This is a narration of the eighth chapter of Lars Lih's excellent book Lenin Rediscovered: What Is to Be Done? In Context. In this chapter, Lih examines the culture of the Russian revolutionary underground to elucidate the world that Lenin's organizational proposals in WITBD would go on to shape. The full audiobook is currently in production by the team at Cosmonaut Magazine. You can find more episodes (and other audio books) on our Youtube channel , and you can purchase a physical copy of the b...
Jul 29, 2021•2 hr 8 min
Donald has a chat with Richard Barbrook, author with Andy Cameron of The Californian Ideology and the book Imaginary Futures . The two discuss Silicon Valley techno-Utopianism and its transformation into our current tech dystopia, the Cold War left and their attempts to use Marxism in service of capitalism, the role of China in shaping the development of modern technology, crypto-currency, why the USSR failed to develop cyber-communism, and Barbrook’s work in the Labor Party with the Digital Dem...
Jul 26, 2021•2 hr 5 min
Matt and Rudy join Matt Rothwell from the People's History of Ideas podcast for a discussion on the founding of the Chinese Communist Party on its 100th anniversary. We base ourselves on the book From Friend To Comrade: The Founding of the Chinese Communist Party, 1920-27 by Hans J. van der Veen, and discuss issues such as the influence of the Soviet Union on its formation, how intellectuals , moving past liberalism adopted Marxism and translated it to the Chinese context, the way policy impleme...
Jul 23, 2021•59 min
Rudy, Connor and Donald sit down to talk about Vietnamese political economy and the Vietnamese Communist Party with a particular focus on the period of reunification and market reforms. We discuss the formation of Vietnamese Communism in isolation, the history of Vietnam up to reunification and how that set up a very divided country for the VCP to rule over, the short planned economy period and how and why the market reforms took place. We also discuss the particularities of Vietnamese Socialism...
Jul 19, 2021•1 hr 15 min
Neither a politics of identity informed by theories of intersectionality nor reductive economistic readings of Marxism are adequate for a modern socialist project, argues Donald Parkinson. Robert Fish reads the article out loud.
Jul 15, 2021•29 min
Djamil and Rudy join Rob Wallace, author of Big Farms Make Big Flu: Dispatches on Influenza, Agribusiness, and the Nature of Science , and Dead Epidemiologists: On the Origins of COVID-19 , for a discussion on how capitalism produces mass pandemics through the destruction and creation of new ecologies. We discuss how humans 'fit' in nature, and how capitalism destroys natural barriers that prevent pandemics and creates harmful new ecologies. We also talk about what types of regulatory mechanisms...
Jul 12, 2021•1 hr 23 min
This is a narration of the seventh chapter of Lars Lih's excellent book Lenin Rediscovered: What Is to Be Done? In Context. In this chapter, Lih maps out Lenin's basic conception of Russian Social Democracy's present challenges and asserts that "the political poetry of WITBD is located in this larger definition of the situation". The full audiobook is currently in production by the team at Cosmonaut Magazine. You can find more episodes (and other audio books) on our Youtube channel , and you can...
Jul 08, 2021•1 hr 43 min
Rudy joins Max Ajl, author of A People's Green New Deal (Pluto Press, 2021), for a broad discussion on the themes of his book and on the agrarian question in general. We speak about Max's background in agrarian movements with a particular focus on the Arab region, the Cochabamba People's Agreement and its relevance today, the critique of the current Green New Deal and of eco-modernism, the appearing splits in the ruling class between fossil and non-fossil capital, unequal environmental exchange,...
Jul 05, 2021•1 hr 14 min
Donald Parkinson explains and defends the format of the minimum-maximum program using the model established in Marx and Guesde’s Programme of the Parti Ouvier . Lydia Apolinar reads the article out loud.
Jul 01, 2021•31 min
Rudy joins Tony Norfield, author of The City: London and the Global Power of Finance (Verso Books) for a broad theoretical practical discussion on the topic of finance. We discuss Hilferding and Lenin's theories of finance and imperialism, and where they are lacking, how finance is used to enforce global domination today, the exorbitant privilege of the dollar, the discussions around the rate of profit, the role of China and the Belt & Road Initiative, cryptocurrencies and Norfield's outlook...
Jun 28, 2021•1 hr 17 min
This is a narration of the sixth chapter of Lars Lih's excellent book Lenin Rediscovered: What Is to Be Done? In Context. In this chapter, Lih examines the remaining three interlocuters Lenin polemicizes with in WITBD: the anonymous authors of the Joint Letter, Boris Savinkov, and L. Nadezhdin. All three are marginal historical figures in their own right, but their importance in contextualizing the debates of WITBD cannot be overstated. The full audiobook is currently in production by the team a...
Jun 24, 2021•1 hr 52 min
Parker and Christian join Matt Christman for a discussion on the class dynamics of the founding of the US, using Charles Beard's book An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States as a jumping off point. They cover the main idea of the book: how the Founding Fathers designed the Constitution and the federal institutions to ensure their class interests after the Independence War. They also discuss how other events of the time such as Shay's Rebellion showed the limits of the...
Jun 21, 2021•55 min
Jonah Martell lays out a twelve-step program for the Democratic Socialists of America to pursue a path of independent working-class politics. Christian Cail reads the article out loud.
Jun 17, 2021•1 hr 1 min
Amelia and Rudy join Raul Espejo, one of the top members of the Cybersyn project in Allende's Chile, the founder of Syncho Research and the president of the World Organization of Systems and Cybernetics for a conversation. We discuss Raul's experiences, his current projects, and what he thinks socialists should learn about Cybernetics in today's world, especially around the concept of variety.
Jun 14, 2021•53 min
This is a narration of the fifth chapter of Lars Lih's excellent book Lenin Rediscovered: What Is to Be Done? In Context. In this chapter, Lih breaks down the causes and details of the intense polemical war between rival Social Democratic publications Rabochee Delo and Iskra. The context of Lenin's What Is to Be Done? cannot be understood without a thorough examination of this dispute, which ultimately ended in victory for Lenin and the Iskra faction. The full audiobook is currently in productio...
Jun 10, 2021•1 hr 45 min
Djamil and Rudy sit down for a hardcore episode on the interaction between Soviet diamat philosophy and Quantum Mechanics. We discuss the analytic core of dialectical materialism through the lens of the philosophy of science and the position of scientific realism. We analyze the main propositions of this core in an attempt to extract what is best, and most relevant to physics: those propositions and thematics which will play heavily in formulating and advancing soviet physics. We discuss what re...
Jun 06, 2021•1 hr 46 min
This is a narration of the fourth chapter of Lars Lih's excellent book Lenin Rediscovered: What Is to Be Done? In Context. In this chapter, Lih scrutinizes two opponents of the Russian Erfurtianism that Lenin championed: the Credo and Rabochaia mysl. This gives valuable insight into the political terrain on which What Is to Be Done? was deployed. The full audiobook is currently in production by the team at Cosmonaut Magazine. You can find more episodes (and other audio books) on our Youtube chan...
Jun 03, 2021•2 hr 8 min
Lydia and Rudy join Matzpen member Ehud Ein-Gil for a discussion on trade unionism within the Israeli state. We discuss Ehud's experiences around the founding of Koach LaOvdim as a new sort of union, the history and structure of the Histadrut and how that has affected trade unionism inside the '48 borders, his experience organizing bus drivers, the intermediate status of the Mizraim Jews in Israeli society, the effects of the Arab Spring on Israel, his thoughts on religion and secularism, and hi...
May 31, 2021•1 hr 11 min
Ellie, Amelia, Matt and Rudy discuss the life and work of Col. John Boyd, one of the foremost military strategists of the last century. We discuss how the left should relate to military science, Boyd's main ideas such as the OODA loop and the Moral & Mental domains of struggle, his influences: Clausewitz and Sun Tzu, and how Boyd was able to use them to develop his ideas on strategy, and we finish up with examples of how politicians use similar ideas to Boyd and how we should use them for wi...
May 23, 2021•1 hr 26 min
This is a narration of the third chapter of Lars Lih's excellent book Lenin Rediscovered: What Is to Be Done? In Context. In this chapter, Lih explores three crucial texts from the Iskra period of Lenin's career, December 1900 to August 1903. The first, Russia and Its Crisis, was written by liberal revolutionary Paul Miliukov and explains the context of the revolutionary situation leading up to 1905 in which Iskra was published. The second, the Bolsheviks' Amsterdam Report from 1904, looked back...
May 20, 2021•1 hr 52 min
Annie and Rudy join Greg Afinogenov from Stomp Out Slumlords for a discussion on tenants unions, and how SoS has thought about the work of Cloward and Piven to develop ideas on how to build sustainable mass organisations. We discuss how to build mass constituencies for actions and what the goal of tenants unionism should be. Further reading: R. A. Cloward, F. F. Piven - Disruptive Dissensus: People and Power in the Industrial Age Stomp Out Slumlords's organizing report of February 2021...
May 16, 2021•59 min
This is a narration of the second chapter of Lars Lih's excellent book Lenin Rediscovered: What Is to Be Done? In Context. In this chapter, Lih examines all the programmatic writings from Lenin in the 1890s and demonstrates the revolutionary leader's consistency throughout this time. This sets the stage for Lenin's later polemics at the start of the 20th century, including What Is to Be Done? The full audiobook is currently in production by the team at Cosmonaut Magazine. You can find more episo...
May 13, 2021•1 hr 43 min
Christian and Connor sit down with Helen Yaffe to discuss her book We Are Cuba . We talked about the history and political economy of revolutionary Cuba before and after the post-Soviet period. Some of topics we touched on were the nature of democracy on the island, the relationship of Cuba to the United States, and how Cuba has dealt with the pandemic and coming crisis of climate change. Other resources mentioned: Emily Morris - Unexpected Cuba The documentary Cuba & COVID 19 Public Health,...
May 09, 2021•1 hr 50 min
Amelia Davenport joins Samuel Bowles for a short discussion on his life-long research on global poverty and education. They discuss Bowles's history and how this led to his orientation, his work on education "Schooling in Capitalist America", including what he has changed his mind on, his thoughts about markets, incentives, central planning and capitalist economies, as well as other theories such as the value-form abolition, neo-liberal economics. He also talks about teaching economics to underg...
May 03, 2021•46 min
This is a narration of the first chapter of Lars Lih's excellent book Lenin Rediscovered: What Is to Be Done? In Context. In this chapter, Lih explains how the legacy of figures like Marx, Engels, Lassalle, Kautsky, and others influenced Lenin. There's also a wonderful exploration of how the pre-war SPD served as the original model for the "vanguard party" (though in a very different way from how the term is used today). The full audiobook is currently in production by the team at Cosmonaut Maga...
Apr 29, 2021•2 hr 26 min
Rudy joins Zama and Jonathan from Amazonians United to discuss their shop floor alternative which has organized walkouts in Chicago, and started a national fight for PTO. They discuss the way they bond with co-workers on the shop floor, what their next steps are, and how different their organizing looks like to that of RWDSU which organized the Bessemer (Alabama) unionization effort. We also discuss medium- and long-term goals, as well as how they relate to the existing socialist movement....
Apr 26, 2021•1 hr 21 min
Destructive cults are usually considered the domain of religious movements. The Left, however, has its own track record of cults. Gus Breslauer sympathetically examines this history in search of the political questions that produce such groups, how they operate, and how to overcome them. Robert Fish reads the article out loud.
Apr 22, 2021•56 min
Roger and Rudy join Frank Bardacke, author of Trampling out the Vintage: Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers for a discussion on the UFW, its history, its tactics, its structure and its slow loss of relevance. We focus on the boycott as a tactic: how the UFW pioneered the use of boycotts, how winning the 1965-70 Delano grape campaign through a boycott shifted the power in the union from workers to staffers, and how both tactics, and what they represented in the union, would...
Apr 19, 2021•1 hr 30 min
This is a narration of the 37-page introduction to Lars Lih's excellent book Lenin Rediscovered: What Is to Be Done? In Context . Going against conventional wisdom, Lih presents a detailed study that paints Lenin as an optimist inspired by the capacity of the working class and determined to guide them to carry out their historic mission. Furthermore, Lih identifies the German Social Democratic Party as Lenin's ideal model of a revolutionary party, which he tried to implement to the greatest exte...
Apr 15, 2021•1 hr 22 min
Parker and Matthew sit down with sociologist and labor activist Yueran Zhang to discuss workers' struggles in contemporary China. Topics discussed include public memory of Tiananmen Square, the Chongqing model, trade unionism and labor activism in the Pearl River Delta, the Jasic workers' struggle, and prospects for the revolutionary left. ------ Check out Yueran's articles on The Forgotten Socialists of Tiananmen Square and Leninists in a Chinese Factory...
Apr 12, 2021•1 hr 19 min
