17. Dunayevskaya letter to “Dear Colleagues,” written March 17, 1980.

Proposes a meeting on “Marx’s philosophy of revolution” to be held “on Marx’s birthday,” May 5. In this period Dunayevskaya wrote three other letters to her colleagues on the work on the book: on Marx’s work on the Neue Rheinische Zeitung; on Luxemburg and women’s liberation; on her study of “Marx’s and Luxemburg’s Theories of Accumulation” (#6450-6456).

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13. Revolution and Counter-Revolution: The Life and Death of Rosa Luxemburg.

Lecture given Jan. 22, 1980 at Wayne State University (Detroit). Included here is a press release on the meeting issued by Wayne State University News & Letters Youth Committee, and an excerpt from the lecture which concerns Lenin’s critique of Luxemburg on “the National Question.” Dunayevskaya had just completed what she then considered Chapter 3 of the book; News & Letters had just published Chapter 1 (Jan.-Feb., 1980).

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10. Dunayevskaya letter to Raha, written Nov. 3, 1979, on Raha’s return to the U.S. from participation in the Iranian Revolution.

Responds to Raha’s discussion of Marx’s 1844 Essays, and the relationship of philosophy to organization in the Iranian Revolution. During this period, Dunayevskaya decides to change the title of her book-to-be to Rosa Luxemburg, Women’s Liberation and Marx’s Philosophy of Revolution and writes two new letters on her work on the book to her colleagues in News and Letters Committees (#6444-6447). On Nov. 27, 1979 she completes a new “Political-Philosophic Letter” entitled “Grave Contradictions in the Iranian Revolution” (#6013).

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4. Dunayevskaya letter to Dave Wolff, written Oct. 8, 1979.

On Wolff’s translation (from German) of Luxemburg’s article entitled “Theory and Practice.” (For the full article as translated and published by News & Letters, see #6475.) Dunayevskaya wrote three letters to colleagues in News and Letters Committees on her work on the book in the month of Oct. 1979. (See #6440-6443).

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2. Olga Domanski letter to Michael Connolly, written Sept. 30, 1979.

Describes the first week of Dunayevskaya’s work on the book at a remote location in Canada; presents sequence of the work on a “Political-Philosophic Letter” on Leon Trotsky and on what became Chapter 1 of the book: “Before and After the 1905 Revolution: Two Turning Points in Rosa Luxemburg’s Life.” xcerpts only. (For Dunayevskaya’s letter on Trotsky, see #6037.)

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28. Dunayevskaya letter to Joseph O’Malley, written Aug. 30, 1979.

Calls his attention to Marx’s 1880-82 Ethnological Notebooks, and asks correction of O’Malley’s statement in his Introduction to Marx’s Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right that Marx’s “productive years of research” ended in 1878. Also included here are O’Malley’s reply, written Sept. 21, 1979, and Dunayevskaya’s further discussion, written Oct. 8, 1979. Subjects include the Hegel Society of America, and Marx scholarship by Maximilian Rubel and others.

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19. Rosa Luxemburg and Marx’s Philosophy of Revolution, a talk given at Wayne State University (Detroit), International Women’s Day, March 8, 1979.

Dunayevskaya’s presentation begins with the mass march of Iranian women held that day against Khomeini’s attacks on women’s freedom. This transcription was not checked by Dunayevskaya. Also included here is Dunayevskaya’s letter to “Dear Friends,” written March 10, 1979, describing the International Women’s Day meeting, the events in Iran, and her discussions with an Iranian revolutionary en route to Iran on her ideas for the publication of a Farsi-language pamphlet on International Women’s Day. Throughout this period, Dunayevskaya worked intensively with Iranian revolutionaries and wrote a series of “Political-Philosophic Letters” on the Iranian Revolution (#5998).

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13. Lawrence Krader letter to Dunayevskaya, written Dec. 31, 1978.

Comments on Dunayevskaya’s draft chapter and on his own views on women’s liberation, on tendencies within Marxism, and within anthropology. Over the next three months, Dunayevskaya and Krader exchanged eight more letters, two by Dunayevskaya, and five by Krader, concluding with her letter of March 29, 1979. All are included here. The correspondence includes discussion and sharp debate over women’s liberation, the nature of the Russian and world economy today, and the differences between Marx and Engels, especially in relation to the Hegelian dialectic. Krader also comments on his work with still unpublished writings of Marx.

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10. Dunayevskaya letter to Lawrence Krader (Berlin, West Germany), written Nov. 30, 1978.

Comments on his Introduction to, and editing of, Marx’s Ethnological Notebooks (Van Gorcum, 1972); sends him galley proofs of her first draft chapter from her “work-in-progress,” “Marx’s and Engels’ Studies Contrasted: Relationship of Philosophy and Revolution to Women’s Liberation.” Included here also is Krader’s response, written Dec. 7, 1978 — a discussion of the critical reception of his book.

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6. A Note on Pope John Paul II.

A note by Dunayevskaya written Oct. 16, 1978 on the implications, especially for women’s liberation and for Latin America, of the election of Cardinal Wojtyla as Pope. Included here is the note as printed in News & Letters (November, 1978). The following day Dunayevskaya wrote a letter to “Dear Sisters,” discussing her new study of Marx’s Ethnological Notebooks as contrasted to Engels’ Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. This letter is already included in the Dunayevskaya Collection (#6434).

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34. Dunayevskaya letter to Sheila Rowbotham, written June 29, 1978.

Asks Rowbotham to correspond with her on the work on the book. The following day, June 30, 1978, Dunayevskaya writes to Harry McShane on the work on the book. This letter to McShane was selected by Dunayevskaya as the first letter in a collection of letters on the process of writing Rosa Luxemburg, Women’s Liberation, and Marx’s Philosophy of Revolution; they are included in an earlier volume of the Dunayevskaya Collection (#6432).

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19. Dunayevskaya letter to Suzanne Casey, written July 18, 1977.

On Dunayevskaya’s new perspective on the question of male chauvinism after the publication of her essay “Sexism, Politics and Revolution in Mao’s China” (#5423). Dunayevskaya suggests the possibility of changing the title of the book-to-be to: “Sexism, Politics and Revolution,” with the previously suggested title becoming the sub-title.

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10. Dunayevskaya letter to Erich Fromm, written July 15, 1976.

On the “relationship between Rosa Luxemburg and the Women’s Liberation Movement”; on Dunayevskaya’s work on “Absolute Negativity as New Beginning.” Dunayevskaya’s essay, “Women as Thinkers and as Revolutionaries,” had just been published by Women’s Liberation-News and Letters Committees as Appendix to their pamphlet, Working Women for Freedom. (#5370).

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6. Raya Dunayevskaya on Tour.

A listing of dates, places, and topics from Dunayevskaya’s East Coast and Midwest lecture tour, April 7 – April 29, 1976. Dunayevskaya’s topics on the tour included the new revolutions in Portugal, Angola and Mozambique, which she had discussed in her Political-Philosophic Letter, “Will the revolution in Portugal advance?” (#5182), and further discussion on “Women as Thinkers and as Revolutionaries.” At the conclusion of her tour in New York, she presented her view of the philosophic foundations of all her new work: “Our Original Contribution to the Dialectic of the Absolute Idea as New Beginning” (#5622).

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5. Women as Thinkers and as Revolutionaries.

A series of lectures by Dunayevskaya, given at University Center for Adult Education in Detroit, Sept. 22 – Oct. 27, 1975. Included here is the brochure for the class series. A summary of the six lectures, written by Olga Domanski, has already been included in the Dunayevskaya Collection (#5363). Audio tapes of the six lectures are on deposit at Wayne State University Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs. During the lecture series, Dunayevskaya announced that she intended to develop her work on this subject into a new book.

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2. Olga (Sufritz) Domanski letter to Seymour Ricklin, University Center for Adult Education, Detroit, written June 13, 1975.

Domanski, as secretary to Dunayevskaya, submits Dunayevskaya’s proposal to teach a course at UCAE on “Women as Reason as Well as Force, Nationally and Internationally.” The course was to be given in September and October, 1975. Included also is a second letter, written by Domanski on June 18, 1975, modifying the title to “Women as Thinkers and as Revolutionaries,” and proposing a preliminary reading list for the classes.

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14. New Additions to the Mss. As of Dec. 1, 1981.

A compilation of additions made by Dunayevskaya to the mss. of the book after it was turned in to the publisher. Not all of the additions created by Dunayevskaya in this period are included here, and further changes in the text of the book were added as late as February, 1982, during the reading of the galley proofs. The passages added here include Dunayevskaya’s addition of an entirely new “Section 4” of Chapter 12, entitled “A 1980s View,” probably written in late October, 1981.

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13. Notes for Changes on the Book, Chapter by Chapter, Even Though All I’m Interested In Is a New Chapter 12.

Notes for changes in the mss. of the book as a whole, written by Dunayevskaya in August, 1981. Page references are to the mss. copy of the book, typed in May, 1981. These notes include a four-page outline of a “New Chapter 12 to be entitled: New Grounds for the 1980s Emerge on the 100th Anniversary of Marx’s Last Writings.” Dunayevskaya added a later version of Chapter 12 to the mss. copy of the book in September, 1981.

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10. Chapter 10, Section 3. The Unknown Ethnological Notebooks, the Unread Drafts of Letters to Zasulich, as Well as Undigested 1882 Preface to the Russian Edition of the Communist Manifesto.

Completed Dec. 23, 1980. This is the first draft of what became Chapter 12 of the book as published, “The Last Writings of Marx Point a Trail to the 1980s,” although it does not include major elements of the finished chapter, specifically Dunayevskaya’s new category, “Post-Marx Marxism as a pejorative.”

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8. Women’s Liberation, Then and Now.

Draft of what was then Chapter 6 of the book. Written October, 1980, and circulated to members of Women’s Liberation-News and Letters Committees for discussion. For Dunayevskaya’s letter to Women’s Liberation-News and Letters Committees as she completed this draft chapter, see #6459. This draft chapter was later expanded into Part II of the book, “The Women’s Liberation Movement as Revolutionary Force and Reason.”

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2. Draft of Chapter III. Luxemburg’s Interregnum and Excursus Into Marx’s New Continent of Thought—From the “National Question” (Before and During World War I) to Accumulation of Capital.

Written January, 1980. Portions of this draft chapter were included in what became Chapter 4 of the book as published; other parts were included in Chapter 9 and Chapter 12. For Dunayevskaya’s comments on this draft chapter as she completed it, see her letter of Jan. 14, 1980 (#6448). Also included here are “Further Random Notes on Chapter 3,” written by Dunayevskaya sometime during 1980.

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C. Draft Chapters of Rosa Luxemburg, Women’s Liberation, and Marx’s Philosophy of Revolution

The first chapter of Rosa Luxemburg, Women’s Liberation, and Marx’s Philosophy of Revolution was drafted by Dunayevskaya in the period Sept.-Dec., 1978. Entitled “Relationship of Philosophy and Revolution to Women’s Liberation: Marx’s and Engels’ Studies Contrasted,” this draft chapter was published in News & Letters (Jan-Feb, 1979), and included in Vol. X of the Dunayevskaya Collection (#6467). Two other draft chapters were also published in News & Letters and previously included in this collection: Chapter 1 of the book, “Before and After the 1905 Revolution: Two Turning Points in Luxemburg’s Life” (#6420); and Chapter 2, “The Break with Kautsky, 1910-11” (#6426). Included here are drafts of chapters which have not previously been circulated to a wide audience, although they were shared with a number of women’s liberation activists, intellectuals, and members of News and Letters Committees at the time they were written.

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p. Notes on Women’s Liberation in Russia from several sources:

1) Alfred Meyer, “Marxism and the Women’s Movement,” in Atkinson, Dallin and Lapidus, Women in Russia (1977); 2) Jacqueline Heinen, “Kollontai and the History of Women’s Oppression,” New Left Review #110 (1978); 3) Richard Stites, The Women’s Liberation Movement in Russia (1978); 4) Elzbieta Ettinger, Comrade and Lover (1979); 5) J.P. Nettl, Rosa Luxemburg (1966).

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a. Notes on J.P. Nettl, Rosa Luxemburg (1966).

These notes are in several parts: 1) extensive chapter-by-chapter notes on Nettl’s two volume work; 2) notes on “Nettl’s references to women”; 3) notes on the 1905-06 Russian Revolution and on Luxemburg as an émigré revolutionary in 1898.

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w. Notes on N. Bukharin and the Hegelian dialectic.

Dunayevskaya’s discussion begins with extracts from a letter by Grace Lee to C.L.R. James, written May 21, 1949. Works discussed in Dunayevskaya’s notes concentrate on Bukharin’s Historical Materialism (1925), Hegel’s Science of Logic, Lenin’s “Abstract of Hegel’s Science of Logic.” A note by Dunayevskaya, added by hand to the typed notes, is dated May 5, 1978.

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v. Notes on Grace Lee, letter of March 22, 1950,

on “Hegel’s concept of Condition, in Science of Logic, Vol. II, pp. 98-106 (Johnston and Struthers translation, 1929).” Included here are Dunayevskaya’s extracts of Lee’s letter. The letter itself has not been found. Also included is a “P.S.” by Dunayevskaya, written Sept. 12, 1959.

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d. Translations of extracts from early works of Marx, including:

“From the Preliminary Work for Marx’s Ph. D. Dissertation, 1839ff.”; “Aus der Rheinescher Zeitung (On the Freedom of the Press), May 1842 and July 1842”; “Debates on the Law Regarding Thievery of Wood, October, 1842”; “The ‘Liberal opposition’ in Hannover, Nov. 1842”; “Letters to Ruge, May 1843”; “Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, March-Aug., 1843.” The selections were translated in the 1940s from the German in Mehring’s 1901 selection of Marx’s Early works. Translations by Grace Lee.

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