Raya Dunayevskaya (born Raya Shpigel, ; May 1, 1910 – June 9, 1987), later Rae Spiegel, also known by the pseudonym Freddie Forest, was the American founder of the

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

Marxist humanism Marxist humanism is a philosophical and political movement that interprets Karl Marx's works through a humanist lens, focusing on human nature and the social conditions that best support Eudaimonia, human flourishing. Marxist humanists argue th ...

in the United States. At one time

Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky,; ; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky'' was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician, and political theorist. He was a key figure ...

's secretary, she later split with him and ultimately founded the organization News and Letters Committees and was its leader until her death.

Background

Lithuanian Jewish {{Infobox ethnic group , group = Litvaks , image = , caption = , poptime = , region1 = {{flag, Lithuania , pop1 = 2,800 , region2 = {{flag, South Africa , pop2 = 6 ...

descent, Dunayevskaya was born Raya Shpigel in the Podolia Governorate of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

(present-day

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

) and emigrated to the United States in 1922 (her name changed to Rae Spiegel) and joined the revolutionary movement in her childhood.

Career

Trotskyism

Active in the American Communist Party youth organization, she was expelled at age 18 and thrown down a flight of stairs when she suggested that her local comrades should find out

's response to his expulsion from the

Soviet Communist Party The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU),. Abbreviated in Russian as КПСС, ''KPSS''. at some points known as the Russian Communist Party (RCP), All-Union Communist Party and Bolshevik Party, and sometimes referred to as the Soviet ...

and the

Comintern The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International, was a political international which existed from 1919 to 1943 and advocated world communism. Emerging from the collapse of the Second Internatio ...

. By the following year she found a group of independent

Trotskyists Trotskyism (, ) is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Russian revolutionary and intellectual Leon Trotsky along with some other members of the Left Opposition and the Fourth International. Trotsky described himself as a ...

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

, led by Antoinette Buchholz Konikow, an advocate of

birth control Birth control, also known as contraception, anticonception, and fertility control, is the use of methods or devices to prevent pregnancy. Birth control has been used since ancient times, but effective and safe methods of birth control only be ...

and legal

abortion Abortion is the early termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. Abortions that occur without intervention are known as miscarriages or "spontaneous abortions", and occur in roughly 30–40% of all pregnan ...

. In the 1930s, she adopted her mother's maiden name Dunayevskaya. Without getting permission from the U.S. Trotskyist organization, she went to

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

in 1937 to serve as Trotsky's Russian language secretary during his

exile Exile or banishment is primarily penal expulsion from one's native country, and secondarily expatriation or prolonged absence from one's homeland under either the compulsion of circumstance or the rigors of some high purpose. Usually persons ...

there.

Independent

Having returned to Chicago in 1938 after the deaths of her father and brother, she broke with Trotsky in 1939 when he continued to maintain that the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

was a "

workers' state A socialist state, socialist republic, or socialist country is a sovereign state constitutionally dedicated to the establishment of socialism. This article is about states that refer to themselves as socialist states, and not specifically abo ...

" even after the

Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, officially the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and also known as the Hitler–Stalin Pact and the Nazi–Soviet Pact, was a non-aggression pact between Nazi Ge ...

. She opposed any notion that workers should be asked to defend this "workers' state" which had signed a non-aggression pact with

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

. Along with theorists such as C. L. R. James, and later

Tony Cliff Tony Cliff (born Yigael Glückstein, ; 20 May 1917 – 9 April 2000) was a Trotskyist activist. Born to a Jewish family in Ottoman Palestine, he moved to Britain in 1947 and by the end of the 1950s had assumed the pen name of Tony Cliff. A fo ...

, Dunayevskaya argued that the Soviet Union had become "

state capitalist State capitalism is an economic system in which the state undertakes business and commercial economic activity and where the means of production are nationalized as state-owned enterprises (including the processes of capital accumulation, ce ...

". Toward the end of her life, she stated that what she called "my real development" only began after her break with Trotsky. Her simultaneous study of the Russian economy and of Marx's early writings (later known as the ''

Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 The ''Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844'' (), also known as the ''Paris Manuscripts'' (') or as the ''1844 Manuscripts'', are a series of unfinished notes written between April and August 1844 by Karl Marx. They were compiled and publi ...

''), led to her theory that not only was the

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

a "state capitalist" society, but that "state capitalism" was a new world stage. Much of her initial analysis was published in ''The New International'' in 1942–1943.

Workers Party

In 1940, she was involved in the split in the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) that led to the formation of the Workers Party (WP), with which she shared an objection to Trotsky's characterisation of the Soviet Union as a "

degenerated workers' state In Trotskyist political theory, a degenerated workers' state is a dictatorship of the proletariat in which the working class' democratic control over the state has given way to control by a bureaucratic clique. The term was developed by Leon T ...

". Within the WP, she formed the Johnson–Forest Tendency alongside C. L. R. James (she being "Freddie Forest" and he "J. R. Johnson", named for their party cadre names). The tendency argued that the Soviet Union was "state capitalist", while the WP majority maintained that it was bureaucratic collectivist.

Socialist Workers Party

Differences within the WP steadily widened, and in 1947, after a brief period of independent existence during which they published a series of documents, the tendency returned to the ranks of the SWP. Their membership in the SWP was based on a shared insistence that there was a pre-revolutionary situation just around the corner, and the shared belief that a

Leninist Leninism (, ) is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the Dictatorship of the proletariat#Vladimir Lenin, dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary Vangu ...

party must be in place to take advantage of the coming opportunities. By 1951, with the failure of their shared perspective to materialize, the tendency developed a theory that rejected

Leninism Leninism (, ) is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the Dictatorship of the proletariat#Vladimir Lenin, dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary Vangu ...

and saw the workers as being spontaneously revolutionary. This was borne out for them by the 1949 U.S. miners' strike. In later years, they were to pay close attention to

automation Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, mainly by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machine ...

, especially in the automobile industry, which they came to see as paradigmatic of a new stage of

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...

. This led to the tendency leaving the SWP again to begin independent work. After more than a decade of developing the theory of

state capitalism State capitalism is an economic system in which the state undertakes business and commercial economic activity and where the means of production are nationalized as state-owned enterprises (including the processes of capital accumulation, ...

, Dunayevskaya continued her study of the

Hegelian dialectic Dialectic (; ), also known as the dialectical method, refers originally to dialogue between people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to arrive at the truth through reasoned argument. Dialectic resembles debate, but the c ...

by taking on a task the Johnson–Forest Tendency had set itself: exploring Hegel's '' Phanomenologie Des Geistes''. In 1954 she initiated a decades long correspondence with the critical theorist

Herbert Marcuse Herbert Marcuse ( ; ; July 19, 1898 – July 29, 1979) was a German–American philosopher, social critic, and Political philosophy, political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Born in Berlin, Marcuse studied at ...

, in which the necessity and freedom dialectic in Hegel and Marx became a focal point of contention. She advanced an interpretation of Hegel's absolutes holding that they involved a dual movement: a movement from practice that is itself a form of theory and a movement from theory reaching to philosophy. She considered these 1953 letters to be "the philosophic moment" from which the whole development of

Marxist Humanism Marxist humanism is a philosophical and political movement that interprets Karl Marx's works through a humanist lens, focusing on human nature and the social conditions that best support Eudaimonia, human flourishing. Marxist humanists argue th ...

flowed.

News and Letters Committees

In 1953 Dunayevskaya moved to Detroit, where she was to live until 1984. In 1954–1955 she and C. L. R. James engaged in a split. In 1955, she founded her own organization, News and Letters Committees, and a Marxist-Humanist newspaper, ''News & Letters'', which remains in publication today. The newspaper covers women's struggles, the liberation of workers, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual rights and the disability rights movement, while not separating that coverage from philosophical and theoretical articles. The organization split in 2008-2009 and the U.S. Marxist-Humanists (later to become th
International Marxist-Humanist Organization
was formed. Dunayevskaya wrote what came to be known as her "trilogy of revolution": '' Marxism and Freedom: From 1776 Until Today'' (1958), '' Philosophy and Revolution'' (1973), and '' Rosa Luxemburg, Women's Liberation, and Marx's Philosophy of Revolution'' (1982). In addition, she selected and introduced a collection of writings, published in 1985, ''Women's Liberation and the Dialectics of Revolution''. In the last year of her life she was working on a new book which she had tentatively titled, ''Dialectics of Organization and Philosophy: The 'Party' and Forms of Organization Born Out of Spontaneity''.

Legacy

Raya Dunayevskaya's speeches, letters, publications, notes, recordings and other items are located in the Walter P. Reuther Library at

Wayne State University Wayne State University (WSU) is a public university, public research university in Detroit, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 375 programs. It is Michigan's third-l ...

Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...

. Microfilm copies of the collection are available from the WSU Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs and PDF copies are online a
the Raya Dunayevskaya Memorial Fund website
Guides to the collection are available from News and Letters Committees and in PDF form at the RDMF website.

Bibliography

Books

* Trilogy of Revolution ** '' Marxism and Freedom: From 1776 Until Today''.

958 Year 958 (Roman numerals, CMLVIII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * October / November – Battle of Raban: The Byzantine Empire, Byzantines under John I Tzimiskes, Jo ...

2000. Humanity Books. . ** ''Philosophy and Revolution: from Hegel to Sartre and from Marx to Mao''. Third ed. 1989. Columbia University Press. . ** ''Rosa Luxemburg, Women's Liberation, and Marx's Philosophy of Revolution''. 1991. University of Illinois Press. . * Other ** ''Women's Liberation and the Dialectics of Revolution: Reaching for the Future''. 1996. Wayne State University Press. . ** ''The Marxist-Humanist Theory of State-Capitalism''. 1992. News & Letters Committee. . ** ''The Power of Negativity: Selected Writings on the Dialectic in Hegel and Marx''. 2002. Lexington Books.
Image

Articles

* "The Shock of Recognition and the Philosophic Ambivalence of Lenin". ''

Telos Telos (; ) is a term used by philosopher Aristotle to refer to the final cause of a natural organ or entity, or of human art. ''Telos'' is the root of the modern term teleology, the study of purposiveness or of objects with a view to their aims, ...

'', No. 5 (Spring 1970). New York
Telos Press

Introductions

* Lou Turner and John Alan, ''Frantz Fanon, Soweto & American Black Thought''; new introduction by Raya Dunayevskaya. – new expanded edition, Chicago: News and Letters, 1986.

References

External links

News and Letters Newspaper

Raya Dunayevskaya Collection at Walter Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Libertarian Communist Library Raya Dunayevskaya holdings

Marxist-Humanist Dialectics

International Marxist-Humanist Organization

Marxist-Humanist Initiative
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dunayevskaya, Raya 1910 births 1987 deaths People from Vinnytsia Oblast People from Mogilyovsky Uyezd (Podolian Governorate) 20th-century Ukrainian Jews Soviet emigrants to the United States American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent Members of the Workers Party (United States) 20th-century American writers 20th-century American philosophers 20th-century American women writers American humanists American Marxists American revolutionaries Jewish American anti-racism activists American anti-racism activists Scholars of feminist philosophy Jewish American feminists Jewish humanists Jewish philosophers Jewish socialists Marxist feminists Marxist humanists Marxist theorists Hegelian philosophers American political philosophers American women philosophers American women religious writers Communist women writers American socialist feminists Women Marxists