- We offer our students a course of online-lectures on the History of Political and Legal Thought: “Marxist State Theory” (In Ukrainian with English Subtitles).
- A new online-course is based on the platform of “The Annals of Legal History”. This is a multimedia version of the implementation of the main goals and objectives of our Journal.
- The Author and Teacher of Online-Course is Viktor Myroslavovych Melnyk, Ph.D. (in Political Science), Editor-in-Chief of the Scientific Journal “The Annals of Legal History” (Department of Political Science, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv).
- The online-course is delivered in Ukrainian. In the future, it will be provided with another-language subtitles.
- After every three lectures, students will be asked to complete a seminar tasks.
- All students who successfully completed the seminar tasks and who watched all videos will receive special certificates.
Lecture First | Marxist State Ideal. Simply about Complicated!
- the basic principles of the Marxist definition of the state – the apparatus of violence of a minority of owners over the majority of the poor;
- conditions for the emergence of the political philosophy of Marxism;
- the main printed works of Marxists on the emergence of the state.
Lecture Two | Marxism & Apocalypse 1/3.
- basis and superstructure in the philosophy of Marxism;
- economic determination of political institutions;
- definition of socio-economic formations;
- primitive, slaveholding and feudal society.
Lecture Three | Marx Business Age 2/3.
- left Hegelianism of Marx and Engels;
- dialectical materialism;
- capitalist socio-economic formation.
Lecture Fourth | Construction Site of Marxism.
- economic basis and political superstructure;
- what did Marx write about in Capital?
- classification of factors of development of the national economy.
Lecture Five | What is Communism? Briefly About the Main Thing! (The final social-economical video is 3/3)
- the theory of the socio-economic formation of communism;
- three forms of communist futurology of the state;
- methodological relationship between Marxism and positivism.
Lecture Six | Karl Marx Price.
- theory of surplus value;
- the role of industrial production in the era of capitalism;
- raw materials and final consumption products.
Lecture Seventh | How to Make a Billion? Marxist Lifehacks.
- a capitalist reading of the “Capital” of Marx;
- theory of surplus value in the real sector of the economy;
- business methodology.
Lecture Eight | Introduction to the Revisionism of Karl Kautsky.
- ideological contradictions within Marxism;
- the formation of various vectors of perception of Marxist ideology;
- the deepening of contradictions between right and left ideologies;
- the preconditions for the creation of the original political philosophy of Karl Kautsky (1854-1938).
Lecture nine | Political Background of Central Europe History (XIX century).
- Key state formations of German-speaking Europe in the 19th century (Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary, Prussia and the Second German Empire);
- socio-historical conditions for the creation of the political theory of Karl Kautsky (1854-1938);
- Vienna system of international relations: its preconditions and crisis in the second half of the XIX century;
- ways of differentiation of left (socialism) and right (nationalism) political movements in the XIX century.
Lecture ten | The Meaning of History in the Writings of Karl Kautsky.
- what to read according to Kautsky theory in “The Annals of Legal History”;
- the problem of “new feudalism” in the works of my Czech colleagues;
- Karl Kautsky as the founder of the theory of “universal welfare state”;
- where did Kautsky study and who exactly influenced the formation of his views?
Lecture eleven | Resources as the Basis of our Lives.
- work “Agrarian Question” by Karl Kautsky;
- Kautsky neo-Malthusianism;
- the problem of property according to Kautsky;
- who should own the resources?
Lecture twelfth | Origin of Species or Origin of Classes?
- Kautsky monograph “Darwin and Socialism” (1875);
- Kautsky monograph “The Economic Teachings of Karl Marx” (1887);
- problems of Malthusianism and the theory of new Malthusianism according to Kautsky;
- how to properly differentiate and stratify classes in social democracy?
Lecture thirteen | Christ, Kautsky, Marx and Opium.
- Kautsky monograph “The Origin of Christianity” (1909);
- the socialist content of Christianity and the Christian content of socialism;
- theory of opposition of collectivism and individualism;
- “religion is not an opium for the people!”.
Lecture fourteen | The Apotheosis of Imperialism.
- discussion of the theses of Kautsky article “Ultra-imperialism” (1914), published in the newspaper Die Neue Zeit;
- typology of forms and types of imperialism according to Marx and Kautsky;
- Kautsky futurological predictions come true;
- Is globalist ultra-imperialism alive today?
Lecture fifteen | Eduard Bernstein – Political Theory.
- three types of Marxism according to E. Bernstein;
- Bernstein’s opposition to Kautsky;
- social democracy as the highest form of socialism;
- why is socialism incapable of being “scientific”?
