Actually Existing Socialism

Understanding Siege Socialism w/ Gabriel Rockhill

Jul 9, 2024

Gabriel Rockhill, the Founding Director of the Critical Theory Workshop and a leading scholar in Marxism, delves into the provocative concept of 'siege socialism.' He explains the dynamic interplay of historical materialism and dialectics, highlighting how socialist movements navigate external threats. Rockhill critiques Western misunderstandings of the Soviet Union and the complexities of socialist state-building amid imperialism. He draws lessons from history and emphasizes the need for deeper comprehension within the Western left to evolve socialism effectively.

01:02:35

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Episode guests

Gabriel Rockhill

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Quick takeaways

Siege socialism illustrates how external imperialist pressures have historically forced socialist governments to adopt survival strategies, deeply influencing their development.

Historical materialism and dialectics are essential for understanding socialism's evolution, emphasizing its context rather than a fixed ideological endpoint.

The distinction between tactics and strategy in socialism reveals that adapting to adversities is crucial for achieving long-term egalitarian goals.

Deep dives

The Emergence of Siege Socialism

Socialism in practice has historically emerged from an environment of external threats and imperialist pressures, a concept known as 'siege socialism.' Governments that identified with socialist ideologies often faced invasions, sabotage, and espionage from capitalist states trying to suppress their development. This siege mentality was essential for states such as Nicaragua, where the Sandinista revolution faced immediate aggression that necessitated the establishment of state security apparatuses to preserve the revolution. The very idea of socialism is crucially tied to its confrontations with imperialism; without the context of these aggressions, many communist or socialist states might have developed in radically different, more stable environments.

Intro

5min

Understanding Siege Socialism and Historical Materialism

14min

Siege Socialism: Historical Contexts and Challenges

17min

The Misunderstanding of Soviet Leadership and Western Disinformation

3min

Evolving Socialism: Lessons from History

10min

The Berlin Wall: Security or Sovereignty?

6min

Navigating Socialist Challenges

7min

Gabriel Rockhill joins to talk about a controversial concept for Western socialists: “siege socialism”. A term coined by the great Michael Parenti.

Unlike most episodes of this show we won’t be focusing on a specific country but examining the variety of past and present socialist countries through the lens of historical materialism and dialectics, two concepts Gabriel explains for us.

Gabriel Rockhill is the Founding Director of the Critical Theory Workshop, Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University, and the author or editor of over nine books, as well as numerous scholarly and general public articles.

He is the editor of the upcoming translation of Domenico Losurdo’s magisterial Western Marxism: How it was Born, How it Died, How it can be Reborn. It is is a paradigm-shifting book that provides a trenchant critique of the Western left intelligentsia. It reveals how its dominant ideological orientation—characterized by defeatism, utopianism, and anti-communism—is rooted in the political economy of imperialism.

You can support the show at www.patreon.com/aesthepodcast

To learn more about Gabriel's work check out the following links:

https://x.com/GabrielRockhill

https://monthlyreview.org/product/western-marxism/

https://gabrielrockhill.com/

https://criticaltheoryworkshop.com/

https://www.youtube.com/@criticaltheoryworkshop5299

https://monthlyreview.org/product/western-marxism/

Intro/Closing Music