Free Commununity Anarchist Class at CCSF on Russian Revolution with Tom Wetzel

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
Teacher: Tom Wetzel
Day: Wed
Time: 7:00 - 9:00 PM
Class Begins Nov. 2nd
next classes Nov. 9th, 16th, 23rd, 30th, Dec. 7th
Location: Downtown Campus- 88 4th St., San Francisco ( across from the
Metreon )
Room #: 725

This class is totally free and open to the public. No enrollement at City
College of San Franciso required. Take note that this class is being
offered at the Downtown Campus across from the Metreon and just a stones
throw from BART.

CLASS SYLABUS:

Nov. 2nd: Russia before 1917 and the Anti-Czarist Opposition

Nov. 9th: Two Conceptions of Soviets, Trajectory of the Revolution in
1917,
and the Fate of Soviet Democracy

Nov. 16th: The Factory Committee Movement of 1917 and the Fate of
Workers Control

Nov. 23rd: The Makhnovist Movement in Ukraine. Assessment of the
Role of Anarchists in the Russian Revolution.

Nov. 30th: The Kronstadt Rebellion. Evaluating Bolshevism/Leninism &
its Role in the Emergence of a New Ruling Class (Part I).

Dec. 7th: What was the nature of the Soviet social formation?
What explains the emergence of a new class system in the
Soviet Union? (Part II)

Suggested Readings:

Sheila Jackson, The Russian Revolution.
A short, readable, reasonably objective account that takes the story up
thru the Five Year Plans and the consolidation of Stalinism in the 1930s.

Alexandre Skirda, Nestor Makhno: Anarchy's Cossack (AK Press)
A good account of the Makhnovist movement in Ukraine during the Russian
revolution.

Maurice Brinton, "Bolsheviks and Workers Control" in For Workers Power (AK
Press) (also available on-line at:
http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/russia/sp001861/bolintro.html)

Israel Getzler, Kronstadt 1917-21
This is the definitive history of the Kronstadt rebellion but is also
an excellent account of the Russian revolution and the soviet democracy
built in Kronstadt in 1917.

I will provide the following as handouts:

Pete Rachleff "Soviets and Factory Committees in the Russian Revolution"
(available at: http://www.geocities.com/~johngray/raclef.htm)

Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel, "The Soviet Experience" from
Socialism Today and Tomorrow

Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel, "A Ticket to Ride" from the anthology
Between Labor and Capital
This essay explains Albert and Hahnel's theory of the "coordinator class"
which they see as the ruling class in the old Soviet Union.



GO TO ANARCHISTLIBRARY.ORG FOR MORE INFO