The Decline of the Left in the 20th Century :

Platypus banner at anti-war demonstration, Chicago, March 19, 2008

Toward a Theory of Historical Regression

A Platypus Review Special Edition

(issue 17: November, 2009)

Based on a panel discussion held by Platypus at Pace University last year, The Platypus Review traces in this special issue the slow death of the Left in our time, precisely as a means of identifying the conditions necessary for its reconstitution. Centered around four crucial years—2001, 1968, 1933, and 1917—The Decline of the Left in the 20th Century is an important step in Platypus’s attempt to advance a coherent perspective on the Left’s incoherencies, past and present.

Introduction by Benjamin Blumberg
The origin of and impetus for Platypus, in summary.

2001 by Spencer A. Leonard
A pointed argument against the prevalence of romantic Third Worldism, the lack of internationalism, and the actionist character of protest culture in today’s “Left.”

1968 by Atiya Khan
The politically restless and disoriented 1960s analyzed, with respect to the diremption of theory and practice, through the lens of the Marcuse–Adorno correspondence.

1933 by Richard Rubin
An elegiac rumination on the lives of Leon Trotsky and Walter Benjamin, who provide the basis for a discussion of what the 1930s have come to mean for Left politics today.

1917 by Chris Cutrone
Examines the work of Georg Lukàcs and Karl Korsch, whose intellectual trajectories provide a key to understanding the “brilliant failure” of 1917, without taking its failure for granted.

General