The Platypus Affiliated Society (alternatively Platypus or PAS) is an international educational organization focused on left-wing and Marxist history and thought.[2] It was founded by Chris Cutrone and his students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2006.
Platypus organizes reading groups, forums, and research and journalism, focused on the inherited problems of what it terms the Old, New, and post-political left.[3] It describes itself as "hosting the conversation on the left" in order to "dissolve ideological obstacles to the reestablishment of socialism."[4][5]As of 2025[update] it reports around 50 chapters, principally in North America, Europe, and Oceania and usually based on university campuses.[6]
Theory
The "Platypus Synthesis"
The Platypus Affiliated Society describes its interpretation of Marxism as a "synthesis" of orthodox Trotskyism and Frankfurt-Schoolcritical theory, though it does not claim to be either a Trotskyist organization or a modern incarnation of the Frankfurt School. Genealogically, it identifies with these traditions as objects of historical preservation, respectively by the Spartacist League and Moishe Postone's recovery of Marxian critical theory.[7] Platypus argues that, even though these two traditions failed in their respective projects, they still by different means sought to preserve key elements of Leninism following its disintegration into Stalinism and so serve as the foremost negative object lessons for any contemporary attempt to recover Marxism.[8]
Platypus identifies key thinkers in the milieu of the Frankfurt School, such as Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Walter Benjamin, as preserving Marxian theory after the liquidation of the Marxist political party.[12] Analogously, Trotsky's characterization of the crisis of Marxism in the 1930s as a crisis of leadership represented for Platypus the attempt to preserve the radical, critical character of Marxist political practice.[13]
Dr. Shtefan Alexander has characterized Platypus's ideological approach to Marxism as "via negativa," challenging the left with what it lacks or has abandoned and raising the history of Marxism as "a question to our contemporary society about the possibility of radically transforming our social relations."[14]
Historical Regression
Platypus maintains that the history of the twentieth century was a history of regression in consciousness, wherein the left repeatedly missed opportunities for ideological clarification by inverting failures and defeats into victories. Platypus takes this historical regression as the occasion for its project.[15] Platypus identifies four key periods around which it argues the left has regressed by abandoning the radical horizons of Marxism:[16]
1917 – The Russian Revolution. Platypus argues that the singular advance brought by the Russian Revolution was opportunity to further clarify the tasks of Marxism. However, especially following the failure of the world revolution to spread to European countries such as Germany and Hungary, this priority has been obscured or abandoned.
1933 – The inaugurations of Franklin D. Roosevelt as U.S. President and of Adolf Hitler as German chancellor. During the 1930s, the left largely coalesced behind the Comintern policy of the popular front, supporting Stalinism and progressivism against the rise of fascism. This reorientation marked the disintegration of the left's commitment to the "utopian possibilities" of capitalism which only Marxism could realize, contrary to realist or merely oppositional politics.
1968 – Mass protest movements. The wave of protests around the world in 1968 failed to escape the horizons of capitalist politics. Student movements resisted urges from, e.g., Theodor Adorno of the need for the theoretical reflection and clarification potentially at the expense of immediate political practice. The period has instead been hailed as indicative of the success of popular action, thus failing to examine underlying deficiencies such as an implicit conservatism or authoritarianism.
The organization's name alludes to Friedrich Engels's disbelief at the existence of the platypus, which the organization likens to the current state of the left. They argue that, similarly to how preceding extinction events made the platypus difficult to taxonomize, the contemporary left may only be properly justified as a left on the basis of a presently-buried history.[17] PAS's slogan, "The Left is dead! Long live the Left!", similarly expresses this prognosis, that "the Platypus symbolizes the need for intellectual flexibility, humility, and openness to new ideas in the left’s ideological framework."[18]
The Platypus Review is a monthly, open-submission journal first published by the organization in November 2007. The Review is self-described as "a forum among a variety of tendencies and approaches on the Left […] [intending] to provoke disagreement and to open shared goals as sites of contestation."[29] It has published notable thinkers on the left including Angela Davis, Grover Furr, David Harvey, Gerald Horne,[30]Axel Honneth, Domenico Losurdo,[31]Nina Power,Mark Rudd, and Slavoj Zizek. The Review also publishes articles written by students.[32]
The Platypus Affiliated Society has been criticized for a variety of alleged political positions, while Platypus maintains that it is a "pre-political" organization with no political line.[33] The Weekly Worker has criticized Platypus as inadequate to its own theoretical project of a critique of the left, alleging that Platypus critiques Stalinism and Maoism, yet uncritically upholds orthodox Marxism, the Second International, and Trotskyism.[34]
Platypus has described anti-Trumpism on the left as "nervous hyperventilation of the complacent status quo under threat."[40] Critics have correspondingly accused PAS and its membership of supporting Trumpism.[10][41]
2013 boycott letter
In late 2013, a number of the Platypus Affiliated Society's internal communications were leaked, including reports from then-president Chris Cutrone characterizing Platypus as "a combat organization waging war on the 'Left'" and, separately, comments remarking on the prospects for Palestinians in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Following these leaks, former Platypus member Ben Campbell wrote an open letter calling for a boycott of all participation on events and activities hosted by the organization; the letter was subsequently published by left-wing commentator Richard Seymour.[42] The letter had eighteen additional signatories, including Sebastian Budgen, editor of Historical Materialism; political theorist Jodi Dean; Doug Henwood of Left Business Observer; and philosopher Nina Power. Power no longer supports the boycott, stating she had "no idea why I signed it in the first place."[43]
Notes
↑ Cutrone, Chris (11 September 2006). "Introducing Platypus". Platypus Affiliated Society. Archived from the original on 16 October 2025. Retrieved 16 October 2025.
↑ MacFarquhar, Larissa (30 November 2008). "Outside Agitator". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on 31 July 2025. Retrieved 16 October 2025.
↑ "About". Platypus Affiliated Society. Archived from the original on 16 October 2025. Retrieved 16 October 2025.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
