RFH Ep. 79: Dunayevskaya’s 1953 Letters: Transcending Vanguardism & Spontaneism

Radio Free Humanity: The Marxist-Humanist Podcast

The co-hosts discuss Andrew’s new essay, “Dunayevskaya’s 1953 Letters: Transcending Vanguardism & Spontaneism.” Andrew sets out the political and organizational context of two letters that Dunayevskaya wrote to her co-leaders in the Johnson-Forest Tendency, CLR James and Grace Lee (Boggs), in May 1953, on Hegel’s “Absolute Idea” and “Absolute Mind (Spirit).” He argues that she was dissatisfied with the Tendency’s withdrawal from public politics and the spontaneist direction in which James and Lee were taking it after its break from vanguardism, and that the letters work out a different direction that transcends both vanguardism and spontaneism. Brendan and Andrew also discuss Dunayevskaya’s charge that James and Lee’s direction amounted to dumping all responsibility on the masses, and whether Hegel’s conception of Absolute Spirit is actually relevant to radical politics––and, if so how. Current-events segment: The Trumpist Threat within the Military, the FBI, and the Secret Service.