Cosmopod

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.

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...

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 Par...

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 Social...

Alex, Rudy and Christian sit down to discuss the history of the German Democratic Republic from its foundation atop the ruins of WW2 to the prelude of reunification. They discuss the challenges of building socialism in the fourth of ruined country, the challenges of brain drain, the economy before and after the Wall was built, the intelligentsia/worker divide, the varying responsiveness of the rul...

Jonah Martell proposes a radical New Union Act to throw the antiquated US Constitution into the dustbin of history. Cliff Connolly reads the article out loud.

Sam and Rudy join Ian Scott Horst, author of Like Ho Chi Minh! Like Che Guevara! The Revolutionary Left in Ethiopia, 1969–1979 (Foreign Languages Press) for a discussion on the 1974 revolution in Ethiopia and  the relationship to the Ethiopian present, as well as what we can learn and apply from it for today's world. We talk about the questions of Eritrean and Ethiopian nationalism, the role of th...

Lydia and Anne sit down with Daria Dyakonova to discuss the often neglected history of the Communist Women's Movement (1920-22). They talk about the origins of the movement, its most important figures, the debates around what the base of the CWM would be, and what would be the main issues it tackled, its changing relationship to the Comintern and its recurring fight against male chauvinism within...

Amelia, Jake, Steve and Rudy sit down for a discussion of what experiences in organizing brought them to be interested in Cybernetics and Beer's viable system model, and how they try to think through the structures of the organizations they currently are members of in Beerian terms. They discuss the dichotomies of centralization/de-centralization and here/now vs then/there, and how to balance them...

Cliff Connolly critiques CounterPower's vision of the "party of autonomy" and offers an alternative vision of the mass party.  Cliff reads his article aloud.

Lydia, Isaac and Rudy join Emmanuel Farjoun from Matzpen for a discussion on his 1983  piece Class divisions in Israeli society and how the divisions have changed in the present day. We  discuss the changing strength of the Palestinians inside Israel and how that is reflected in their changing political aims, the differences between whiteness in the US and the construction of race in Israel, and t...

Matt Strupp reads aloud the a reprint of the mission statement of Marxist Unity Slate , a set of proposals for the 2021 DSA convention with the aim of fostering democratic discipline and principled election campaigns, as well as uniting Marxists in DSA around a vision of a mass socialist party. The proposals can be read and signed here, 100 signatures are needed to bring these to the convention. M...

Donald and Rudy sit down with Wayne Au, author of A Marxist Education . They discuss his experiences on providing a critical education, how education in the US currently stands and how Covid has just brought to the forefront issues faced by students. They discuss the Au's work on Paulo Freire and Lev Vygotsky, and end up envisioning how a socialist school could look like.

Mikael Lyngaas  argues that post-work theorists ranging from Bob Black to Srnicek and Williams are utopian socialism for the current era. Sam Wiles reads the article out loud.

Renato Flores argues for self-determination and reparations for Black Americans as a key part of the revolutionary struggle in the USA. Robert Fisher reads the article out loud.

Ian and Donald join William Clare Roberts (@MarxInHell), author of Marx's Inferno for a discussion on the wider themes of his book: republicanism,  non-domination, theories of freedom, the early communist movement, and  how to read capital both politically and scientifically.

Isaac and Rudy join Moshé Machover, one of the four founding members of the Israeli Socialist Organization, better known as Matzpen after the name of their publication for a discussion on the group's  origins, how their anti-zionist consciousness originated and developed,  their marginalization by Israeli society during the 1967 war and how  Arab/Jewish solidarity was built. The conversation then...

Parker and Alex have a conversation with the editor and translator of Karl Kautsky on Democracy and Republicanism  (Haymarket, 2020) on the legacy of Karl Kautsky before he turned  renegade. They discuss the convergence of various conflicting political views, from 'Leninists' to Social Democrats and Cold War Warriors, into what Ben Lewis calls in his book a "peculiar consensus" that fundamentally...

With family abolition a controversial topic in the current-day leftist discourse, Alyson Escalante argues for a more nuanced and sensitive approach to the topic by looking at the works of Karl Marx and Alexandra Kollontai while exploring the relation of colonialism to the family. Sam Wiles reads the article aloud.

Matt and Christian join Zhun Xu, author of From Commune to Capitalism: How China's Peasants Lost Collective Farming and Gained Urban Poverty for a discussion on China's communes from their construction to their dismantling. They contextualize land reform globally, elaborate on how the Chinese land reform process looked different from the Soviet one, discuss how the  communes looked and functioned,...

Richard Hunsinger argues that migrant concentration camps represent a descent into fascist barbarism and are related to the inherent tendencies of capitalism. Remi Debs reads the article aloud. -------------------- Find more information about Richard's case in: https://twitter.com/DefendRichard/ , and please donate to the Atlanta Solidarity Fund

For the latest episode of our series on Actually Existing Socialism, Christian, Rudy, Donald and Connor join forces for a discussion on the Yugoslav self-management in its different iterations. We use Darko Suvin's Splendor, Misery and Possibilities: An X-Ray of Socialist Yugoslavia as a background to outline an exploration of the successive reforms where self-management was first brought in as a...

Rudy is joined by Jasdeep and Sangeet to talk about the recent farmers protests going on in Northern India, especially around the regions of Punjab and Haryana. They discuss the origins of the movement and of the farmers union, how the movement relates to workers and urban dwellers and how the questions of caste, religion and gender are dealt with. The conversation then examines the total particip...

Parker and Alex join Emil Jacobs of the Socialist Party of the Netherlands to discuss the factional struggle and expulsion of the Communist Platform group. They discuss the party's bureaucratic centralism and opposition to open democratic struggle by the party's parliamentary fraction. Should communists bother to try to push for principled politics within the broader workers movement? Why or why n...

Rudy is joined by Jonathan, Henry and Felipe from the Boston Independent Drivers Guild for a discussion on how gig drivers are  resisting and organizing against precarity in their jobs. We discuss  what a typical working day looks like and how drivers relate to their  jobs and what the workforce looks like and what challenges that entails  when organizing, such as multilingualism. Felipe discusses...