Communist University 2013

[Q]

As quoted from the Notes for Action emaillist:


Communist University 2013, Monday August 12 – Sunday August 18, same south London (Catford) venue as last year. Comrades are now starting work on the timetable and we will keep comrades informed as we confirm speakers and dates. Tickets (with discounts for early bookings & NfAers) available soon.Details will be posted as they're getting published.

[The Idler]

Tempting ... if only to meet Q again! SPGB did a fringe event last year on Martov. I wonder if we would be welcome again.

[Q]

More details:

Our annual school will be 12-18 August in South London, and is open to all. CU is different to most schools on the Left, encouraging the open expression of political differences.

The crisis of global capitalism rumbles on, but the Left is still stuck in the mires of sectarianism and opportunism. Given its explanatory power and practical programme, Marxism has huge potential in this period – a potential being irresponsibly squandered by the Marxist groups existing today. Communist University points a way out of this mess.

Over seven days of intense and open discussion, comrades from a variety of left political backgrounds teach and learn from each other. Differences between comrades are debated in fiercely partisan ways – but without the fear of excommunication that characterises the confessional sects of much of the rest of the left. The aim is political clarity, and to show the relevance of contemporary Marxism to the huge battles the workers' movement will soon be squaring up to.

Come and join us this year and make your contribution to the job of politically tooling our side up for war.

Details and booking

Time & Location
Monday 12th - Sunday 18th August (timetable TBC)

Glenthurston Apartments, 30 Bromley Rd. London, SE6 2TP (map) (https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=SE6+2TP&hl=en&ll=51.442533,-0.020943&spn=0.008921,0.022724&sll=51.442534,-0.020943&sspn=0.008921,0.022724&hnear=London+SE6+2TP,+United+Kingdom&t=m&z=16)

5 min walk from Catford railway station – trains leave London Bridge Station every 10-15 minutes.

Accommodation on-site is available for the whole week- as is cheap, collectively prepared food. Our apartments consist mainly of double and triple rooms- if you would like to share with somebody in particular, please let us know. There is a heated indoor swimming pool & garden at the venue.

Prices
- Full week, including accommodation in shared rooms – £170 (£110 unwaged, £200 solidarity)

- Full week, no accommodation: £60 (£30)

- Final weekend, incl. one night's accommodation – £35 (£20)

- Day – £10 (£5)

- Session – £5 (£3)

Please note that you can turn up on the day and pay for your ticket then (unless you want to stay over, in which case you must book beforehand). Some comrades on low wages have taken up standing orders to pay for CU – let us know if you’d like to do that and we’ll send you the details.

Book your place with Paypal
Select ticket type:
SEE WEBSITE, I CAN'T INTEGRATE THE PAYPAL BUTTON. CLICK HERE. (http://cpgb.org.uk/home/action/communist-university-2013/details-and-booking)

Alternatively, send a cheque or postal order (must be for a minimum of £30) to BCM Box 928, London WC1N 3XX (please mark the back with 'CU 2012').

Creche
We are investigating the possibility of organising a creche at this year’s event – if enough people are interested. Please let us know if and when you would require this facility.

Introduction to Marxism and the CPGB
In addition to the normal programme, we will again be running a number of more informal meetings specifically designed to give an introduction to basic principles of Marxism and the politics of the CPGB. Especially younger comrades and those new to the CPGB are encouraged to ask questions, raise disagreements or any other points arising from the sessions at CU.

[The Idler]

Minor point - Should the cheque read CU2012?

More generally, do they want fringe events like last year?

[Art Vandelay]

Really wish I could go, but CU 2014 will probably have to be the one I can make it to. I just need to move to Europe already.

[Q]

Minor point - Should the cheque read CU2012?
I think so. That way it'll always get there. But better make it 2013 ;)


More generally, do they want fringe events like last year?
Haven't read about it, perhaps you could mail them?

Ok, poked a PCC member on Facebook: It's going to be raised at their next meeting.

[Le Socialiste]

I'm gonna sticky this thread to make it more visible for interested users. Better to have it fixed in one place rather than moving around in the main forum.

Thread Stickied.

[The Idler]

Why does this get a sticky when other events don't or get merged into the upcoming events thread?

[Le Socialiste]

Why does this get a sticky when other events don't or get merged into the upcoming events thread?

I've addressed this concern here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/suggestions-thread-ideas-t177849/index.html). If you would like me to sticky a particular event (that falls under the criteria I've listed in the link), please PM me or let me know in the thread I've linked to.

Also, please don't post these concerns in regular threads - I've created and stickied an 'Ideas and Suggestions' thread for this very purpose. If you have ideas or concerns for how this forum is being run, post them there.

[Q]

Update (http://cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/online-only/cu-2013-update)

August 12-18, south London

Comrades’ minds are starting to focus on two important annual events for us - our annual school, the Communist University, and Summer Offensive, the two month fund drive that funds it and a great deal of other party work over the year.

CPGBers will be meeting in an aggregate early next month to agree the details of the Summer Offensive (you can read about the 2012 campaign here), but preparations for the Communist University are well advanced and the 2013 timetable features some outstanding speakers on key issues. We will regularly update the site with tweaks to the timetable and profiles of our speakers, but here are a few who have confirmed so far and the subjects they will be addressing:


http://cpgb.org.uk/assets/images/online_only/CU2013%20advert%201/hanieh.jpg
* Adam Hanieh is a lecturer in development studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. He is author of Capitalism and Class in the Gulf Arab States (http://us.macmillan.com/capitalismandclassinthegulfarabstates/AdamHanieh) and a member of the editorial board of the journal, Historical Materialism (http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/). At our school, Adam will be speaking on ‘The political economy of the Muslim Brotherhood’ on Wednesday, August 14. For comrades’ interest, he opened on ‘The capitalist crisis and the Arab Spring (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnD8lGuyDos)’ in November of last year at a gathering organised by the Kurdish Academic Forum (http://www.kurdishacademicforum.com/?p=22).



http://cpgb.org.uk/assets/images/online_only/CU2013%20advert%201/Mike-Gonzalez.jpg
* On Tuesday, August 13 Mike Gonzalez will be discussing with Nick Rogers the question, ‘After Chavez: where next for the Bolivarian revolution?’ Mike has written widely on Latin America from the state capitalist perspective of the International Socialist tradition of Tony Cliff. (See his Che Guevara and the Cuban revolution (http://www.amazon.co.uk/GUEVARA-CUBAN-REVOLUTION-Mike-Gonzalez/dp/1898876452/ref=la_B001H6RRSE_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1368221108&sr=1-2)). He is a historian, a prolific author and literary critic. For a time, he also was the professor of Latin American Studies in the Hispanics department of the University of Glasgow. He was videoed speaking on ‘The politics of water (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7u4szE3veI)’ at a Socialist Workers Party (Ireland) event in November of last year.


http://cpgb.org.uk/assets/images/online_only/CU2013%20advert%201/Hillel1.jpg
* Hillel Ticktin is one of the leading Marxist political economists in the world. Originally from South Africa, he left the country to avoid arrest for political activism. After some time working for his PhD in the Soviet Union - where he again attracted the disapproval of the authorities - he began teaching at the University of Glasgow in 1965, and in 1973 he co-founded Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory (http://www.critiquejournal.net/), an independent, scholarly Marxist journal. Comrade Ticktin has been a regular at (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/authors/hillel-ticktin) Communist University over years and a frequent contributor to our paper. He will be presenting three sessions for us in August - ‘Capitalist crises and the causes’ (Wednesday, August 14), ‘Capitalism: terminal crisis or long term decline?’ (Thursday, August 15) and ‘Socialism or barbarism’ (Saturday, August 17).


http://cpgb.org.uk/assets/images/online_only/CU2013%20advert%201/Mike-Macnair.jpg
* The left’s response to the global crisis of capitalism has been essentially Keynesian. So the title of our morning session on Friday, August 16 - ‘Does Keynesianism offer an alternative to austerity?’ - is apposite for all those who regard themselves as Marxists, or revolutionaries of some stripe. It is presented by the CPGB’s Mike Macnair, a member of the party’s leadership and a frequent contributor to the Weekly Worker (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/authors/mike-macnair). Mike has written (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/900/promoting-the-national-economy-divides-workers) and spoken (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/videos/against-keynes-and-keynesianism) on this subject in the past and it is clearly one that we need to keep returning to given the left’s stubborn insistence that this non-Marxist (actually anti-Marxist) politics is a supportable ‘alternative’ to capitalist austerity.


*

Comrades attending Communist University for the first time often remark that its culture is very different to other left schools. For example, writing in the Weekly Worker (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/960/swp-no-platformed-self-inflicted-injury) Paul Demarty regrets the “cosy diplomatic speechifying” that generally characterises the annual Marxism school staged by the Socialist Workers Party (http://swp.org.uk/). This flows from a tacit “diplomatic arrangement” between the event organisers and the ‘star’ non-SWP speakers - the “horse trading” consists of “the SWP granting the speaker a large and enthusiastic audience in central London. In return, the speaker offers the SWP an implicit endorsement of the image it wishes to project: a non-sectarian, unifying force on the radical left, offering up its resources to ‘build the movement’.”

Our school actually makes an effort to explore real differences between comrades, to give critical minorities the time and space to make their arguments and to challenge comrades’ pre-conceptions. We are genuinely out to educate, in other words - both ourselves and others. In the lead up to last year’s CU, we made this video (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/videos/what-communist-university-is-all-about) with the CPGB’s national organiser, Mark Fischer, to give comrades a feel for the event.

For booking and venue details, go here (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/action/communist-university-2013/details-and-booking). Main Communist University 2013 Index here (http://cpgb.org.uk/home/action/communist-university-2013).

[The Idler]

Any word on the status of fringe events this year?

[The Idler]

I'm still curious for a comment on provision for time and space for fringe events.
Especially if there's going to be criticism of the SWP's image of Marxism Festival of a non-sectarian unifying force and a CPGB argument for educating ourselves and giving critical minorities time and space to make their arguments as was done last year.

[Q]

After bumping a few times, I got a "yes, they'll be welcome" :)

[The Idler]

Cool, I hope groups will take this up. Thanks for bumping.

[Q]

Communist University 2013

Brief details for this years event

Communist University 2013

Monday August 12 - Sunday August 18

Speakers include Hillel Ticktin, Chris Knight, Marc Mulholland.


Glenthurston Apartments, 30 Bromley Road, London SE6 2TP.
(Five minutes walk from Catford railway station - trains leave London Bridge station every 10-15 minutes.)

Accommodation on-site is available for the whole week - as is cheap, collectively prepared food. Our apartments consist mainly of double and triple rooms - if you would like to share with somebody in particular, please let us know. There is a heated indoor swimming pool and garden.

Full week, including accommodation in shared rooms: £170 (£110 unwaged, £200 solidarity)

Full week, no accommodation: £60 (£30)

Final weekend, including one night’s accommodation: £35 (£20)

Day: £10 (£5) Session: £5 (£3)

Organised by CPGB: [email protected]; 07950 416922.

[Q]

Update:

A time table is published for the week (http://cpgb.org.uk/assets/files/communistuniversity/cu2013_timetable.pdf). I think it's quite a worthwhile list of subjects.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

A lot of interesting stuff.
I am really interested in the stuff about the Erfurt Programme (Ben Lewis), Mass Party, Social media, class revolution and will women lead the revolution.
It's a real shame I can't make it this year. I assume they will be posted online again as with other years.

[The Idler]

Copy and pasted from the PDF
Monday 12 August
2.00pm Fighting for a mass party Nick Wrack (Inde- pendent Socialist Network - personal capacity), Jack Conrad (CPGB)
4.45pm The Middle East after the Iranian elections Moshe Machover (Israeli socialist), Yassamine Mather (Hopi)
Tuesday 13 August 10.00am New social media/IT/the net and the revolu-
tionary claims made for them James Turley (CPGB) 2.00pm Imperialism Mike Macnair (CPGB)
4.45pm Will women lead the revolution? Yassamine Mather, Camilla Power (Radical Anthropology Group)
Wednesday 14th August 10.00am Technology, the “productive forces” and
socialism Gabriel Levy 2.00pm Class Revolution versus People's revolution:
Left debates since the 1790s Marc Mulholland 4.45pm Capitalist crises and their causes Hillel Ticktin
(Critique) Thursday 15 August
10.00am Why is the left so scared of science? Chris Knight (Radical Anthropology Group)
2.00pm Political Economy of the Gulf/political econo- my of the Muslim Brotherhood? Adam Hanieh
4.45pm Capitalism: terminal crisis or long term de- cline? Hillel Ticktin (Critique)
Friday 16 August 10.00am Why getting the Soviet Union right still mat-
ters Jack Conrad (CPGB) 2.00pm The SWP crisis: causes and consequences
Paris Thompson (International Socialist Network) 4.45pm Lukács, Korsch, etc: philosophers of Leninism
or ultra-left? Mike Macnair (CPGB) Saturday 17 August
10.00am Broad party vs mass party Ben Lewis (CPGB), Tim Nelson (International Socialist Network)
2.00pm Socialism or barbarism Hillel Ticktin (Critique) 4.45pm The singularity of the Israeli–Palestinian con-
flict Moshe Machover Sunday 18 August
10.00am The Erfurt Programme Ben Lewis
1.30pm Revolution and counter-revolution in the poli- tics of the everyday: what the anthropology of human nature tells us about the struggle for left unity Lionel Sims (Radical Anthropology Group)
4.00pm Evaluation of School

[Le Socialiste]

Seeing as this event has passed, I've unstickied this thread.

[Comrade Jacob]

I would love to go their, it would be a dream.