Pre-register for this Saturday's Midwest Marxism conference! We ask for a donation of 10-25 dollars to help cover the cost of our event space. No one will be turned away for lack of funds. Register now!

This years Midwest Marxism regional day-long conference will be focused on the experience of the Bolshevik party and the Russian Revolution. It has become increasingly clear that a number of critical political debates center around the relevancy of the Revolution, historically the highest point of workers struggle, and the nature of revolutionary organization. Marx grappled with the seemingly insoluble contradiction between two of his greatest insights about the nature of revolution. First, genuine socialism from below can only come about through the actions of tens of millions of working-class people fighting in their own interest, that is, what Marx called the self-emancipation of the working class. Second, the ruling ideas of any society are the ideas of the ruling class. But if workers are dominated ideologically by the ruling class, how can they ever emancipate themselves? Marx emphasized the questions of struggle and organization in breaking down this dilemma, while Lenin’s greatest contribution to revolutionary theory was to sharpen Marx’s notion of organization by proposing the necessity of a vanguard party, a party mainly composed of workers, but also embracing students and anyone who agreed to its program and rules. Lenin argued that the revolutionary party (always a minority) must remember and generalize the lessons learned in past struggles, raise the political sophistication of working-class leaders and cadre in order to combat the ruling class’ system of ideology, and intervene in the class struggle in each phase of its development (from study groups to insurrections) with the goal of workers taking state power. The party is the tool by the working class needs to break through the roadblock of the ruling ideas (and the material forces that nourish those ideas) and its self-emancipation. Any assessment of today’s political situation, especially the state of the global left, must begin with a clear understanding of Bolshevik strategy and tactics. The day will be broke up into two sessions: 1.Building the Party: This will be discussion of the construction of the Bolsheviks in the years prior the Russian Revolution. 2.How the Revolution Was Won: We will talk about how the Russian Revolution became the first time that workers took power and what are the lessons for today. This conference will assume reading and preparation and for that there is no better resource than Paul Le Blanc’s Lenin and the Revolutionary Party. For the first section, chapters 1-9 (185 pages), and for the second session, chapters 10 and 11 (70 pages). If you cannot read 'Lenin and the Revolutionary Party' then this article from the International Socialist Review will be helpful: