Volume 4

  • VOLUME IV: 1955-1958 — LAYING NEW THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL FOUNDATIONS, CULMINATING IN MARXISM AND FREEDOM, FROM 1776 UNTIL TODAY

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/2409.pdf

    In the period of McCarthyism and war clouds over Formosa, on the one side, and, on the other side, the last European revolts, wildcats against Automation in America, and the birth of the Civil Rights Movement with the Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955-56, News and Letters Committees was founded and began its practical-critical activity. At one and the same time, it established the newspaper News & Letters and completed the writing of Marxism and Freedom by its National Chairwoman Raya Dunayevskaya, with the aim of establishing the American roots of Marxism and the re-establishment of Marxism in its original form, which Marx called “a thoroughgoing Naturalism or Humanism.” Marxism as the unity of theory and practice was analyzed both philosophically and politically, and shown to be in the very structure of Capital, which Marx completed under the impact of the Civil War in the U.S. and the Paris Commune.

  • Section I New Beginning, New Paper

  • (1) Conference Bulletin, No. 1,

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/2410.pdf

    Chairman’s Report by Raya Dunayevskaya, April 1955. Her “Political Organizational Report” included discussion of Johnsonism, of the new book to be written, of the form of the paper, and of the political perspectives of the organization. Also included is Watkins’ letter. This report was translated and publishes in the Italian Marxist journal Prometeo, Spring 1956. Appendix: Letter on method of Johnsonism. (Reissued by News and Letters Committees, 1980.)

  • (2) News & Letters newspaper.

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/2430.pdf

    Vol. I No. 1 came out on June 23, 1955 commemorating the second anniversary of the East German uprising, June 17, 1953. The paper was edited by Charles Denby, the only Black production worker-editor of a Marxist paper. From its beginning the conception of News &. Letters was to be a combination of workers and intellectuals. The two focal points for the conception have been Dunayevskaya’s “Two Worlds” (TW) column and Charles Denby’s “Worker’s Journal.”

  • (3) Lenin’s Abstract of Hegel’s Science of Logic,

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/2431.pdf

    first English translation, by Raya Dunayevskaya, issued Nov. 1955. This was the first pamphlet issued by News and Letters Committees. Also includes “An exchange of letters on Hegel’s Absolute Idea from 1953.” (See Vol. III, Sec. IE).

  • Section II First National Convention, First Constitution

  • (1) Discussion Bulletins in Preparation for First News and Letters National Convention:

  • (2) Theoretical and Practical Perspectives: Where to Begin,

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/2566.pdf

    Report of the National Chairwoman, Raya Dunayevskaya, to the first National Convention of News and Letters Committees, July 1956. (Reissued by News and Letters Committees, 1969.)

  • (3) Constitution and By-Laws for News and Letters Committees,

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/2587.pdf

    adopted July 8, 1956, by the first national News and Letters Convention. Establishes News and Letters Committees and News & Letters newspaper, whose editor shall be a worker. Singles out workers, Black masses, women, and youth as the forces in the United States searching “for totally new relations and for a fundamentally new way of life.” Assigns the task of setting forth an interpretation, in book form, of Marxism for this generation.

  • (5) Speeches and Resolution

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/2596.pdf

    presented publicly to the plenary sessions of the national Editorial Board, News and Letters Committees, Labor Day weekend, 1957. Includes National Chairwoman’s Report on “The Roots of Marxism in the World Today and Our Development,”

  • Section III From the Hungarian Revolution to the Publication of Marxism and Freedom and its Ramifications

    The new epoch opened by the Hungarian Revolution, which was hailed at once by Dunayevskaya in News & Letters (Nov. 13, 1956) in her Two Worlds column entitled “Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Hungary,” entered into the last part of Marxism and Freedom as one of the three new pages of freedom?East Germany 1953, Vorkuta 1957, and Hungary 1957?in Chapter 15, entitled “The Beginning of the End of Russian Totalitarianism.” Though the publication is dated 1958, Marxism and Freedom was actually off the press in 1957. Moreover, while correcting the galley proofs, another world event occurred—Mao’s famous speech, “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People.” Dunayevskaya at once added a footnote (#17) which anticipated the Sino-Soviet conflict-to-be.

  • (1) Marxism and Freedom . . . from 1776 until today,

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/2620.pdf

    by Raya Dunayevskaya, 1958, published by Bookman Associates, N.Y. and distributed in England by Vision Press, London. Preface by Herbert Marcuse. The 1958 edition included the first English publication of two of Marx’s 1844 manuscripts and Lenin’s Abstract of Hegel’s Science of Logic. (Second American edition, 1964, by Twayne, contained new Introduction and an additional chapter on “The Challenge of Mao Tse-tung.” In 1971, Pluto Press brought out the first British edition, with a Preface by the British Marxist-Humanist Harry McShane; this edition contained a new chapter on “Cultural Revolution or Maoist Reaction.” Second British edition, 1975, by Pluto Press. Foreign language editions: Italian, 1962, by La Nuova Italia; Japanese, 1964, by Modern Thought; French, 1971, by Champ Libre; Spanish (Mexico), 1976, by Juan Pablos.) (The text of Marxism and Freedom is not included on the microfilm.)