Cosmopod

Donald, Connor, Christian and Rudy sit down for a discussion on Cambodia throughout the Democratic Kampuchea period under Pol Pot (75-79) and the People's Republic of Kampuchea period under Heng Samrin (79-89). We talk about the ideological and material origins of Pol Pot's faction within the Communist Party of Kampuchea, and clarify its relationship to the other pro-Vietnamese factions in the CPK. We discuss what the material conditions were in '75 when the CPK takes power, the events during the Pol Pot period including city evacuations, ethnic repression, party purges and the relationships of production in the countryside. We follow with talking about how the DK's aggressive border policies led to the Vietnamese invasion in '79 and the PRK period. We also discuss the PRK period, and how it ended up restoring capitalist relationships and paving the way for the return of Sihanouk and the current form of the Cambodian state. Primary References:Red Brotherhood at War: Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos since 1975 - Grant Evans & Kelvin Rowley The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-79 - Ben Kiernan The People’s Republic of Kampuchea, 1979-1989: The Revolution After Pol Pot - Margaret Slocomb Cambodia, 1975-1982 - Michael Vickery Secondary references:Kampuchea: Politics, Economics and Society - Michael Vickery What Went Wrong with the Pol Pot Regime - F.G. Kampuchea: The Revolution Rescued - Irwin Silber

The development of working-class consciousness requires more than struggles against the employer on the shopfloor, argues Marisa Miale. Mick Labas reads the article aloud.

Jackson and Rudy join Mike Gouldhawke, a Métis and Cree writer whose  family is from kistahpinanihk (City of Prince Albert) and nêwo-nâkîwin  (Mont Nebo) in Treaty 6 territory in Saskatchewan, for a discussion on  indigenous issues in Canada with a focus on the Métis. We talk about the  history of the Métis, through ethnogenesis, the Red River Resistance  and the North-West Resistance. The conversation continues with  cross-border organizing, the similarities and differences between  Canadian and US Indian populations, the red power movement in the 60s  and the origin of the Land Back demand and how that demand has become  popular again. We also discuss the different meanings of Land Back in  the present, solidarity across Indigenous Nations, and the recent small  bouts of solidarity between unions and indigenous struggle, the George  Williams affair and alliances between Canadian diasporic communities and  indigenous nations, indigenous thinkers who have tried to bridge  Marxism and Indigenous thought. We finish by discussing the  relationships to the Quebec sovereignty movement and the new  relationships between the Canadian state and indigenous nations. Further reading Books: Prison of Grass - Howard Adams Bobbi Lee, Indian Rebel - Lee Maracle Roots of Oppression - Steve Talbot Articles:Marxism from a Native Perspective – John Mohawk The Red Path and Socialism – ᐊᓯᓂ Vern Harper Marxism and Native Americans – Reviewed by Howard Adams Below the Barricades: On Infrastructure, Self-Determination, and Defense - Cam Scott

Donald Parkinson assesses the 2021 DSA Convention and imagines a path forward beyond its current political and strategic deadlock. Cliff Connolly reads the article aloud.

This is a narration of the introduction to Mike Macnair's groundbreaking book Revolutionary Strategy. Narration and editing by Lydia Apolinar.   The free market triumphalism of the 1990s is over. Early 21st century capitalism looks like Karl Marx’s description: growing extremes of wealth and poverty, and irrepressible boom-bust cycles. But for the moment, rightwing religious and nationalist nostalgia politics is the main beneficiary of the opposition this has spawned. The political left remains in the shadow of its disastrous failures in the 20th century. The centre-left - where it has not joined forces with the neoliberal right - clings to nationalist and bureaucratic-statist nostalgia for the social-democratic Cold War era. The far left clings to the coat-tails of the centre-left. It cannot unite itself - let alone anyone else - because it is unwilling to reinterrogate the ideas of the early Communist International, especially on the ‘revolutionary party’. To move beyond this impasse we need to re-examine critically the strategic ideas of socialists since Marx and Engels’ time. This book begins the task.   You can purchase a physical copy of the book itself at Lulu. To support the project, sign up for our Patreon.

Annie joins Chris Townsend, longtime organizer with both the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers (UE) and the Amalgamated Transit Union for an oral history on UE from the second World War, through their split with the Congress of Industrial Organizations, the offshoring wave of the late 20th century and the collapse of the USSR. They discuss how UE develops a militant class consciousness in its members, their survival through the dark years of the 1990s, organizing the unorganized, their attitude towards union bureaucracy and much more! Check out Chris's Letter to the Socialists, Old and New and his previous podcast appearance in From Trade Union Consciousness to Socialist Consciousness.

Nicolas D Villarreal argues against populist appeals for a common front between the working-class and small business owners. Mick Labas reads the article aloud.

Anton and Donald join Mike Macnair for a discussion on law in history and in Marxist thought. They discuss the purpose of law, the different schools of philosophy of law, how Hegel conceived law and the state, and what Marx and Engels took from it, the legal theories of the Soviet theoretician Pashukanis, the role of the constitution in a bourgeois state, what is the role of judges in capitalism and how to organize law in a socialist society. References: Mike Macnair - Law and State as Holes in Marxism A brief and short introduction to philosophy of law is provided by the aptly titled Philosophy of Law: A Very Short Introduction by Raymond Wacks.

Stani Bjegunac lays out the ways a planned economy could contribute to the project of transgender liberation, focusing on the issues of bathrooms and medical transition. Marina reads the article aloud.

This is a narration of the introduction to Mike Macnair's groundbreaking book Revolutionary Strategy. Narration and editing by Lydia Apolinar.   The free market triumphalism of the 1990s is over. Early 21st century capitalism looks like Karl Marx’s description: growing extremes of wealth and poverty, and irrepressible boom-bust cycles. But for the moment, rightwing religious and nationalist nostalgia politics is the main beneficiary of the opposition this has spawned. The political left remains in the shadow of its disastrous failures in the 20th century. The centre-left - where it has not joined forces with the neoliberal right - clings to nationalist and bureaucratic-statist nostalgia for the social-democratic Cold War era. The far left clings to the coat-tails of the centre-left. It cannot unite itself - let alone anyone else - because it is unwilling to reinterrogate the ideas of the early Communist International, especially on the ‘revolutionary party’. To move beyond this impasse we need to re-examine critically the strategic ideas of socialists since Marx and Engels’ time. This book begins the task.   You can purchase a physical copy of the book itself at Lulu. To support the project, sign up for our Patreon.