Cosmopod

Lydia, Agata, Anne and Rudy join for a discussion of Kristen Ghodsee's Second World, Second Sex: Socialist Women's Activism and Global Solidarity during the Cold War. We begin with the forgotten Communist history of International Women's Year (1975) which later became the United Nations Decade for Women (75-85), and the conflicts between the Western and Eastern blocs regarding women's liberation. We also discuss the double burden of women in Bulgaria, and how women's associations interfaced with the government. We then contrast Bulgaria to other Eastern Bloc countries, and also to the women's liberation movement in socialist Zambia, discussing how the double burden of women was alleviated but not eliminated in these countries. We also discuss the differences with Western feminism, and its pitfalls and advantages over the horizons of women's liberation under state socialism, highlighting the role of women's self-emancipation.

Renato Flores argues for a culture shift around meeting procedures that takes into account differing backgrounds to make our organizing spaces more accessible to everyone regardless of education and time available. Unoriginal Smack reads the article out loud.

Rudy and Annie join Mike Ely, a veteran of the Revolutionary Union and the wildcat strike movement in the West Virginia coalfields of the 1970s. Drawing from Ely's experiences as a communist in West Virginia, we discuss the practice of social investigation, the role of communists in strike struggles, the structural and conjectural views of revolution and the connection to Alain Badiou, and state repression of the radical left.   Contact Mike at wildcatincoal@gmail.com   References by Mike Ely: Ambush at Keystone: Inside the Coal Miners’ Great Gas Protest of 1974 Sites of Beginning Throw Open Windows: Beginning a Fresh Communism

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.