Cosmopod

Isaac and Rudy join Shalini Puri, author of The Grenada Revolution in the Caribbean Present: Operation Urgent Memory,and the companion website urgentmemory.com, for a discussion on the Grenadian Revolution and its legacies in both the island itself and the wider Caribbean. We cover the Revolution's accomplishments as well as some of its pitfalls, the contradictions and mutual strengthening of Marxism and regional liberation movements, and the Revolution's collapse. We then discuss the concepts of volcanic and stone memory, and how memories of the Revolution remain alive in the Caribbean today. Further reading: The Grenada Revolution Online – Free and thorough online resource that includes many speeches ‘Is Freedom We Making’; the New Democracy in Grenada – Merle Hodge (ed.), Chris Searle (ed.) Maurice Bishop Speaks: The Grenada Revolution and Its Overthrow, 1979–83 – M. Bishop, S. Clark Grenada: The Jewel Despoiled – G. K. Lewis African & Caribbean Politics: From Kwame Nkrumah to Maurice Bishop – M. Marable The Grenada Chronicles, v. 1-34 – Grenada National Museum, Ann Elizabeth Wilder (maintainer of TGRO website)

This is a narration of the eighth chapter of Lars Lih's excellent book Lenin Rediscovered: What Is to Be Done? In Context. In this chapter, Lih examines the culture of the Russian revolutionary underground to elucidate the world that Lenin's organizational proposals in WITBD would go on to shape.   The full audiobook is currently in production by the team at Cosmonaut Magazine. You can find more episodes (and other audio books) on our Youtube channel, and you can purchase a physical copy of the book itself at Haymarket books.   Narration and editing by Cliff Connolly.  

Donald has a chat with Richard Barbrook, author with Andy Cameron of The Californian Ideology and the book Imaginary Futures. The two discuss Silicon Valley techno-Utopianism and its transformation into our current tech dystopia, the Cold War left and their attempts to use Marxism in service of capitalism, the role of China in shaping the development of modern technology, crypto-currency, why the USSR failed to develop cyber-communism, and Barbrook’s work in the Labor Party with the Digital Democracy Manifesto.

Matt and Rudy join Matt Rothwell from the People's History of Ideas podcast for a discussion on the founding of the Chinese Communist Party on its 100th anniversary. We base ourselves on the book From Friend To Comrade: The Founding of the Chinese Communist Party, 1920-27 by Hans J. van der Veen, and discuss issues such as the influence of the Soviet Union on its formation, how intellectuals , moving past liberalism adopted Marxism and translated it to the Chinese context, the way policy implementation and debate evolved in the party, the debates around the united front, and what can we learn for today's political landscape.

Rudy, Connor and Donald sit down to talk about Vietnamese political economy and the Vietnamese Communist Party with a particular focus on the period of reunification and market reforms. We discuss the formation of Vietnamese Communism in isolation, the history of Vietnam up to reunification and how that set up a very divided country for the VCP to rule over, the short planned economy period and how and why the market reforms took place. We also discuss the particularities of Vietnamese Socialism and the party's workings, as well as how much influence the world market has over society today. References:  Vietnam: Politics, Economics and Society - Melanie Beresford Economic Transition in Vietnam: Trade and Aid in the Demise of a Centrally Planned Economy - Melanie Beresford, Dang Phong Doi Moi in Review - Melanie Beresford   Red Brotherhood at War - Grant Evans, Kevin Rowley Vietnam at War - Mark Philip Bradley From Plan to Market - Adam Pforde, Stefan de Vylder Tradition, Revolution, and Market Economy in a North Vietnamese Village, 1925-2006 - Hy V. Luong The Socialist Market Economy in Asia: Development in China, Vietnam and Laos - Edited by Arve Hansen, Jo Inge Bekkevold, Kristen Nordhau

Neither a politics of identity informed by theories of intersectionality nor reductive economistic readings of Marxism are adequate for a modern socialist project, argues Donald Parkinson. Robert Fish reads the article out loud.

Djamil and Rudy join Rob Wallace, author of Big Farms Make Big Flu: Dispatches on Influenza, Agribusiness, and the Nature of Science, and Dead Epidemiologists: On the Origins of COVID-19, for a discussion on how capitalism produces mass pandemics through the destruction and creation of new ecologies. We discuss how humans 'fit' in nature, and how capitalism destroys natural barriers that prevent pandemics and creates harmful new ecologies. We also talk about what types of regulatory mechanisms are needed to prevent the mass spread of diseases. We finish off by discussing how the left should relate to topics such as the hypothesis of laboratory origins for Covid, vaccine skepticism and organizations like the CDC and the WHO.

This is a narration of the seventh chapter of Lars Lih's excellent book Lenin Rediscovered: What Is to Be Done? In Context. In this chapter, Lih maps out Lenin's basic conception of Russian Social Democracy's present challenges and asserts that "the political poetry of WITBD is located in this larger definition of the situation".   The full audiobook is currently in production by the team at Cosmonaut Magazine. You can find more episodes (and other audio books) on our Youtube channel, and you can purchase a physical copy of the book itself at Haymarket books.   Narration and editing by Cliff Connolly.

Rudy joins Max Ajl, author of A People's Green New Deal (Pluto Press, 2021), for a broad discussion on the themes of his book and on the agrarian question in general. We speak about Max's background in agrarian movements with a particular focus on the Arab region, the Cochabamba People's Agreement and its relevance today, the critique of the current Green New Deal and of eco-modernism, the appearing splits in the ruling class between fossil and non-fossil capital, unequal environmental exchange, climate reparations and the conflicting tendencies within the degrowth movement. We also talk about the necessity of centering land and food in our political programs, and its usefulness in providing a bridge between current iterations of the Green New Deal and the future we want to see.   References: The Cochabamba People's Agreement with Annexes  The Green New Deal and Beyond: The Road From Climate Emergency to Economic Reality - Stan Cox (Land Institute) Does the Arab region have an agrarian question? - Max Ajl

Donald Parkinson explains and defends the format of the  minimum-maximum program using the model established in Marx and Guesde’s Programme of the Parti Ouvier. Lydia Apolinar reads the article out loud.