Show Notes:

If you’d rather not hear references to sexual assault, skip 19:35 - 20:06; mild mention between 45:15 - 45: 20.

This week, Matt and Cameron continue building the factory in the second half of Fyodor Gladkov’s Cement. Following the assault upon the factory, dark clouds loom on the Soviet horizon as committees interfere, the effects of the NEP become clearer, and a party purge approaches… Grab your shovel, comrade, and get to work! But don’t forget to put this podcast on while you dig.

Major themes: Practicality vs. Idealism, Sometimes Side-Characters are the Real Main Characters, Ambivalence.

03:22 - The brewer is - drum roll please…Baltika Breweries. Maybe the Baltika is damaging my memory.

07:32 - Love of the Worker Bees by Alexandra Kollontai

08:08 - Okay, there are also a lot of other things that Lenin adds to Marxist thought to differentiate Marxist-Leninism. Notably, I would point to the introduction of the Vanguard and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat as concepts assisting a systematic approach to revolution rather than the much more “spontaneous” collapse of Capitalism that Marxism tends to imply. Please don’t come for me, theory people.

If you’re interested in the “modern” forms of Capital (where it is not just a physical thing, but also a theoretical thing), I would definitely recommend that you read Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism by Lenin. That’s a much better explanation of what I was trying to express here.

14:08 - The soft noise you’re hearing in the background is my cat trying to get into my room.

28:38 - “A herd”

32:54 - Specifically for saying that the Bersteinists and Legal Marxists don’t matter. To be clear, those groups do matter if we’re looking at movements globally, but they don’t matter specifically in the post-Russian Civil War context.

46:45 - “The Unmentionable Politics in Gladkov’s Cement” by Edward Vavra

49:22 - Left Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder by Lenin

The music used in this episode was “soviet march,” by Toasted Tomatoes. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube.

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Marcy Dermansky, "Hot Air" (Knopf, 2025)

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