Cosmopod

Rudy joins Piero Gleijeses, author of Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington and Africa, 1959–1976 and Visions of Freedom: Havana, Washington, Pretoria, and the Struggle for Southern Africa, 1976–1991 for a short discussion on Cuba's internationalist efforts in Africa. We discuss the start of Piero's project, and how he was allowed access to the Cuban archives and his interactions with Cuban official Jorge Risquet during his research on Cuba in Algeria. We then talk about what moved Cubans to focus on solidarity work in Africa, why Cuba intervened in Angola, and what was the USSR's role in this. We discuss the significance of the Angolan struggle, as well as the end of the Cold War and Apartheid and how they were related. We finish by discussing the memory of Cubans in Africa. Further interviews: The Dig Radio Radio War Nerd EP #232 — Cuba in Angola Wars, with Piero Gleijeses Cadre Journal's Podcast Episode from 25 May 2022: Cuba's War Against Apartheid: The Heroic Cuban Operation in Angola, with Piero Gleijeses

Renato Flores discusses the privatization of scientific knowledge and examines efforts of revolutionary movements to democratize this knowledge to help develop a communist approach to science. Narrated By: Allen Lanterman Intro Music: ворожное озеро Гроза vwqp remix Outro Music: We are Friends Forever performed by Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment.

Rudy joins Ashok Kumar author of Monopsony Capitalism: Power and Production in the Twilight of the Sweatshop Age for a discussion on global sweatshops, labor and commodity chains. We start off by comparing the Triangle Shirtwaist fire of 1912 and the Rana Plaza disaster of 2013, and explaining what has changed and what has stayed the same. We talk about the particular role of the textile industry in capitalism, how it changed under globalization and what it reveals for the capitalist system focusing on the topic of monopsony, i.e. single buyer markets. We discuss the position of labor in the textile industry, how it has shaped global supply chains, and what types of organizing have won concessions from capital in the past and present.

With a focus on the recent organizing work of New York City Democratic Socialists of America, Comrades Isaac KD and Jack L critique the notion of a "policy feedback" loop as the guiding element of DSA's legislative strategy, as well as provide an alternative socialist framework for how DSA can engage with reform campaigns. Narrated by: Aliyah Intro Music: ворожное озеро Гроза vwqp remix Outro Music: We are Friends Forever performed by Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment.

James and Harry join Phil Burton-Cartledge, author of Falling Down: The Conservative Party and the Decline of Tory Britain for a discussion on his book. They discuss the Tories' crisis of political reproduction, how the party set the grounds for this with the Thatcher reforms, the class basis of the Conservative party before turning to explaining why understanding the Conservative party is important for the left not only in the United Kingdom but in the world. They follow by talking about the Tory reinvention during the New Labour period of dominance, the class dynamics behind the Brexit votes and how that was reflected in the two following general elections, how Phil would extend the book to cover Boris Johnson's downfall, Liz Truss's short interregnum and Rishi Sunak's rise before reflecting on what the future holds for the Tories and the possible ways they could reinvent themselves.

How should socialists engage in coalitional politics? Jack L draws conclusions based on historical lessons and recent experiences in the housing struggle. Narrated by: Cliff Intro Music: ворожное озеро Гроза vwqp remix Outro Music: We are Friends Forever performed by Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment.

Amelia, Djamil, Christian, and Rudy join for a discussion on the history of Soviet Cybernetics and the use of computers for socialist planning. We discuss the origins of Cybernetics, its role as a reform movement in the sciences, and why cybernetics became attractive to the Soviet academy in the 50s, before moving to the biographies and projects of Anatoly Kitov and Viktor Glushkov. We reflect on the failures of OGAS, and what could have been done better, as well as its positive legacy and finish by discussing the ways in which cybernetics was kept alive until the collapse of the USSR and the remaining possibilities for computerized planning. References: B. Peters - How Not to Network a Nation: The Uneasy History of the Soviet Internet L. Graham - Science, Philosophy and Human Behavior in the Soviet Union S. Gerontovich - InterNyet: Why the Soviet Union did not build a nationwide computer network S. Gerontovich - From Newspeak to Cyberspeak: A History of Soviet Cybernetics O. V. Kitova & V. A. Kitov - Anatoly Kitov and Victor Glushkov: Pioneers of Russian Digital Economy and Informatics V. Pikhorovich - Glushkov and His Ideas: Cybernetics of the Future Y. Revich - The Story of How the USSR Did Not Need the Pioneer of Cybernetics D. West - Cybernetics for the command economy: Foregrounding entropy in late Soviet planning

Rudy joins Emmanuel Farjoun, Moshé Machover and David Zachariah for a discussion on their two books Laws of Chaos: A Probabilistic Approach to Political Economy (EF&MM only) and How Labor Powers the Global Economy: A Labor Theory of Capitalism . We cover the origins of the project to develop a probabilistic approach to political economy and how it has developed, what are its basic assumptions, what sort of theory of value it proposes, why it treats labor preferentially and how it compares to other schools. We also discuss ways of extending the project to account for imperialism and other factors. We mention in the podcast Moshé's lecture How Labour Powers the Global Economy which gives an introduction to the book.

Annie and Lucas join Barbara C. Allen, editor of the recent collection of documents The Workers' Opposition in the Russian Communist Party: Documents, 1919-30 and author of Alexander Shlyapnikov, 1885-1937: Life of an Old Bolshevik for a conversation on the Workers' Opposition in the Russian Communist Party. They discuss what the Workers' Opposition was, as well as the biographies of the more important members such as Alexander Shlyapnikov and Sergei Medvedev, what the Workers' Opposition stood for, focusing on its relationship to specialists and to purges and the peasantry and the Workers' Opposition. They finish with the story of the eclipse of the Workers' Opposition, the fate of the trade unions and of Alexandra Kollontai after the demise of the organization.

Last week, over 100 Starbucks stores went on strike, the latest step in the astonishing growth of organizing in the restaurant industry. Astonishing now, but as Kevin Bruce writes in his excellent new book We Have Fed You All For A Thousand Years: New York City Food Worker Organizing, 1912-1937, in the long run of working class history, this is nothing new. Kevin is joined by Jackson and Isaac for a discussion on present and past labor organizing in the restaurant industry.