Afleveringen
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The Russia-Ukraine war and the Left
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With Russia's all-out war against Ukraine now in its fifth year, Simon Pirani and Volodymyr Artiukh discuss the complex character of the war, the main stances to the war on the left, aspects of Ukrainian society today, and more.
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Related reading, viewing and other resources:
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Simon Pirani, In Mexico, people fear one imperialist aggressor. In Estonia, it’s a different one
https://peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2026/06/26/in-mexico-people-fear-one-imperialist-aggressor-in-estonia-its-a-different-one/#more-7216
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Simon Pirani (ed.), Voices against Putin’s war
https://resistancebooks.org/product/voices-against-putins-war/
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V. Artiukh and T. Fedirko, War and dependent state formation in Ukraine.
https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/focaal/2025/102/fcl1020105.xml?rskey=5xbawE&result=2
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D. Dzenovska, V. Artiukh, D. Martin, M. Gunko, and M. Chew. Living Emptiness: Place, power, and meaning-making from the Baltic to the Russian Far East.
https://emptiness.eu/news-and-events/living-emptiness-place-power-and-meaning-making-from-the-baltic-to-the-russian-far-east-multimodal-book/
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TRY ME FOR TREASON: anti-war protesters' speeches in Russian courts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FHacVH8tK8
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Commons, a Ukrainian left journal Main Page - Спільне Commons
https://commons.com.ua/en/
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Ukraine Solidarity Information
https://ukrainesolidarityinformation.ca/
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Ukraine Solidarity Network
https://www.ukrainesolidaritynetwork.us/ -
Learning To Change The World
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Alan Sears draws on his research and personal experience to reflect on how people become radical organizers, the challenges they encounter, the different kinds of learning involved in being an effective radical organizer, and more.
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Some readings:
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Alan Sears, The Next New Left: A History of the Future
https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/books/the-next-new-left
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Katy Fox-Hodess and Rafeef Ziadah,"Community picket lines and social movement unionism on the
U.S. docks, 2014–2021: Organizing lessons from the Block the Boat campaign for Palestine"
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/08969205251375053
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Jeff Schmidt's book Disciplined Minds is a very good look at the real world of graduate and professional schooling
Disciplined minds : Jeff Schmidt : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
https://archive.org/details/disciplinedminds00schm -
Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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How Should Socialists Organize Today?
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This episode is a sequel to episode 60 "Time to Party?" with guests Charlie Post in New York (Tempest)
and Andreu Coll in Barcelona (Anticapitalistas).
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Listeners unfamiliar with politics in the Spanish state may find it useful to read Andreu's brief section of this article for background: Revolutionary Socialist Organizations in the 21st Century
https://tempestmag.org/2023/03/revolutionary-socialist-organizations-in-the-21st-century/
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Tempest Collective
https://tempestmag.org/
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Anticapitalistas
https://www.anticapitalistas.org/ -
What Does Avi Lewis's Win Mean for Socialists?
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The election of Avi Lewis as leader of the federal New Democratic Party is a small political earthquake in the Canadian state. Lewis is the first person from the left wing of the party to be elected leader, and he was opposed by most of the party establishment. Left candidates also took office on the party's executive. Right after Lewis's win was announced two provincial NDP leaders distanced themselves from him. Lewis's win has raised the morale of many people on the Left, with many hoping that major change is coming to the NDP.
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On this episode, Martin Lukacs and Deena Newaz discuss how Lewis won, the significance of what's
happened, how the NDP is positioned in relation to fighting the Carney government's agenda, and what socialists and other anti-capitalists should do now. -
What should internationalism mean today?
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Revolutions of Our Times: An Internationalist Manifesto is a thoughtful and inspiring collectively
written text from The Peoples Want, an international network of supporters of "internationalism from
below." It will be published in English in book form in April 2026 (and is available in other languages
too). This episode is an interview with three people involved with The Peoples Want about the
manifesto and their project.
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This episode was recorded in February 2026, before the US & Israeli war on Iran, which has only made it made more relevant.
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Revolutions of Our Times
https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2732-revolutions-of-our-times
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The Peoples Want
https://thepeopleswant.org/
A critical review of Vincent Bevins' book If We Burn mentioned in this episode Organize, yes, but how?
https://tempestmag.org/2023/12/organize-yes-but-how/ -
What does Zohran Mamdani's win mean for socialists?
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Zohran Mamdani's election as mayor of New York City is being widely discussed both in and outside the US. What political conclusions should we draw from it? Two socialists in NYC, Sherry Wolf and Robert Cuffy, talk about the impact of Mamdani's win, what made it possible, the obstacles he faces to implementing the reforms he promised, and building working-class power in NYC.
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Some readings:
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Zohran's Endorsement of Hochul Isn’t “Pragmatic” — It’s Self-Defeating - The Call
https://socialistcall.com/2026/02/06/zohrans-endorsement-of-hochul-isnt-pragmatic-its-self-defeating/
Municipal Socialism’s “YIMBY” Problem – Spectre Journal
https://spectrejournal.com/municipal-socialisms-yimby-problem/
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People interested in the history of the mayoralty of La Guardia, whom Mamdani hailed as the greatest mayor in the history of NYC, and its implications today should check out this article.
“The Greatest New York City Mayor of All Time” – Spectre Journal
https://spectrejournal.com/the-greatest-new-york-city-mayor-of-all-time/ -
Covering Up Rape & Suppressing Opposition: Learning from the SWP's 2013 Crisis..In 2013 the Socialist Workers Party, the largest far left group in Britain and the dominant group in the International Socialist Tendency, experienced a crisis rooted in the efforts of its leadership to protect one of their own from allegations of sexual violence and to stifle criticism of its handling of the situation. The lessons of this experience are relevant for radicals internationally. Former SWP members David Renton and Sadia Jabeen discuss what happened in the SWP and some of its implications...David Renton's book on the SWP's 2013 crisis will be published in 2026: Comrade Deltahttps://www.ebb-books.com/books/p/comrade-deltaDavid Renton's blog: lives; runninghttps://livesrunning.wordpress.com/David Renton's Substack: D K Renton | Substackhttps://davidrenton590934.substack.com/..Some readings and resources:Episode 23 of Victor's Children: Sexual Violence, Feminism and Socialist Organizinghttps://soundcloud.com/user-737267994/vc-ep-23David Camfield, Why Socialists Need Feminismhttps://www.prairiered.ca/archive/why-socialists-need-feminismAbigail Bakan, Marxism, Feminism, and Epistemological Dissonancehttps://socialiststudies.com/index.php/sss/article/view/23546/17430
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Party Time?
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Socialists need to organize as socialists to be as effective as we can. Does this mean that small socialist organizations can be parties or start to build parties? How can we best work towards much larger and more effective socialist political organizations? Charlie Post joins David on this episode to discuss what genuine parties are, the history of socialist party-building efforts, the micro-party model and alternative approaches.
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Related reading:
Charlie Post and Kit Adam Wainer, Socialist Organization Today
https://solidarity-us.org/sot/
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A LETTER FROM CANADIAN COMRADES
https://www.prairiered.ca/archive/a-letter-from-canadian-comrades
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Duncan Hallas: Towards a Revolutionary Socialist Party (1971)
https://www.marxists.org/archive/hallas/works/1971/xx/party.htm
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about the Democratic Socialists of America:
https://tempestmag.org/2025/01/dsa-never-recovered-from-bowman/
https://tempestmag.org/2023/09/the-dsa-moment-is-over/
https://cosmonautmag.com/2025/11/traveling-through-purgatory/
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about YourParty in Britain:
Your Party must trust its members
https://revsoc21.uk/2025/12/08/your-party-must-trust-its-members/
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A new podcast recommended for listeners in Britain or who’re interested in socialist discussion of Your Party and the Green Party in Britain:
https://proletarianblues.substack.com/p/brand-new-podcast-series-life-of -
The Philippines and its Left: What the Global Left Needs to Know
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The Philippines has one of the largest populations in the world, there are large diasporic Filipino communities in North America, and there's a sizeable left that's also present in the diaspora. This episode is an interview with a guest in the Philippines who's active in the anti-Stalinist radical left.
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If you're unfamiliar with the history of the Philippines, this timeline is useful:
Philippines profile - Timeline
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-15581450
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To learn more:
Alex de Jong, After decades, an insurgency falters
https://tempestmag.org/2025/01/after-decades-an-insurgency-falters/
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Rasti Delizo, Priming the Philippines for a “globalized NATO”
https://tempestmag.org/2024/01/priming-the-philippines-for-a-globalized-nato/
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Hunting Specters: A Political History of the Purges in the Communist Party of the Philippines
https://libcom.org/article/hunting-specters-political-history-purges-communist-party-philippines
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Two Filipino anti-Stalinist socialist political organizations:
Partido Sosyalista
https://sosyalista.ph/
» About the RPM-M
https://www.grenzeloos.org/jl/?page_id=2 -
McCarthyism and its lessons for the left today
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The Trump administration's repressive moves have sparked talk of a "new McCarthyism" so this episode presents an interview with Alan Wald about McCarthyism -- the "Second Red Scare" in the US in the late 1940s and 1950s -- and its lessons for the left in our time.
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UPDATE - Helpful clarification from one of our listeners on information mentioned in this episode's intro: "Of the two recent faculty firings in Texas, only one of them (Tom Alter’s case) was at Texas State. The other was at Texas A&M. And, of course, there have been numerous other cases around the country."
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Readings and Resources
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Ashley Smith, Against the New McCarthyism
https://tempestmag.org/2025/09/against-the-new-mccarthyism/
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United States: Texas State Terminates Alter, National Campaign Fights Back
https://lis-isl.org/en/2025/10/united-states-texas-state-terminates-alter-national-campaign-fight-back/
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Alan Wald Homepage
https://sites.google.com/a/umich.edu/alan-wald-homepage/
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Bill Keach, Rehabilitating McCarthyism
https://tempestmag.org/2025/10/rehabilitating-mccarthyism/ -
Defying the Law: The Air Canada Strike & How Labour Law Restricts Strikes and What Workers Can Do About It, w/ A King and D Camfield
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The historic law-defying strike by Air Canada flight attendants August 16-19 caught the attention of many people in the Canadian state and beyond. In the first part of this episode, David interviews Adam King about the strike and questions it raises. This is followed by a public talk (planned before the flight attendants' strike) David gave in Winnipeg on August 26, presented by the 1919 Workers' Collective, about the history of state restrictions on workers' freedom to strike, their impact, workers' defiance of these restrictions, and what conclusions people who want a powerful working-class movement should draw from this history. The talk was entitled "Against the Law? How Labour Law Restricts Strikes and What Workers Can Do About It."
David's talk begins at 59:23.
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Adam King's article on the AC strike: Air Canada Flight Attendants Have Made Labour History
https://www.readthemaple.com/air-canada-flight-attendants-have-made-labour-history
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Article by former flight attendant Ann Hui in the Globe And Mail mentioned in this episode (paywalled): https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-air-canada-flight-attendant-job-experience-labour-unpaid-work/
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Use Promo code "RF15" until Oct. 19, 2025 to receive a 15% discount when ordering David's book, Red Flags, here: https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/red-flags -
Taiwan: What the Left Needs to Know
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Taiwan is a flashpoint for US-China rivalry so radicals internationally need to be able to see
through the misleading views about Taiwan spread by both Western and Chinese rulers to
develop a consistently internationalist anti-imperialist approach. Ralf Ruckus, who discussed
China today on episode 11 of this podcast, returns with an introduction to Taiwanese society
and politics.
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To learn more:
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Ralf Ruckus, "What Everyone on the Left Should Know about Taiwan (at the Minimum)
https://spectrejournal.com/what-everyone-on-the-left-should-know-about-taiwan-at-the-minimum/
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An interview with Taiwanese leftist Brian Hioe
https://therealnews.com/taiwans-future-will-shape-the-whole-global-economy-will-taiwanese-people-have-a-say-in-that-future
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Some Taiwanese sources:
https://tiwa.org.tw
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https://www.spa.org.tw
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https://newbloommag.net
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https://eventsinfocus.org
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https://sites.google.com/site/peaceforthesea/home -
Anti-Racism, Class and History w/ David Roediger
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Historian David Roediger discusses some of the people who've influenced him,
white workers and Black struggles in the U.S., and some aspects of anti-racist
theory and politics today.
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David Roediger's new memoir An Ordinary White: My Antiracist Education
https://www.fordhampress.com/9781531509583/an-ordinary-white/
An adapted excerpt from the book is available here:
https://www.versobooks.com/en-ca/blogs/news/critical-studies-of-whiteness-an-autobiographical-defence
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In the episode David Camfield mentions this article: Kim Moody, "Cedric Johnson and the Other Sixties Nostalgia"
https://newpol.org/cedric-johnson-and-the-other-sixties-nostalgia/
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Related to an issue that comes up in the interview: David Camfield, "The PMC Does Not Exist and Why It Matters
for Socialists"
https://newpol.org/the-pmc-does-not-exist-and-why-it-matters-for-socialists/ -
The Right, Unions and the Working Class
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Right-wing politics are gaining support in the working class and within unions in so-called Canada.
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What's happening and how can we fight it more effectively? Steven Tufts and a CUPE member
discuss.
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An article worth reading:
Martin Lukacs, How Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives seduced working-class voters
https://breachmedia.ca/how-pierre-poilievres-conservatives-seduced-working-class-voters/
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If you listen to the end of the episode, there's a discount code you can use to order David's book Red Flags
anywhere in the world from Fernwood Publishing. The code will be valid until mid-September 2025.
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instagram @ victors_children -
Todd Gordon and Jeff Webber join David on a deep dive into understanding the far right, including fascism, as a phenomenon of capitalist society. The interview was recorded on April 13, 2025.
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In this episode, Todd and Jeff discuss ideas they develop in a book they're writing. If you have access to the print edition or subscriber-only online access to the journal Spectre, you can read their article in issue 8 (2023), “The Authoritarian Disposition: Capitalism, Liberalism, Fascism." If not, they've also published this brief piece: Todd Gordon and Jeffery R. Webber: The Return of Fascism? https://www.focaalblog.com/2024/01/29/todd-gordon-and-jeffery-r-webber-the-return-of-fascism/
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Mentioned in the episode:
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Thomas Hummel, "For revolutionaries, the period must be defined by the international fight against the far right"
https://tempestmag.org/2025/03/for-revolutionaries-the-period-must-be-defined-by-the-international-fight-against-the-far-right/
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Topics covered (times are approximate):
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capitalism and liberalism 0:06:13
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democracy 0:20:24
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the Right 0:35:36
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fascism 0:45:15
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"populism," popular front anti-fascism, and the casualization of "fascism" 1:00:10
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left strategy against the far right 1:09:32
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Brazil and Argentina 1:15:07
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Trump's second administration 1:20:50
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Canada 1:37:01 -
Workplace Organizing for Radicals
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Why should workplace organizing matter for the radical left? What kind of unionism should radicals try to foster? How should we go about doing it? How should people who want to do workplace organizing think about where to work for pay? An interview with two experienced activists, retired New York transit worker Steve Downs and Ontario public sector worker Katherine Grezjszczak, about these and related questions.
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If you listen to the end of the episode, there's a discount code you can use to order David’s book Red Flags anywhere in the world from Fernwood Publishing. The code will be valid until mid-September 2025
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To learn more:
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Secrets of a Successful Organizer, from Labor Notes
https://labornotes.org/secrets
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Tim Goulet, Unions and the rank and file strategy
https://tempestmag.org/2023/07/unions-and-the-rank-and-file-strategy/
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Steve Downs, Hell On Wheel Pamphlet
https://archive.org/details/hellonwheelpamphlet
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Steve Downs, Socialist Strategies in Unions:Twenty Years in Transport Workers Union Local 100
https://solidarity-us.org/transit_working_paper/
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Follow Victor's Children on Instagram for info on episodes, events, and more -
Red Flags: A Reckoning with Communism for the Future of the Left, w/ David Camfield
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Host as guest! Guest host Saima Desai interviews David about his new book, Red Flags.
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If you listen to the end of the episode, there's a discount code you can use to order the book
anywhere in the world from Fernwood Publishing either before or after it's published. The code
will be valid until mid-September 2025.
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The book's page on the Fernwood site: Red Flags: A Reckoning with Communism for the Future of the Left https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/red-flags
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People based in the US may wish to order the book from its US distributor, Columbia
University Press: Red Flags | Columbia University Press https://cup.columbia.edu/book/red-flags/9781773637327
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People in the UK and EU countries may wish to order the book from Central Books:
https://www.centralbooks.com/red-flags-a-reckoning-with-communism-for-the-future-of-the.html
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David's website is Welcome to Prairie Red - Home https://www.prairiered.ca -
Trump's Tariffs: How Should the Left Respond?
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The threat of sweeping US tariffs has touched off a political crisis in the Canadian state. Todd Gordon and Mostafa Henaway discuss how the left is responding and an alternative approach.
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Suggested Reading:
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Todd Gordon
https://www.midnightsunmag.ca/we-need-workers-solidarity-not-national-unity-in-response-to-trumps-tariffs/
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Mostafa Henaway
https://notesfrombelow.org/article/experiments-in-worker-organising-from-unite-commun -
U.S. capitalism vs Chinese capitalism: What do we need to understand?
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Economic and geopolitical competition between China and the US and other Western powers is important and is only going to become more intense in the years ahead. What do leftists most need to understand about China, and how should we orient to the rivalry between the world's most powerful capitalist societies? An interview with Eli Friedman, one of the co-authors of China in Global Capitalism.
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Recommended reading:
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China in Global Capitalism
https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2228-china-in-global-capitalism -
A Dive into Domenico Losurdo's Western Marxism
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The recent publication of an English translation of Western Marxism: How it was born, how it died, how it can be reborn by the Italian historian of philosophy Domenico Losurdo has received a lot of attention in parts of the Left. In this episode Joshua Nicholas Pineda joins David to discuss Losurdo and this book. Tune in for a discussion of "Western Marxism", anti-imperialism and socialism today.
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Related resources:
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Book review."Eastern Light on Western Marxism" by David Broder, New Left Review (paywall)
https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii107/articles/david-broder-eastern-light-on-western-marxism
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Book. Stalinism and the Dialectics of Saturn: Anti-Communism, Marxism, and the Fate of the Soviet Union by Douglas Greene. See the appendix on Losurdo.
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Victor's Children episodes: 3, 6, 8, 11, 31, 33, 36, 40, 41, and 44
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Preorder David's Upcoming Book, Red Flags:
https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/red-flags
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Spectre Journal
https://spectrejournal.com - Laat meer zien
