– Second Call –
XI Conference Historical Social Research of CEICS
I International Meeting of the Revolutionary Left
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Where are we?
The Revolutionary Left and the class struggle in the world today
Buenos Aires, from September 1 to 3 of 2016
The world burns: Africa is affected by the violence product of a growing social decay that deepens from the crisis of the Arab Spring to Boko Haram. In the extremely pauperized Asia new conflicts arise from the economic slowdown; Europe moves from recession to mass mobilizations and struggles against the capitalist adjustment. USA swings between post-Obama political apathy and the radicalization of the Republican right; Middle East is, today, a seething cauldron; Latin America undergoes the crisis of the Bonapartist regimes that formerly appeased the almost revolutionary crisis of the end of last century.
Everywhere are to be seen these multifaceted expressions of a general crisis of global political relations. However, nowhere are to be seen the formation and development of revolutionary parties, let alone international coordination. Why doesn’t the crisis beget its own gravedigger? Furthermore, how is the class struggle today? What’s the role of the revolutionary vanguard? Is it carrying out the political task of building a revolutionary party? Those are the questions that we want to pose on the eve of the anniversary of the Russian Revolution.
For this purpose, we call, in the frame of the XI Congress of Historical and Social Research, the International Meeting of the Revolutionary Left. Its aim is to foster the scientific study of reality to further advance in the construction of the strategy and development of the organizations necessary to change that reality. As in previous editions we invite researchers and activists of all tendencies to forge the necessary unity between reason and revolution.
Tables and Workshops
- Revolution and counterrevolution in the 60s and 70s
In this workshop we propose to learn from the revolutionary experiences in the 1960s and 1970s. On the one hand, we intend to discuss the causes of both the defeats and the victories from that period and examine the strengths and weaknesses of leftist political parties that took part in the stage. On the other hand, we want to analyze how the bourgeoisie in most of these experiences managed to neutralize and annihilate his opponent. This leads as to the study of the actions of the ruling class against open revolutionary processes.
- Social workers: experiences and lessons learned from the battlefield
The social workers, like doctors and teachers are on the frontlines between social classes. We exercise a profession designed by the bourgeoisie to contain the working class. But, as workers, as part of the working class, if we have class conscious we can contribute to the fight to destroy the social system that generates poverty and social ills with which we deal daily, and contribute to building a better society, socialism. The insertion of social work in the field of social policies gives the profession a highly intervening character. It gives priority to «do» over research and critical reflection. But only if we create spaces for these discussions and move forward in the analysis of social problems, we can confront the psychologizing and individualizing readings that blame the victims of the current social system for their own situation. This table aims to be a meeting point for social workers who want to reflect on their practice or expose research from a class perspective.
- Genesis, development and economic crisis in Latin America and the world
In this workshop we want to analyze the crisis of Bonapartisms in the region and the strengthening of the bourgeois opposition that generated the end of the cycle of rising prices comoditis. To achieve this is essential to understand the economic basis of these processes: the evolution and crisis of the capitalist system in the different national experiences in the region. The aim is to sharpen our tools of intervention in the situation and at the programmatic level to help us design a socialist solution to the crisis.
- Working class: Structure, work and struggles, yesterday and today
The concept of working class has been denied in recent decades by the dominant postmodern current in the social sciences. The rise of the class struggle earlier this century sparked a new interest in school work and workers, although imbued with old prejudices, and the continuity of reformist consciousness or focus on the workers «blue collar». In turn, this kind of preconceptions hindered the understanding of changes in the structure and led to interpretations that wrongly placed large working masses outside their class, under concepts such as marginal groups. That is why this workshop aims to understand the current dynamics of the working class, its structural determinations, particularly the work and its historical transformations, and how this influences their objective and subjective configuration.
- Discussions on world politics
The board intends to discuss the struggle between global powers. We intend, therefore, to discuss the strategy of US imperialism and the internal politics of the US, the crisis of the European Union, the emergence of China-Russia axis and armed clashes that occur throughout the planet as a result of these rivalries.
- Class Struggle in Latin America
At the beginning of the century there were social explosions in different countries which led to the fall of governments and the emergence of others that might be consider Bonapartist regimes, as Chaves’, Lula’s, and Evo Morales’s government. In recent years, new outbreaks have put in crisis to those governments. The social content, program, historical evolution and crisis of these political regimes are some of the topics we propose address and discuss.
- The bourgeois revolutions (America and Europe)
In this panel we will try to discuss the revolutionary process led by the bourgeoisie. We will return to fundamental discussions about the nature of revolutions and social nature that guided the process. In light of a time when we discussed a socialist way out for capitalism in exhaustion, return to these problems will allow us to reconstruct the historical rise of a social class and reflect on the possibility of transforming social relations.
- Science, Marxism and Social Struggles
Science is the rational enterprise par excellence. Contemporary science is the science of the deepest crisis in the history of capitalism. This is a more united to the powers and the interests of economic rationality science time. This workshop is geared towards the analysis of the reductionist, ideological and fetishized aspects of reality in contemporary biology, considering the dialectic as the right tool to overcome both orthodox reductionist conceptions in the theory of evolution as inter-disciplinary proposals they remain tied to ahistorical understanding of scientific development and various forms of essentialisms.
- The educational degradation in Argentina. Balances and perspectives on how they affect trends degradation schools, teachers and students
This workshop aims to discuss what are the real problems affecting education in our country and in the region in recent history. That’s why we invite you to submit papers that tend to examine the multiple expressions of school degradation: inclusion policies, academic reforms (organization, curriculum, evaluation), teachers’ salaries, infrastructure situation in schools, teachers’ proletarianization, changes in the mode of adult education and between different types of education system are some of the indicators examined. We invite to submit inputs to think the crisis and outline prospects for concrete action.
- Literature and politics in the contemporary world
The global crisis has gestated a whole new literature that exposed their avatars, from the reality of European unemployment, widespread destruction of life in the Middle East, anomie and breakdown in US ., etc. Countries that have gone through unprecedented crises (Argentina, Greece, Venezuela) or experiences near it (Spain, Italy, Brazil), or facing new prospects after decades of a particular dynamic (ex-communist nations) have realized it in a leafy «literature of the crisis.» We are interested to take stock and find the threads that connect them.
- Where are we? Subjectivity and revolutionary left
The relationship between subject and society is crucial when it comes to thinking revolutionary social change. We’ll try to address the nature of this relationship taking advantage of the legacy of the revolutionaries that before us tried to solve this question.
Panels and Presentations
- Literature and Revolution
From the edition published last year by R & R Publishing, in this panel we intend to analyze with literature and theater specialists the relationship between arts and politics.
- Presentation of the book «Dialectical Biologist» Levins and Lewontin
The dialectic of nature has always been a controversial issue within Marxism. Both Marx and Engels had the widespread conviction that reality could only be understood as a process. The presentation of the work of Levins and Lewontin has a significant importance in the recovery of the full content of dialectics, not only for Marxists, but for scientists in general.
- Populist balance of the decade in Latin America
Latin America is going through the crisis of the Bonapartisms that placated the quasi revolutionary crisis of the end of last century. The aim of this panel is to make an analysis of the political situation facing the continent and the actions of the revolutionary left.
- ¿What are the prospects of revolutionary politics worldwide?
Capitalism is going through an unprecedented global crisis. Everywhere expressions of this general crisis of global political relations occur. However, it hasn’t devepoloped yet a revolutionary alternative capable of confronting the crisis. This panel aims to understand this dilemma and to ask possible solutions.
- Theater and politics in the contemporary world
The changes in society have always been present in theatrical activity. This time we want to reflect on the ways in which the theater has experienced and documented the crisis and its consequences.
- Gender Panel: femicide and gender violence
In recent years violence against women have achieved great visibility in Argentina. The figures released the Casa del Encuentro and and the mass rally under the slogan «Not one less» which was held on June 3, 2015 and was repeated this year put on the table the need to know how many women suffer and die in our country because of gender violence. This panel proposes to discuss the need for a statistical index that yields representative figures of the phenomenon and in turn help us deepen the types of violence, what causes it and who are its victims.
- The media and social struggles in Argentina
The enormous technological development in recent decades has transformed the media and access to information like never before. While the mainstream media tend to focus more and become direct mouthpieces of the ruling class, they have emerged in parallel independent organizations using all possible mechanisms of communication to disseminate what those big media hide deliberately or distort. Consequently, we believe that it is vital to reflect on the role the media and its role in social struggles that cross the country and the prospects opening up in the new stage.
- Panel on education in Argentina
The educational crisis deepens more and more. Degradation and decomposition of the education system is manifested in many forms: teacher salaries, infrastructure, curriculum emptying, casualization of teaching, teaching criminalization of protest. This panel discuss our role in the solution of this crisis and in the construction of a socialist society. In this context we ask how is the teaching struggle today? What role has the teacher union vanguard? What are the relative successes and failures in the recovery of unions by the vanguard? Does the policy carried out by the recovered unions transcend economic discussion and serve to address a real political struggle? What is the educational situation today?
- Panel: A class-based labor movement for the XXI century
In this table we invite other union leaderships, associations and unions to discuss the challenges of building classist union current. We discuss how to overcome the political, organizational and ideological obstacles that have to be overcome to develop a truly class-oriented trade union movement.
- Panel: Dangerous Liaisons: Science and academia
What is the space for the construction of knowledge in the field of bourgeois institutions? How attempts to measure and increase scientific productivity impact in our work? The affaire Sokal twenty years later: papers, peer reviews, and indexing of journals. How to free ourselves of this devices that constrain our science advance and our own intellectual activity?
- Cartoon “Patagonia Fusilada” presentation
Editions ryr presents the cartoon version of the book «La Patagonia Rebelde» Osvaldo Bayer: La Patagonia Fusilada (Patagonia shot). A difficult subject, so hidden for so many years, now appears in cartoon which is drawn from the interpretation, perhaps -together with the disappearance of the last military dictatorship, the most tragic and unjust fact ours: the firing squad 1,500 rural workers by the Argentine Army with the order received from the President of the Nation, Hipolito Yrigoyen.
- Books too and poorly known: the importance of a good translation
In this table coordinated by Alejandro Ariel Gonzalez (recognized translator, who was in charge of the direct translation from Russian of the most complete edition of «Literature and Revolution» of Leon Trotsky) we try to put in discussion the need for a serious and complete work in translating a book written in a foreign language.
- Panel Rock and politics
A group of musicians will discuss at the panel edges of different rock links with political processes: the emergence of national rock and its relationship to the social struggles of the sixties. Rock and dictatorship. The last decades: between rebellion and the market. The impact of kircherism in the local music scene.
Close: Meeting / debate between revolutionary organizations
Norms for sending Communications, presentations:
«Communications»: no more than 6 pages
«Papers»: no more than 20 pages
«Summaries thesis»: between 30 and 40 pages
Book presentations: Send a brief summary, not more than 400 words and photo and index the book.
In all cases, use Word document, written with double spacing, font Times New Roman 12. Papers will be accepted in Spanish, English, French and Portuguese. Deadline for submission: 10/08/2016
Send to: jornadas@razonyrevolucion.org
