Actually Existing Socialism

In this episode we discuss Alice Malone's essay entitled "Concessions" which contains a well sourced and foundational explanation regarding 20th century history that every socialist should be aware of!  Alice illustrates how the gains and progressive feats won by workers of the Soviet Union challenged capitalist elites in the West to concede social reforms in their own countries. Reforms such as d...

Robert Thurston, historian of Soviet history, joins the show to talk about his extensive archival research focused on the infamous "Great Terror" or mass arrests of 1937-1938. In doing so Robert rebuts the perrenial anti-communist argument - the claim that the Soviet Union under Stalin was totalitarian! We also discuss the impact his research had on his career, the role CIA, MI5 and other capitali...

Calla Walsh and Aeron join the show to talk about the absurd imperialist rationales and devestating impacts of Cuba's placement on the US State Departments State Sponsor of Terror list.  Calla is a co-chair of the National Network on Cuba ( https://twitter.com/NNOCuba ). Aeron is a member of the Michigan General Defense Committee ( https://www.instagram.com/michigangdc/ ).  Help support the show b...

Calla Walsh and Aeron join the show to talk about ways we can all stand in solidarity with Cuba and why engaging in internationalism is a necessary path to socialism both at home and abroad.  Calla is a co-chair of the National Network on Cuba ( https://twitter.com/NNOCuba ). Aeron is a member of the Michigan General Defense Committee ( https://www.instagram.com/michigangdc/ ).  Help support the s...

Michael Jabara Carley joins the show to talk about his extensive and decades long archival research into Soviet international relations. He focuses particularly on the attempts by Joseph Stalin (in the 6 years leading up to World War II) to build a grand alliance with Britain, France and other European nations against Nazi Germany.  This was a call to maintain peace which ultimately was left unhee...

Nana Osei-Opare joins the show to discuss his extensive academic work on Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's socialist period, and Ghana's relationship with the Soviet Union during the Cold War.   In this episode's discussion we examine why anti-colonial figures in Africa favored an alliance with the Soviet Union over the capitalist West. We assess Ghana's socialist period and Kwame Nkrumah's socialist program...

Gerald Horne, a prolific communist historian, joins the show to discuss his 2019 book " White Supremacy Confronted ". This work focuses on the socialist bloc's vital collaboration with the African National Congress (ANC) and South African Communist Party to end apartheid in southern Africa.  In this episode we start with the origins of European settler colonialism in Southern Africa and how that l...

Holly High, an anthropologist who does field work in Laos, joins the show to discuss her book, " Projectland: Life in a Lao Socialist Model Village ". In this final part of our two part discussion we look at socialist democracy and culture in Laos. We cover what political participation looks like in Laos today including the real life functioning of a one party socialist state, democratic centralis...

Holly High, an anthropologist who does field work in Laos, joins the show to discuss her book, " Projectland: Life in a Lao Socialist Model Village ". In this first part of our two part discussion we look at the revolutionary origins of Laos. We begin with the pre-revolutionary period when Lao was under colonial rule and end with the successful People's War of 1945-1975 including the horrific bomb...

We continue the enlightening discussion with Victor Grossman, a former American soldier who defected to East Germany in 1952.  In this concluding episode we cover Victor's life as a journalist in East Germany and what that meant in terms of censorship and free expression, his bombshell reporting on "former" Nazi's active in the West Germant government and in the nascent North Atlantic Treaty Organ...

Victor Grossman, a former American solider who defected to East Germany in 1952, joins the show to discuss his remarkable life and experiences in this short lived socialist nation.  We cover Victor's activism in the American communist movement of the 1940s including his participation in the Black freedom struggle of that era, the circumstances surrounding his defection, and what life was actually...

  Steve Paxton, joins the show to discuss his book, "Unlearning Marx: Why the Soviet Failure was a Triumph for Marx". The book focuses on Marx's theory of history and how Marx foresaw the unsustainability of a successful socialist revolution in the Soviet Union decades before it formed.   Some of what we talk about in this episode includes understanding what conservatives and socialists have to "u...

Bruni de la Motte, born and raised in East Germany, joins the show to discuss her book "Stasi State or Socialist Paradise?: The German Democratic Republic and What Became of It". The purpose of her book, which she co-authored with John Greene, is to provide a more balanced take on East Germany then what is popularly remembered of this ambitious socialist experiment.   Some of what we cover include...

Samantha Lomb, a PHD in Russian history, joins the show to discuss her book "Stalin's Constitution: Soviet Participatory Politics and the Discussion of the 1936 Draft Constitution".   Based on her studies of soviet archives Samantha guides us through a discussion of how the average Soviet citizen participated in reforming their new constitution in 1936 (one of the most progressive constitutions ev...

Calla Walsh, anti-imperialist writer and organizer, joins the show to discuss her article published in Multipolarista titled " Abortion in Cuba vs US shows which country is truly democratic".   We cover her organizing experiences and her recent visit to Cuba as a member of a her local Cuba solidarity group. In our in-depth discussion we compare the reality of Cuba's thriving socialist democracy to...

Alice and Dennis Bartels, authors of "When the North Was Red: Aboriginal Education in Soviet Siberia", join the show to discuss their extensive ethnographic research of the Indigenous (also known as Northern) peoples of the Soviet Union.  We cover the experience of the various Northern peoples before, during, and after Soviet socialism and how it greatly differed from the genocidal experience of t...

Alice and Dennis Bartels, authors of "When the North Was Red: Aboriginal Education in Soviet Siberia", join the show to discuss their extensive ethnographic research of the Indigenous (also known as Northern) peoples of the Soviet Union.  We cover the experience of the various Northern peoples before, during, and after Soviet socialism and how it greatly differed from the genocidal experience of t...

Julia Mead joins the show to discuss the article she co-authored with Kristen Ghodsee entitled "What Has Socialism Ever Done For Women?"   From abortion rights to women's unions the Soviet Union was a leader in the fight for women's equality. In this enlightening episode Julia expertly explains the ideas of 19th century socialist feminism, the realization of these ideas in the struggle for women's...

Premier episode! Dr. Howard Waitzkin joins the show to discuss  his landmark 1986 study which compares physical quality of life (life span, literacy rates, education accessibility, infant mortality rate etc.) between capitalist and socialist nations at the same level of development. The study demonstrates conclusively the material benefits of a socialist political economy. Some of the stuff we cov...