Worker’s Punk University

http://www.culture.si/en/Workers%27_Punk_University

The Workers' Punk University (Delavsko-punkerska univerza (DPU)) is an educational project run by the Peace Institute - Institute for Contemporary Social and Political Studiesthat provides opportunities for active education (lectures, discussion groups, reading seminars) on pertinent political topics tacitly ignored by most of the established academia. Since its establishment in 1998, its running slogan has been Nasvidenje v naslednji revoluciji! ("See you in the next revolution!").

DPU as an alternative university

In its socially-reproductive function the university is closely related with the existing social hierarchy; the university favours typifying and utilitarian knowledge and grooms the future work force by virtue of its examination regimes. Thursdays' public lectures – about 20 per year – are held at Klub Gromka in Metelkova mesto Autonomous Cultural Zone. As an "invisible college", this university seeks to provide an alternative to the established production of knowledge, not merely on the level of content but also in terms of its organisational structure. Consequently, the students themselves organise and lead it.

In collaboration with Retrovizor, DPU launched a film seminar called Filmski krožek in the season 2007/2008; its themes encompass film comedy, the new Hollywood, the American "black" film, Partisan film, etc.

Some of the previous lecture-cycles include topics such as Revolution, Neo-Conservativism, The New Right, The Left, Utopistics, May '68: reVISION, Post-Fordism, Totalitarism, Stupidity, School as Economy's Ideological Apparatus, and The Class Struggle after the Class Struggle.

Reading seminars

The reading seminars organised by DPU – some six per year – afford insights into topics such as Psychoanalysis, Theory of Art, Hegel and Philosophy, Asian Production Mode, and Transformations in Art. Together with the Museum of Modern Art DPU organised six lectures on the function of art in society. Twice to date DPU has also organised Prvomajska šola ("DPU 1 May School") on Marxism and the critique of apolitical economy with lectures and guests from Slovenia.

See also

Peace Institute - Institute for Contemporary Social and Political Studies

Retrovizor

Klub Gromka

External links

DPU website (in Slovenian)

Medea

Project X

Obituary of G.M. Dimitrov

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/obituary.htm

Georgi Mikhailovitch Dimitrov was born on June 18, 1882, in the town of Radomir, of a proletarian revolutionary family. When he was only 15 years old, the young Dimitrov, working as a compositor in a printshop, joined the revolutionary movement and took an active part in the work of the oldest Bulgarian trade union of printers.

In 1902, Dimitrov joined the Bulgarian Workers' Social Democratic Party. He actively combated revisionism on the side of the revolutionary Marxist wing of Tesnyaki led by Dimitri Blagoyev.

The self-sacrificing revolutionary struggle of Dimitrov earned him the warm love of the revolutionary workers of Bulgaria, who, in 1905, elected him secretary of the Alliance of Revolutionary Trade Associations of Bulgaria. In that post he remained right up to 1923, when that alliance was disbanded by the fascists.

While leading the struggle of the Bulgarian proletariat, Dimitrov displayed courage and staunchness in the revolutionary struggles, was repeatedly arrested and persecuted. In the September armed uprising of 1923 in Bulgaria he headed the Central Revolutionary Committee, set an example of revolutionary fearlessness, unflinching staunchness and devotion to the cause of the working class. For his leadership of the armed uprising in 1923 the fascist court sentenced Dimitrov in his absence to death. In 1926, after the provocative trial, engineered by the fascists, against the leadership of the Communist Party, Dimitrov was again sentenced to death in his absence.

Compelled, in 1923, to emigrate from Bulgaria, Dimitrov led the life of a professional revolutionary. He worked actively in the Executive Committee of the Communist International.

In 1933, he was arrested in Berlin for revolutionary activity. During the Leipzig Trial, Dimitrov became the standard-bearer of the struggle against fascism and imperialist war. His heroic conduct in the court, the words of wrath which he flung in the face of the fascists, exposing their infamous provocation in connection with the Reichstag fire, unmasked the fascist provocateurs and roused new millions of workers throughout the world to the struggle against fascism.

In 1935, Dimitrov was elected General Secretary of the Executive Committee of the Communist International. He waged a persistent struggle for the creation and consolidation of the united proletarian and popular front for the struggle against fascism, against the war which the fascist rulers of Germany, Japan and Italy were preparing. He called untiringly on the masses of the working people of all countries to rally around the Communist Parties in order to bar the way to the Fascist aggressors.

Dimitrov did great work in the ranks of the international Communist movement in forging the leading cadres of Communist Parties loyal to the great teachings of Marxism-Leninism, to the principles of proletarian internationalism, to the cause of the defense of the interests of the people's masses in their respective countries.

During the Second World War, Georgi Dimitrov called on the Communists to head the national-liberation anti-fascist movement, and tirelessly worked at organizing all patriotic forces for the rout of the fascist invaders. He led the struggle of the Bulgarian Workers' Party (Communists) and all Bulgarian patriots who rose in arms against the German-fascist invaders.

For his outstanding services in the struggle against fascism he was, in 1945, awarded the Order of Lenin by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R.

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