The Regrettable Century

Back with another book that Chris read in grad school, this time we are dealing with the problem of repopulating the Soviet Union after the Second World War. Please forgive the intermittent audio problems with Jason's track, we are still trying to figure out how to record in the same room and actually make it sound good.Mie Nakachi. Replacing the Dead : The Politics of Reproduction in the Postwar Soviet Union. New York, Ny: Oxford University Press, 2021.Head over to our Patreon and join for $2 a month to hear the whole episode and join the Discord to take part in the discussions.Support the showSend us a message (sorry we can't respond on here). Support the show

This week the Law Boyz are back with a special guest, Kevin. We discuss the concept of the lumpenproletariat and their historical role as foot soldiers of reaction. Then we all argue about the police. Peter Stallybrass (1990) Marx and Heterogeneity: Thinking the Lumpenproletariat, Representations, No. 31, Special Issue: The Margins of Identity in Nineteenth-Century England, pp. 69-95Nicholas Thoburn (2002) Difference in Marx: the lumpenproletariat and the proletarian unnamable,  Economy and Society, 31:3, 434-460Robert L. Bussard (1987) The ‘dangerous class’ of Marx and Engels: The rise of the idea of the Lumpenproletariat, History of European Ideas, 8:6, 675-692Music: Johnny Cash- This Side of the LawSend us a message (sorry we can't respond on here). Support the show

I know we said we were done with our Czechoslovak Socialism series, but like George Lucas we just couldn't leave well enough alone and have made a prequel. It turns out there is an interesting pre-history to Czechoslovak Socialist Republic that is worth discussing. Head over to our Patreon and join for $2 a month to hear the whole episode and join the Discord to take part in the discussions.Support the showSend us a message (sorry we can't respond on here). Support the show

No Royal Road is back with part four of our discussion of Evegny Morozov's "Critique of Techno-Feudal Reason."Check out Varn Vlog here:https://www.patreon.com/varnvlogSend us a message (sorry we can't respond on here). Support the show

Our third reading group episode on Revolution: An Intellectual History, by Enzo Traverso. This week we discuss Concepts, Symbols, and Realms of Memory. Traverso, Enzo. 2021. Revolution : An Intellectual History. London ; New York: Verso.https://www.versobooks.com/products/2783-revolutionHead over to our Patreon and join for $2 a month to hear the whole episode and join the Discord to take part in the discussions.Support the showSend us a message (sorry we can't respond on here). Support the show

Kevin recently gave a talk about William Morris' transition from romantic anti-capitalism to Marxism and is thus well suited to school us on the subject. We decided to record it and share it with all of you.  How I Became a Socialist (William Morris)https://www.marxists.org/archive/morris/works/1894/hibs/hibs.htmUnder an Elm-Tree, Or, Thoughts in the Country-Side (William Morris)https://www.marxists.org/archive/morris/works/1889/commonweal/07-elm-tree.htmFacing the Worst of It (William Morris)https://www.marxists.org/archive/morris/works/1887/commonweal/02-facing-worst.htmWilliam Morris (E.P. Thompson)https://www.marxists.org/archive/thompson-ep/1959/william-morris.htmSend us a message (sorry we can't respond on here). Support the show

This week we return to an old favorite topic of ours, the warm stream, romantic, or gothic in Marxism. This time we are joined by an accredited expert in all things gothic, Jon from the Horror Vanguard. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/horror-vanguard/id1445594437https://twitter.com/TheLitCritGuyBloch, Ernst, Neville Plaice, and Stephen Plaice. The Principle of Hope. Vol. 1. MIT Press, 1995.Music: Sisters of Mercy- She's a Monster Send us a message (sorry we can't respond on here). Support the show

Ukrainian Nationalism and Third Worldism in the Cold WarThis week we read and discussed Congo on the Dnipro: Third Worldism and the Nationalization of Soviet Internationalism in Ukraine by Thom Lloyd. The author discusses attempts by Ukrainian nationalists to appropriate the language of third world liberation struggles, but with a twist (spoiler alert, its a racist one).Loyd, Thom. "Congo on the Dnipro: Third Worldism and the Nationalization of Soviet Internationalism in Ukraine." Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 22, no. 4 (2021): 787-811. doi:10.1353/kri.2021.0053.Head over to our Patreon and join for $2 a month to hear the whole episode and join the Discord to take part in the discussions.Support the showSend us a message (sorry we can't respond on here). Support the show

The Patsocs are coming, the Patsocs are coming! There has been much fruitless discourse and claims of rising fascism among the keyboard proletarian vanguard about the problem of Social Patriotism. We got the original gang back together to talk about what the appropriate level for freaking out about it on the internet is. There is no contradiction between patriotism and socialismhttps://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/there-no-contradiction-between-patriotism-and-socialism Is There a Place for Patriotism on the Left?  https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/patriotism-left-nationalism/Democratic Socialism Must Be Internationalisthttps://jacobin.com/2021/04/john-judis-the-socialist-awakening-review-socialist-left-internationalism-nationalismIn Defense of U.S. Proletarian Patriotismhttps://www.midwesternmarx.com/articles/in-defense-of-us-proletarian-patriotism-a-comradely-response-to-danny-haiphongs-marxist-polemic-on-patriotic-socialism-by-kayla-popuchet British Communism’s Patriotic Diseasehttps://www.ebb-magazine.com/essays/british-communisms-patriotic-disease The Case for a Left Patriotismhttps://www.thebellows.org/the-case-for-a-left-patriotism/Send us a message (sorry we can't respond on here). Support the show

Welcome to our second reading group episode on Revolution: An Intellectual History, by Enzo Traverso. This week we discuss BODIES. Traverso, Enzo. 2021. Revolution : An Intellectual History. London ; New York: Verso.Head over to our Patreon and join for $2 a month to hear the whole episode and join the Discord to take part in the discussions.Support the showSend us a message (sorry we can't respond on here). Support the show