Cosmopod

Historian Josh Morris joins Cosmopod to discuss the historiography of the US Communist Party. They explore the different perspectives on studying the party's history, the complexities of early American communism, the formation of the left wing, the internationalist worldview of communists, and the party's efforts towards racial liberation.

Throughout the United States, revolt against police violence and the state has broken out in response to the callous murder of George Floyd at the hands of the police. To help contribute to this outbreak of militancy, we have published these words of advice on successful protest from Ahmed Nada, a veteran of the Egyptian protest movements in 2011, 2012, and 2013. Cliff Connolly reads the article aloud.

Cliff Connolly reads an article from CLR Gainz expressing that the left needs physical as well as mental strength if we are going to be victorious in making revolution and defeating reaction. Escalating police violence in the wake of George Floyd's death only reinforces this idea. Stay safe, comrades.

In this special edition of Cosmopod's ongoing labor interview and history series, Remi is joined by two legends of the US socialist labor scene: Adolph Reed and Ed Bruno. Tune in for a long and enlightening discussion of the attempt at an American Labor Party in the 1990s-2000s, where we stand both as a working class and an organized left in light of waning neoliberalism, the trendlines emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic, the necessary order of priority between identity- and class-based organizing, how socialists should relate to electoral struggle, and much more.

In the second installment of the Internationalism series, Remi and Ahmed are joined by Bori, a South Korean student activist for a discussion of Korean history, the social dynamics underlying today’s political situation, the prospects for a left resurgence in RoK, and the elusive nature of South Korea’s much-maligned neighbor to the north and the unreality of reunification talks.  

For this installment of our series on Actually Existing Socialism, Donald, Christian, and Rudy have a discussion based on Eden Medina's book Cybernetic Revolutionaries and the experience of cybernetic planning under Allende's Chile. Outro music is “Litany for a computer and a child about to be born” by Angel Parra and Stafford Beer.

Lydia Apolinar reads J.R. Murray's essay combating the chauvinist politics of left anti-immigration.

We are very happy to release this crossover episode with Breht O'Shea from Revolutionary Left Radio and Red Menace! Remi, Parker, and Donald have a wide-ranging discussion with Breht touching on current events, ecological Marxism, organizing, labor,  electoral strategy, and more.  

To continue our series on the relation of Marxism to science, we read and discussed Christopher Caudwell's Crisis in Physics. Join Donald, Matthew, Rudy, and Remi for a conversation that covers the life of Caudwell, the relevance of his thought to topics such as ecology and the meaning of freedom, theoretical physics, and the possibility of "proletarian science". 

The podcast explores the relevance of Taylor's Scientific Management in leftist organizing, discusses the implementation of scientific management principles in the workplace, emphasizes the importance of acquiring skills within revolutionary organizations, and explores the concept of building communities of interest and developing socialist consciousness.