Cosmopod

Aliyah VanPelt and Cliff Connolly sit down with longtime organizer Gene Bruskin to get his advice and hear stories from his time in the movement, including with US Labor Against the War.

The podcast discusses the challenges faced by North Korea's socialist agriculture, including trade conditions and arable land scarcity. It compares rural development in North Korea to capitalist countries, highlighting differences in child stunting rates and access to services. The episode also explores contrasting grain production levels in North and South Korea, and debates the effectiveness of socialist vs. capitalist means of rural development.

Amelia, Carlos and Rudy sit down to discuss the revolutionary period of Mexico in the decade of 1910. We talk about the Porfiriato period which led up to the revolution, the conjecture which led to the events of 1910, the three stages of the revolutionary wars, and the diverse factions acting in each stage. We discuss the relevant figures of the revolution, including Francisco Madero, Emilio Zapata, Pancho Villa, the Flores Magón brothers, as well as the ultimate victors in the Sonora clan. We also talk about the end point of the war, and why the state-building faction was able to consolidate rule over Mexico. A second episode will discuss the consolidation of the revolutionary regime in Mexico up to the 1940s. Bibliography: J. Cockroft - Mexico: Class Formation, Capital Accumulation, and the State A. Knight - The Mexican Revolution: A Very Short Introduction A. Knight - The Mexican Revolution, Volume 1: Porfirians, Liberals, and Peasants A. Knight - The Mexican Revolution, Volume 2: Counter-revolution and Reconstruction A. Gilly - The Mexican Revolution J. Reed - Insurgent Mexico

Rudy joins Raj Patel for a discussion on the global food system. We discuss how food serves as a powerful educational tool, the paradox of global hunger amidst food abundance and obesity, linking it to the systemic issues in food production and consumption. We discuss producers, vendors and how supermarkets dictate what is cultivated and sold. We also talk about Raj's work on the Long Green Revolution, challenging the conventional view of the Green Revolution as a historical event and presenting it as an ongoing process. We dissect the impact of the Green Revolution, its role in geopolitics, and the emergence of a new Green Revolution and increased financialization in agriculture. The discussion extends to the topic of food sovereignty and food security, and the socio-economic fault lines within the global food system. Lastly, we discuss Raj's recent co-authored book, Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Justice providing a brief overview of its content and relevance in the context of contemporary health and societal challenges.

Interpreting Stalin’s fledgling revolutionary career through his later status as a brutal labor dictator obscures an early whole-hearted admiration for the works of Kautsky and Lenin. By Lawrence Parker. Read By Luke Pickrell Intro Music: ворожное озеро Гроза vwqp remix Outro Music: We are Friends Forever performed by Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment.

Isaac and Jack join Jarrod Shanahan, an activist, educator, and the author of Captives: How Rikers Island Took New York City Hostage, for a wide-ranging conversation. We cover the last 70 years of New York City's political history from the lens of the city's jails. We discuss the various actors fighting for control in the city: the politicians and bureaucrats responsible for the administration of jails, the repressive jailers and their corrupt labor union, the revolutionary social movements struggling for liberation inside and outside prison, the non-profits brought in to plug the budget holes and keep the peace, and the capitalists profiting from it all. After examining the shifts in political hegemony within New York City - from liberal "penal welfarism" to the neoliberal "war on crime" to a resurgent, reactionary "revanchism" - we reflect on how this history informs our current organizing in the abolitionist and public sector union movements. We end with a discussion on the 2024 elections and Jarrod's most recent article for Hard Crackers, “Iowa Bluffs,” focused on his experiences at a recent Trump rally in Dubuque, Iowa.

Donald and Luke talk with Bruno Leipold about his forthcoming book, Citizen Marx: Republicanism and the Formation of Karl Marx’s Social and Political Thought. Bruno touches on several topics including English Chartism, democratic republicanism, national constitutions, and the political development Marx and Engels’s over the years. Bruno emphasizes the democratic republican foundation of Marxism and why it needs to be rediscovered.

Chas, James, and Rudy delve into the history of the Polish People's Republic in this episode, focusing on the influential Solidarity movement. They explore communism's roots in Poland from the interwar period to WWII, highlighting the challenges posed by the Soviet invasion. The conversation covers the post-WWII liberation, the establishment of the Polish nation-state, and the diverse governmental shifts leading up to the 1980s. They also discuss how Solidarity emerges from the Workers' Defense Committee, leading to discussions on the events preceding martial law and the eventual decline of communism in 1980s Poland. They conclude by examining Solidarity's post-communist path and comparing the varied trajectories of the People's Republics. References: F. Bartel - The Triumph of Broken Promises: The End of the Cold War and the Rise of Neoliberalism J. M. Bloom - Seeing Through the Eyes of the Polish Revolution: Solidarity and the Struggle Against Communism in Poland F. Fejtö - A history of the people's democracies: Eastern Europe since Stalin P. J. Kenney - Rebuilding Poland: Workers and Communists, 1945–1950 D. Ost - Defeat of Solidarity: Anger And Politics In Postcommunist Europe D. Ost - Solidarity and the Politics of Anti-Politics: Opposition and Reform in Poland since 1968 A. J. Prazmowska - Civil War in Poland: 1942-1948 A. Szymanski - Class Struggle in Socialist Poland: With Comparisons to Yugoslavia

Rob, Eric and Rudy continue their discussion of the Algerian revolution from the fall of Ben Bella to the end of the Black Decade (known in the West as the Algerian Civil War). We discuss the starting point of Boumedienne's government, the agrarian reform and the developmentalist program undertaken in industry, as well as the internal divisions of the FLN during this period which led to widespread sabotage of this developmentalist program. We then talk about Boumedienne's death, and the change in the direction of the country taken by his successor Benjadid, and how political liberalization was attempted to counteract decaying life quality. We discuss the underlying events and rifts that led to the start of the Civil War, as well as discuss why scholars question that it was a Civil War at all. We end by shortly discussing the character of the Algerian Government that came out of the Civil War. References: M. Bennoune - The Making of Contemporary Algeria, 1830-1987 J. Mcdougall - A History of Algeria K. Pfeifer - Agrarian Reform Under State Capitalism in Algeria H. Roberts - The Battlefield: Algeria 1988-2002, Studies in a Broken Polity E. Wolf - Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century

Renzo Llorente critically responds to Gil Schaeffer’s views on democratic rights and socialism.  Read By: Will Intro Music: ворожное озеро Гроза vwqp remix Outro Music: We are Friends Forever performed by Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment.