red Conference (1969)
On January 12, 1969, Dunayevskaya held a conference of African-American Marxist-Humanists and friends in order to discuss with them her work-in-progress, the book Philosophy and Revolution

Anti-Semitism, Anti-Revolution, Anti-Philosophy: U.S. and Russia Enter Middle East Cockpit (1969)

 

1970s

The Women’s Liberation Movement as Reason and as Revolutionary Force (1970)

The Middle East Cauldron Explodes: The Civil War in Jordan (1970)

“Culture,” Science, and State-Capitalism (1971)

For the Record: The Johnson-Forest Tendency, or Theory of State-Capitalism, 1941-51; its Vicissitudes and Ramifications, 1972 (1972)

Hegel’s Absolute as New Beginning (1974)

Dialectics of Liberation in Thought and in Activity: Absolute Negativity as New Beginning (1974)

Under the Whip of the Counter-Revolution: Will the Revolution in Portugal Advance? (1976)

The UN Resolution on Zionism–and the Ideological Obfuscation Also on the Left (1976)

Women as Thinkers and as Revolutionaries (1976)
Published in Working Women for Freedom

Lebanon: The Test Not Only of the PLO but the Whole Left (1976)

Commentary: A Critique of B.J. Harrell’s “Marx and Critical Thought” (1976)

Two Summits: The U.S. Calls “Western” Summit in Neo-Colonial Puerto Rico and Russia Calls One in its East German Satellite (1976)

Henry Kissinger’s African Safari: Pressuring Rhodesia While Bolstering Apartheid South Africa (1976)

Post-Mao China: Who Is Hua Kuo-Feng? What Is Mao’s Legacy? Are There Any Changes in Global Relations Coming Out of the People’s Republic of China? (1976)

Post-Mao China: What Now? (1976)

Today’s Global Crises, Marx’s Capital, and the Marxist Epigones Who Try to Truncate It and the Understanding of Today’s Crises (1976)

Leon Trotsky as Man and as Theoretician (1977)

Today’s Epigones Who Try to Truncate Marx’s Capital (1977).
Published in the pamphlet “Marx’s Capital and Today’s Global Crisis”

Rosdolsky’s Methodology and Lange’s Revisionism (1978)

Tony Cliff Reduces Lenin’s Theory to “Uncanny Intuition” (1978)
Published in the pamphlet Marx’s Capital and Today’s Global Crisis

The Latin American Unfinished Revolutions (1978)

Iran: Unfoldment of, and Contradictions in, Revolution (1979)

The Two Russian Revolutions (1979)

Grave Contradictions in the Iranian Revolution (1979)

Not So Random Thoughts On: What is Philosophy? What is Revolution? 1789-1793; 1848-1850; 1914-1919; 1979 (1979)

 

1980s

Special Introduction for Iranian Edition of Marx’s Humanist Essays (1980)

The Carter/Brzezinski-Ordered Imperialist Intrusion into Iran (1980)

Today and Tomorrow (1980)

Religion in General and Jerusalem in Particular in the State-Capitalist Age (1980)

25 Years of Marxist-Humanism in the U.S. (1980)

What Has Happened to the Iranian Revolution? Has It Already Run Its Course Into Its Opposite, Counter-Revolution? Or Can It Be Saved and Deepened? (1981)

Deng Revises Not So Much Mao, as Marx (1981)

Summation by Raya Dunayevskaya Following Discussion of Perspectives (1981)
Summation after her “Perspectives” report at annual organizational meetings.

Begin’s Israel Moves Further and Further Backward to his Reactionary, Terrorist Beginnings (1982)

On the Battle of Ideas: Philosophic-Theoretic Points of Departure as Political Tendencies Respond to the Objective Situation (1982)

Down With the Perpetrators of Palestinian Slaughter: Need for a Total Uprooting (1982)

Begin’s Genocidal War in Lebanon (1982)

Israel’s Genocidal Invasion of Lebanon: Opposition Needed Against Building Other Half-Way Houses (1982)

Challenge to the Youth on the Needed Total Uprooting of the Old and the Creation of New Human Relations (1983)

Charles Denby, Worker-Editor In Memoriam (1983)

Marxist-Humanism: The Summation That is a New Beginning, Subjectively and Objectively (1983)
As published posthumously in The Power of Negativity. The original is in The Raya Dunayevskaya Collection at page 7639.

Introduction and Overview to Women’s Liberation and the Dialectics of Revolution (1984)

Marx’s “New Humanism” and the Dialectics of Women’s Liberation in Primitive and Modern Societies (1984)
Reprinted from Praxis International Vol. 3 No. 4 – January 1984

On Listening to Marx Think as Challengers to All Post-Marx Marxists (1984)

The Coal Miners’ General Strike of 1949-50 and the Birth of Marxist-Humanism in the U.S. (1984)
By Andy Phillips and Raya Dunayevskaya

Dialectics of Revolution and of Women’s Liberation (1985)

The Trail to the 1980s from the 1880s: Marx’s New Moments and Those in Our Age (1986)
Lecture in a series on Current World Events and the Dialectical Method.

The Myriad Global Crises of the 1980s and the Nuclear World since World War II (1986)
Includes Dunayevskya’s summary of 30 years of the newspaper.

Capitalist Production/Alienated Labor: This Nuclear World and its Political Crises (1986)

Adrienne Rich’s article “Living the Revolution” in The Women’s Review of Books, September 1986, and Dunayevskaya’s response to her (1986)

On an Exchange of Correspondence Between Raya Dunayevskaya and Non-Marxist Hegelian Scholars (1986-7)
Two letters to non-Marxist Hegelian scholars, and letter to organization discussing them.

The Year of Only 8 Months (1987)
Report to expanded Resident Editorial Board meeting.

Talking to Myself, Jan. 21, 1987
As published posthumously in The Power of Negativity. The original is in The Raya Dunayevskaya Collection at page 10848.

Whither China? (1987)

Presentation on the Dialectics of Organization and Philosophy (1987)
As published posthumously in The Power of Negativity. The original is in The Supplement to The Raya Dunayevskaya Collection at page 10737.

A Post-World War II View of Marx’s Humanism, 1843-83; Marxist Humanism in the 1950s and 1980s (1987)
Published in Praxis International 8, October 1988

 

Talks by Raya Dunayevskaya

Current World Events and Dialectical Method
Lecture on current events, from the Challenger space mission explosion and Marx’s critique of science, to Gorbachev’s “reform” of the Communist Party, to the state of Black America under Reaganism. Delivered February 16, 1986, in Chicago, IL.

Youth of the 1980s, Youth of the 1960s: the Other America and the Idea of Freedom
Lecture delivered April 13, 1987 at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, IL. Sponsored by the departments of Sociology, Philosophy, and History, with The John Lennon Society & Women’s Studies.

 

Other Marxist-Humanist Writings

Workers Battle Automation by Charles Denby (1960)

Freedom Riders Speak for Themselves by Mary Hamilton, Louise Inghram, and others (1961)

The Maryland Freedom Union: Black Working Women Doing and Thinking by Mike Flug (1966)

Notes On Women’s Liberation: We Speak In Many Voices (1970)

Working Women For Freedom (1976)
By Angela Terran, Marie Dignan, and Mary Holmes

The Revolutionary Journalism of Felix Martin (Isaac Woods): Worker-Philosopher (2001)

Marx’s Struggle against Defamation: 150th Anniv. tribute to “Herr Vogt” by Andrew Kliman (2010)

 

More writings will be added to this page, so please check back.

 

January 19, 2014