Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics

PLPT 424   G. Klosko

Marxism and Its Critics  248B Cabell; x3092

Spring 2004                               gk@virginia.edu

Hours: Wednesday 9:30 - 11:30,

     and by appointment

Books have been ordered at the University Bookstore.  Marx and Engels and Lenin should be

purchased.  Other books should be purchased as well, if possible.  All books are on reserve in

Clemons Library. Shorter readings are on the class toolkit page

Marx and Engels:  R. Tucker, ed., The Marx-Engels Reader, Second Edition (Norton, paper)

    Group I, pages:  3-6, 469-500, 146-200, 143-145, 203-217, 294-302, 361-6, 417-442, 681-2,

760-68, 218-20, 522-24, 700-17;

     Group II, pages: 53-65, 525-541, 66-105 (106-125), 586-617,683-700, 725-27;

     with Group II: K. Popper, "Science: Conjectures and Refutations," in Popper, Conjectures

and Refutations (Harper, paper) (on toolkit)

     with Bernstein:  556-573;

     with Baukunin:  542-548; 728-33;

     with Lenin's State and Revolution, 618-652  (esp. 629-42);

     with Two Tactics of Social Democracy, 501-511.

     with Stalin: Materialism: Dialectical and Historical, 694-700.

E. Bernstein, The Preconditions of Socialism (Cambridge, paper)

M. Bakunin:  Bakunin on Violence (on reserve only)

Selections, in M. Schatz, ed., The Essential Works of Anarchism (on reserve only)

V.I. Lenin:  R. Tucker, ed., The Lenin Anthology (Norton, paper)

State and Revolution;

Two Tactics of Social Democracy;  

What Is To Be Done?

Imperialism: The Highest State of Capitalism

     Later Political Theory: Selections to be announced.

J. Stalin, Foundations of Leninism (International, paper)

G. Mosca, The Ruling Class (McGraw‑Hill, paper) pages:  1-7, 41-87, 103-221, 253-328,

394-429, 457-464 (out of print: on reserve only)

M. Weber: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Scribner, paperback)

Weber, From Max Weber:  Essays in Sociology, eds. H. Gerth and C. W. Mills (Oxford, paper):

Selections:  to be announced

M. Foucault, Discipline and Punish (Vintage, paperback)

Requirements: 

1. Midterm and final examinations.

2. Paper of 10-12 pages, analytical or research, on a topic of your choosing. Paper is due on

Wednesday 21 April.  Late papers will be penalized; incompletes will not be given. 

3. You must do the reading, come to class, and be prepared to discuss it.  Class participation

is taken into account and weighed heavily in grading. Excessive, unexplained absences are grounds

for being dropped from the class.

Recommended Secondary Sources:

There is an enormous literature on Marx and Marxism.  A few helpful general works (which I have placed

on reserve) are:

G. A. Cohen, Marx's Theory of History: A Defence (Princeton, 1978)

L. Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism, trans. P.S. Falla, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1978)

G. Lichtheim, Marxism: An Historical and Critical Study  (London, 1961)

G. Lichtheim, A Short History of Socialism (New York, 1970)

D. McLellan, Karl Marx (New York, 1973)

D. McLellan, Marxism After Marx (Boston, 1979)

On Lenin and Leninism:

N. Harding, Lenin's Political Thought, 2 vols. (in one, in the paperback edition)

A. G. Meyer, Leninism (New York, 1962)

A. Ulam, Stalin (1973)

A. Ulam, The Unifinished Revolution, 3rd ed. (Boulder, 1979)

Also recommended: if you do not have this already, some acquaintance with European history in the

nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  Basic sources you can consult are R.R. Palmer and J.

Colton, A History of the Modern World; and  P. Gay and J. Garraty, eds., The Columbia History of the World.