Cosmopod

Isaac and Jack join Jarrod Shanahan, an activist, educator, and the author of Captives: How Rikers Island Took New York City Hostage , for a wide-ranging conversation. We cover the last 70 years of New York City's political history from the lens of the city's jails. We discuss the various actors fighting for control in the city: the politicians and bureaucrats responsible for the administration of...

Donald and Luke talk with Bruno Leipold about his forthcoming book, Citizen Marx: Republicanism and the Formation of Karl Marx's Social and Political Thought . Bruno touches on several topics including English Chartism, democratic republicanism, national constitutions, and the political development Marx and Engels's over the years. Bruno emphasizes the democratic republican foundation of Marxism a...

Chas, James, and Rudy delve into the history of the Polish People's Republic in this episode, focusing on the influential Solidarity movement. They explore communism's roots in Poland from the interwar period to WWII, highlighting the challenges posed by the Soviet invasion. The conversation covers the post-WWII liberation, the establishment of the Polish nation-state, and the diverse governmental...

Rob, Eric and Rudy continue their discussion of the Algerian revolution from the fall of Ben Bella to the end of the Black Decade (known in the West as the Algerian Civil War). We discuss the starting point of Boumedienne's government, the agrarian reform and the developmentalist program undertaken in industry, as well as the internal divisions of the FLN during this period which led to widespread...

Renzo Llorente critically responds to Gil Schaeffer's views on democratic rights and socialism.  Read By: Will Intro Music: ворожное озеро Гроза vwqp remix Outro Music: We are Friends Forever performed by Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment.

Gus, Donald and Isaac join Esra, author of the webside CR-CPUSA Exposed: Hub for Information and Recovery for a discussion on their experience inside the Committee to Reconstitute the Communist Party of the USA, also known as the Red Guards. We go into a lot of detail on how the CR-CPUSA operated, how it related to its locals and how it was basically centered around the personality of Jared Roark,...

Rudy and Christian join Chris Gilbert for a discussion on his new book Commune or Nothing! Venezuela's Communal Movement and its Socialist Project . We cover the history of the Venezuelan communal project, and how it relates to previous attempts of the government to build a socialist economy including the Venezuelan cooperative movement or the drive to build state-run industry. We discuss the idea...

Luke joins Gil Shaeffer, a former member of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and author of " You Can't Use Weatherman to Show Which Way the Wind Blew " to talk about the SDS, the New Left, and the centrality of democratic republicanism to Marxism. Gil discusses his path to joining SDS in the late 1960s, the impact of figures like C Wright Mills, the little-remembered March on Fort Dix, and...

Gus Breslauer responds to Angry Workers of the World on the issue of Palestine and Zionism. There is no path "around" Intifada, the working class must go in-and-through it. Read by: Will Intro Music: ворожное озеро Гроза vwqp remix Outro Music: We are Friends Forever performed by Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment.

Donald, Christian, and Connor sit down to discuss the political economic conditions of the Soviet Union during the period of the New Economic Policy. Over the course of the episode, they cover War Communism, the intellectual currents and debates within the Party, the importance of the peasant question, the geopolitics of isolation, and the NEP's long term viability. References: R. C. Allen - Farm...

Luke joins Douglas Egerton, author of The Wars of Reconstruction: The Brief, Violent History of America's Most Progressive Era , for a conversation about an epoch-defining period in U.S. history. Drawing from the lives of lesser-known actors, Douglas details attempts to transform the foundation of society following the Civil War and the vociferous resistance to those changes. Douglas provides an o...

Rudy joins Matteo Capasso, author of Everyday Politics in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya for a discussion on Libya with a focus on the period from 1969 to 2011. We delves into Matteo's  research on Libya, exploring the myths and stories surrounding Libya's history, aiming to dispel the notion of Qaddafi's authoritarianism and the concept of statelessness among the Libyan people. The conversation takes...

Rob, Eric and Rudy delve into the Algerian revolution, tracing its roots back to French colonization, through the liberation war, and the Ben Bella period. This first part of the discussion on Algeria explores the 19th-century French settlement of Algeria and the various phases of colonization. It also examines the impact of Algerian labor migration to France and its role in the liberation war. We...

Gil Schaeffer responds to Renzo Llorente's "The Contradictions and Confusions of 'Democratic Socialism" and argues that socialists need to base their politics on a coherent ethical theory of democratic rights. Read by: Will Intro Music: ворожное озеро Гроза vwqp remix Outro Music: We are Friends Forever performed by Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment.

Rudy joins Immanuel Ness to discuss his recent work Migration as Economic Imperialism: How International Labour Mobility Undermines Economic Development in Poor Countries . We begin by explaining why migration is economic imperialism and addressing key questions about who migrates, their reasons, and destinations, highlighting evolving migration patterns. We explore how migration patterns are desi...

Hank Kennedy traces the ideological history of Superman, arguing that the populism of the character's early iterations would eventually be shed as a result of commercial interests. Read by: Keir Intro Music: ворожное озеро Гроза vwqp remix Outro Music: We are Friends Forever performed by Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment.

Rudy joins authors Helen Hester and Nick Srnicek to explore their latest book, After Work: A History of the Home and the Fight for Free Time . The conversation commences with a clear definition of domestic work, setting the stage for the book's unique perspective on this issue in contrast to other theoretical frameworks. The dialogue delves into 20th-century trends in household labor within the gl...

Luke Pickrell of Marxist Unity Group emphasizes the centrality of radical democracy to the communist project and reintroduces the construction of the democratic republic as the foundational political goal for socialists today. He emphatically asserts that if socialists are to defeat the tricephalic hydra of capitalist domination, we must aim for the heart – "the source and parent of all the other...

Amelia joins Amy, Steven, and Greg for a discussion centered around the  Marxist Unity Group (MUG) in the aftermath of the recent Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) convention. Amy, who earned a seat on the National Political Committee (NPC) through her election at the convention, as well as the others provide an insider's perspective on the organization of DSA and the significance of the Nati...

Chas, Christian, Rudy, and James come together to delve into a comprehensive conversation about the Prague Spring, a significant Czechoslovak reform movement. Their discussion begins by tracing the roots of Czechoslovak communism, recounting the post-World War II Communist ascension to power, and elaborating on the gradual and intricate reform drive that eventually culminated in Dubček's rise to l...

Luke and Donald join Alexander Gourevitch, author of From Slavery to Cooperative Commonwealth: Labor and Republican Liberty in the 19th Century, for a wide-ranging discussion about the republican conception of freedom and how republicanism was taken up by workers in the United States. They begin by discussing older conceptions of freedom and slavery and how those ideas evolved. They consider the W...

Jackson, Rudy and Steve sit down to talk about political education in the communist movement. They explore their personal experiences with education in both formal  and political settings, highlighting the contrasting dynamics. Delving  into the models of political education within a party, they emphasize  the significance of cultivating a shared language and vision. The trio  generously shares pr...

Splits and purges are no solution to the problem of disagreement in the socialist movement. Marisa Miale calls for unity in diversity in the context of the DSA. Read By: LC Intro Music: ворожное озеро Гроза vwqp remix Outro Music: We are Friends Forever performed by Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment.

Rudy joins Adela Cedillo, co-editor of Challenging Authoritarianism in Mexico Revolutionary Struggles and the Dirty War, 1964-1982 , and author of several studies on the Mexican dirty war such as El Fuego y El Silencio, Historia de las Fuerzas de Liberación Nacional Mexicanas (1969-1974) , for a conversation on this period of history. We discuss the mixed legacy of the Mexican revolution, the stat...

Renzo Llorente engages with contemporary advocates of Democratic Socialism and argues that they ultimately fail to demarcate between liberal and socialist visions of democracy, resulting in capitulation to the liberal status quo.  Read By: Will Intro Music: ворожное озеро Гроза vwqp remix Outro Music: We are Friends Forever performed by Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment.