Cosmopod

Cliff Connolly reads two articles aloud. In the first article, What Do the Democratic Socialists of America Stand for Politically?, DT Seel proposes what the DSA's program would be if based on the politics of its endorsed candidates. This 'inductive program' is then examined and put under critique. In the second article, Structuring the Party: The Case of the DSA, Diego AM explores the organization conundrums of the modern left, looking at the Democratic Socialists of America and the alternatives proposed by base-builders and Maoists.

Cliff Connolly reads two articles aloud. In the first article, Why Define Fascism?: In Defence of Making Distinctions, Jacob Smith argues that if the left wishes to take fascism seriously we shouldn't use the term lightly but with precision. In the second article, The End of the End of History: COVID-19 and 21st Century Fascism, Debs Bruno and Medway Baker lay out the conditions of the current crisis, the political potentials it opens up, and the need for a socialist program to pave a path forward.

Remi and Rudy welcome A. M. Gittlitz, the author of "I Want to Believe: J. Posadas, UFOs and Apocalypse Communism" and The Antifada producer to discuss the role of utopias and prefiguration in historical and modern day communist strategy. We cover topics from Russian Cosmism, the parallels between New World and Space Utopias, the relationship between the subjective and objective conditions for revolution, finding spaces where we can imagine a better world and how to find hope in the end of the end of history. The episode ends with the opening of Cosmos: Carl Sagan's hope for a brighter future. Check out Andy's article on the Space force here: https://www.plutobooks.com/blog/the-plot-against-space/

The Cosmonaut team inaugurates the ecology series by discussing John Bellamy Foster's seminal book "Marx's ecology" on its twentieth anniversary. Join Niko, Ian, Matthew and Remi as they discuss the context of this work, and how it started a rediscovery of Marx's ecological politics. They discuss how ecology informed Marx's understanding of the world since his doctoral thesis, the relationship between Marx, Darwin and Malthus and the concept of metabolic rift.

In one of our earliest articles, Parker McQueeney lays out the case for building a party around a minimum-maximum program. Cliff Connolly reads the article aloud.

Donald and Rudy welcome Asad Haider from Viewpoint Magazine to discuss the present political moment. Using Badiou's "The Rebirth of History: Times of Riots and Uprisings" as a starting point, we discuss riots as a political expression in an intervallic period. We talk about the shape of the party should take to represent this political will, the racial context, overdetermination and spontaneity, and how history is being restarted.

English language sources still describe Nadezhda Krupskaya first as "Vladimir Lenin's wife" rather than " a radical revolutionary whose ideas [...] were monumental in Soviet state formation". To begin the process of correcting this error, M.A. Iasilli writes on what she can teach us about education and labor. Cliff Connolly reads the article aloud.

Rudy, Ahmed, and Remi join Sam Agarwal, a PhD student at Johns Hopkins University in sociology, whose research on and fieldwork in Kerala provide insight into the Indian state's handling of societal crisis like the 2018-9 floods and COVID-19. We discuss the left politics of the CPI(M) and its various rival parties, the Indian political climate, the feminist movement, the handling and mitigation of climate change, and what we can learn from a contemporary communist-governed state while dealing with its limitations. ---------------------------------------- Check out Sam's work here: https://truthout.org/articles/this-state-in-india-shows-us-why-fighting-covid-19-requires-working-class-power/ Books recommended include: The Rise of Hindu Authoritarianism: Secular Claims, Communal Realities by Achin Vanaik and The Phoenix Moment: Challenges Confronting the Indian Left by Praful Bidwai.

In this article from our site, Alexander Gallus reviews Ilona Duczyńska's German language book 'The Democratic Bolshevik' which explores the socialist experiment of Red Vienna and its failure to defend itself from reaction. Matthew reads the article aloud.

Donald sits down with Sean Guillory from the SRB Podcast to discuss Komsomol, which was often one of the only organizations that provided a link to the early soviet state in many small towns. They discuss the way the early Soviet state was structured with attention to how soft and hard power was transmitted, communist values, gender relationships, the rebirth of social conservatism and comradeship among other things.