Guerrilla History - Publishing as Anti-Imperialist Practice w/ Iskra Books Editors Talia, David, & Ben

Episode Date: November 8, 2024

In this episode of Guerrilla History, we bring on several comrades from Iskra Books, a non-profit, all volunteer-run, independent communist publishing company to discuss Publishing as Anti-Imperialist Practice!  This discussion also relates to the episode we did two weeks ago with Sina Rahmani of The East Is a Podcast on Radical Independent Media as Anti-Imperialist Practice.  We also include the audio of a talk that Henry did on these topics at a China at 75 event hosted by the Friends of Socialist China a few weeks ago.  This is a marvelous discussion on an important topic with some incredibly committed comrades.  Be sure to check this out, and be sure to check out Iskra Books's catalogue (keeping in mind that physical book purchases support the project, but that the pdfs of all of their books are also available for FREE at iskrabooks.org).  You can also keep up to date with their releases by following them on twitter @iskrabooks. The recently released and forthcoming books from Iskra that we discussed at the end of the episode are available at the following links:  The Lost & Early Writings of James Connolly: 1889 - 1898, edited by Conor McCabe The Long Transition Towards Socialism and the End of Capitalism by Torkil Lausen Unequal Exchange and the Prospects of Socialism by The Communist Working Group Communism - The Highest Stage of Ecology by Guillaume Suing (link forthcoming on the Iskra Books site) Talia is an Editorial Board member of Iskra Books, is one of the hosts of The Minyan podcast, and is an academic librarian.  Follow The Minyan on twitter @the_minyan. David Peat is an Editorial Board member of Iskra Books, is an anti-war activist, and is involved with The Friends of Socialist China.  You can follow David on twitter @dajveism. Ben Stahnke is one of the cofounding Editors at Iskra Books, is a Professor of Philosophy, and one of the main art members at Iskra.  Follow Ben on twitter @phdirtbag. Help support the show by signing up to our patreon, where you also will get bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/guerrillahistory 

You remember den, Ben, boo? The same thing happened in Algeria, in Africa. They didn't have anything but a rank. The prince had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare, but they put some guerrilla action on. Hello and welcome to guerrilla history. History, the podcast that act as a reconnaissance report of global proletarian history and aims to use the lessons of history to analyze the present. Despite my voice today, I'm one of your

co-hosts, Henry Hakimaki, joined as usual by my co-host, Professor Adnan Hussein, historian and director of the School of Religion at Queens University in Ontario, Canada. Hello, Adnan. How are you doing today? Hi, Henry. I'm doing great and it's a real pleasure to be with you. Yeah, it's nice to see you as well. And you are sounding as lovely as always, which I wish I could say the same about myself. Although listeners will know, you will know in the future we have an episode that is coming out in our African Revolutions and Decolonization Series that we have already recorded, but will not be coming out just yet. Or my voice is even worse than now. So be prepared. That episode is a doozy, but it is a terrific, terrific conversation, a two and a half hour long episode on

Pan-Africanism. So stay tuned. Today, though, we have a trio of excellent guests on a really fascinating topic. But before I have the guests introduce themselves, I would like to remind you, listeners, that you can help support the show and allow us to continue making episodes like this by going to patreon.com forward slash guerrilla history. That's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A history. And you can keep up to date with everything that Adnan and I are doing individually, as well as what the show is putting out collectively by following us on Twitter

at Gorilla underscore Pod, again, G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A-U-L-A-U-Pod. And we're also on Instagram. I think it's guerrilla underscore history. Something like that. You can find it. So, with that out of the way, as I mentioned, I have a trio of guests who are my friends from the editorial board of Isker Books, which listeners will be familiar with I am also a part of. So it was very easy for me to connect with these three comrades for this conversation.

We have Tilia, we have David, and we have. have been. Tilea, let's start with you. Can you tell the listeners a little bit about yourself? Who are you? I'm Tulia. You may also know me from the podcast, The Minyan, which is a Marxist-Leninist, anti-Zionist, Jewish podcast. We've been going around since about 2019. I've been with Iskra since about 2020. I have a background in art history. My emphasis was on ephemeral art. So So Iskra is definitely something I really, really connected with, especially with Ben's art. And then I have my master's in library science. So I am a librarian and also another, like, I'm obsessed with books.

So, and I really like the accessibility aspect of Iskra. So, yeah, I'm really happy to be here. David. Cheers, Talia. Thanks, Henry and Adnan, for having me on. And it's great to speak with you again. We previously had an Isquare Connected episode, which Henry might get to at some point. Yeah, so my name's David.

I'm based in London. I've been an editor with Iskra books for a few years now. And in addition to that, I'm also engaged in anti-war activism, particularly with friends of socialist China. Yeah, and I got into Iskra a few years ago, even when Iskra, we kind of started out. And before that, we had the Peace Land and Bread Journal. And just the, you know, I was on the outside to begin with before I got involved in the visual impact of it. And seeing really incredible theory in such a visually compelling way was what drew me to it. You know, there's so many other dry publications often, whereas the work that Peace Land and Bread was doing really stood out to me and made me want to get involved.

So I've been really honored to be part of it and work alongside these great comrades. speaking of which, Ben. All right, comrades, thank you so much. You did not save the best for last, just to put that out there. But it's wonderful to be here with you all. Henry and Anon, I've been a long-time listener, first-time caller-type situation. I admire your show, and I really appreciate the opportunity to have us on. I'm Ben.

I am a professor of philosophy. I teach at Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio, which is an HBCU. I have a PhD in Environmental Studies, a Master's Environmental Studies, but also a master's in political philosophy and perhaps somewhat stupidly I'm pursuing a second doctorate in organizational studies where I'm like really digging into publishing studies

which really helps propel us I think a little bit at ISCRA here but ISCRA wise I'm one of the co-founding editors we kicked the project off back in 2017 with two other comrades Nate who's no longer with the project and then Ember who's still with the project and we began as a series of like

disaffected graduate students at the time And I think we can talk more about this, but we really, you know, with ISCRA, I think tried to respond to some of the, like some of the gaps we saw in the field of publishing and the sort of intersection of organizing and publishing and higher education. But aside from ISCRA, I'm an organizer, but I've organized it for a long time like David with anti-war organizing. Yeah, aside from that, happy to be here, comrades. Good to see you all. Yeah, absolutely. Pleasure to see you all again, my friends. And just so that listeners are aware, when David is references.

that other episode that he did with us, that was the Stalin history and critique of a black legend episode that we did of guerrilla history. David was the internal editor at Iskra for that publication. So if you listened to that episode, you will recognize David's voice. Now, the topic for today is a really interesting one and one that I had the opportunity to speak on recently at a Friends of Socialist China event, China at 75. The topic is publishing as anti-imperialist practice. So at the end of this episode, what you'll hear is the audio version of my presentation that I gave at that conference. I'll try not to repeat too many of the things I said there during this conversation, but we thought, who better to carry on this conversation

and take it from a lot of different perspectives on publishing as anti-imperialist practice than the editorial board of a publishing company. So without further ado, I'm just going to turn it over to you, comrades, to get us into the conversation on why publishing is so vital as anti-imperialist practice. And perhaps I can turn it to, Leah, first. I know that you are also coming at this from a librarian's perspective as well, which I think is also quite interesting. So, yeah, I think it's just really important to get like all these radical texts in the hands of the working class, essentially, because books, I mean, books change. our lives. I don't want to be super cliche about this, but I know my life was completely changed

when I read the autobiography of Malcolm X. People's entire lives just go off on a different direction dependent on the book that they read. Like you read Capital, you read the manifesto and you become a communist. There's a reason why books are banned in fascist countries. There's a reason why they're burned and it's because they contain ideas that the government doesn't want you to read. They don't want you thinking outside what's possible. So it's really, really important that we have good radical publishers out there who not only sell their books at a very accessible cost, very cheap costs, but also provide free PDFs for any. literally anybody can read this if they have access to a computer like you can even go to the

library and download the PDF and read it at the library if need be you don't need to have an e-reader and you can just read it at the library so yeah I just think there's a reason why libraries also pop up in occupations like Wall Street Occupy Wall Street had a library and librarians work there it's very important to have radical publishing out there to get these texts and the books are in the hands of the working class. Yeah, really great points, Celia. And I think further too, you know, I think what we respond to at ISCRA is a sort of lack of what we see of like the enactment of radical, you know, organizing ethos inside a publishing, right? So we're, so we're not only responding to the needs of the movement, but we're responding to a gap inside the field of radical publishing more generally, which if you really begin to dig into it, there's a straight up, like, there's a straight up, like, one-to-one reproduction of, you know, the exploitative and predatory practices of capitalist publishing more generally inside of like what's supposed to be, I think, radical, you know, like more egalitarian type stuff. And I think this idea that, that, you know, we respond to in higher education as we respond to the predatory and exploitative practices of publishing by, you know, making our works free, you know, in the face of like, oh, what is it? What is nature?

charge for open access fees. It's in the multiple thousands per author, right? So I think that like we're not only responding to that, but we're responding to that reproduction inside of radical publishing as well, which not to just throw our comrades at the other publishers under the bus, but I think that we do a pretty good job in responding to that. And I think that given the sort of public response to the, you know, this like unfettered free accessibility of materials, internal accessibility and all these different things, I think it's working pretty well so far. Yeah, and I wanted to start with a little quotes which I thought Commeritz might enjoy. It's from Gorky, the novelist Gorky, and actually it was one that Stalin had been reading in the novel mother, and he noted against it that he found this particular section to be very compelling.

So the quote is, give me your help, let me have books, such books that when a man has read them, he will not be able to rest. put a prickly hedgehog to his brains tell those city folks who write for you to write for the villagers also let them write such hot truth that it will scold the village that the people will even rush to their death and that kind of

you know as Talia was mentioning the massive impact of books and how it can redirect a person's life and really you know puts ideas in people's brains and help them in such huge ways that you know there's reasons why

imprisoned people, you know, go to books and choose that time to study and that incredible impact and they write books and, you know, we've published imprisoned writers as well and we find that really important. And another thing I would want to say is that our, you know, our class enemies recognize the power of publishing and they will spend enormous sums on making sure that their ideas are the ones being put into the, um, the, uh, into the intellectual arena. But, you know, we have the truth on our side. So they can put a lot of money into writing garbage books that pile up and pile up.

But, you know, thankfully, we have something on our side, which means even though we don't have the same resources, they have access to, we're able to have some impact. And, yeah, as much impact as we can. And as was mentioned, you know, part of that ethos comes into our accessibility. So we want to make sure that we can get these to as many people as possible. so they can read them and it's not reliant on their income. I mentioned briefly in the previous article on Stalin

about the CIA's work, most famously people know about it in the 60s because it's been declassified for various reasons, but they found books to be the most effective form of propaganda and as such invested in publishing houses globally, in translation work, in academic articles, on an unbelievable scale. And just because we don't have that declassified information, we shouldn't think that that has stopped.

And, you know, with the outfits now, like the National Endowment for Democracy, people talk about those do the work that the CIA used to have to suppress. So we can see that, you know, those people funding certain ideas and certain writings in books and journals continues to this day, perhaps on an even greater scale than we already know about. yeah, we are part of trying to fight against that. And yeah, we want to support that work and support other comrades doing that work as well. And part of the idea is to hopefully build a large network of publishers globally who are all engaged in anti-imperio's practice. Yeah, I have two

quick flippant comments to throw out there before I let Adnan take us in a more serious direction, I'm sure. You know, David mentions that our class enemies have huge amounts of resources that they will pile into publishing. You know, I just think about how much money is spent on revisions and new editions of Gordon Chang's, the coming collapse of China, you know, every three years after his predictions end up not being correct. They come out with a new addition. I mean, somebody's paying for that at some point. So just thinking about the amount of resources that are spent on garbage like that, that is for the explicit purpose of trying to undermine socialist projects or denigrate past socialist experiments, you know, that money could

be very well spent by those of us who are working on absolute shoestring budgets. But the other second flip-and comment that I wanted to make, you mentioned Stalin and books, David. This is just an anecdote. I read this years ago, so sadly I don't have. the citation for this. But Stalin famously was a very big reader. He would read like a hundred and something pages a day on top of his government communicates and things that he was dealing with. And he had a propensity for going to Lenin's personal library and spending hours there and then coming out. And, you know, he would go in alone, he would come out alone, go in alone, come out alone. And years later, when the maintenance teams and whatnot were going in there, they were

noticing there was a lot of missing books in Lennon's library. And only when Stalin died and they went into Stalin's personal library, they find that he had been just taking the books from Lennon's library that were supposed to be preserved in state into his library and like annotating them and leaving them all over the place in his library because he just wanted to have them around him, which I think is a really, really amusing anecdote. I just wanted to share that because you mentioned Stalin and loving books. And so I would be remiss to not mention the fact that he was a little bit of a kleptomaniac in Lenin's personal library. But Adnan, please take us back into more serious orders.

Oh, no, but that's a great story. And the object of a book is something that's worth thinking about because, You know, we, those of us who love books, you know, maybe have a little fetish for the object of a book and a beautiful volume somehow speaks to us a bit more, even though the content may be the same in a different edition, but, you know, just having the object or you can read it as a PDF. And so this leads me to actually a couple of thoughts and questions for you to perhaps respond to and react to as publishers. and publishers who do a lot of online publishing, but also produce books as objects in the old traditional sort of way. And responding a little bit to David's point, I'd seen that point about the CIA's heavy investment in book publishing and sponsoring authors and folding book festivals and book fairs to try and promote certain kinds of perspectives and writers. And, you know, very often times, well, things that you would think were pretty left, you know, certainly progressive on the liberal wing, but, you know, that they felt they needed to compete with the more thoroughgoing, maybe Marxist and communist critiques of capitalism to, you know, still be on the left, but, you know, sponsor a kind of counter vision of how to critique society that could be more coverable.

And, you know, that point is that they, of course, invest where they see value. So they saw value in books, book publishing, sponsoring authors, and the culture around books. And I wonder, of course, we understand. They must be doing some of that now. But they also, of course, have developed as media has developed in different formats and formats for spreading knowledge and ideology, you know, that the online world is something that was technologically developed in some ways by the defense intelligence, you know, defense research projects and so on. And they have maintained control in many ways over that medium. And they see online

social media as a territory to be dominated and to facilitate their propaganda. So I'm kind of wondering what you see as the, you know, benefits of continued book production, you know, what role does that have in an online world or where a world where media has changed into many different formats, television, radio, you know, first of this radio, television, and, you know, then kind of electronic media, online, and so on. and, you know, also how you see the relationship between that and things that you might be doing that's new, because you have something that you're doing that seems almost like a, you know, retro kind of commitment to books as published items, but yet you also do some innovative things. So how do you see that relationship? You know, if you have any thoughts about how one does that radically and what's unique to the book as a form and what's unique to the way these texts can also be circulated online, what's your strategy as radical publishers. Yeah, I'll just jump in first because on your first point, Adnan, yeah, in terms of the CIA's promotion of various, you know, types of writing. And yeah, I mean, I think as you were saying, they were trying to build what they termed, I'm not sure if they used this term, but essentially this conception of a compatible left where, you know, so it could be, it could be a little bit

teasing and a little bit critical, but not really in any way thoroughgoing or systematic or any kind of real threats to any status quo or any, you know, continued capitalist accumulation. And it was really interesting. You know, the classic book on this is Who Paid the Piper, which is a really fantastic history of the Congress for Cultural Freedom as the wider project they called it, which supported so many, including the Paris review of books and all these kind of things. Yeah, and so many writers who even, there were some who kind of, you know, might have been considered you know, we could criticize them or whatever.

But there were various ones who even thought they were doing good work, who didn't know that they were writing for CIA-funded journals. It just happens to be the case that the CIA found what they were saying to be useful. So I think, you know, many academics these days should consider whether they find themselves in a similar position. Yeah, in terms of equally just a little bit, I'm sure the other comrades can come in on the second points. But my little suggestion on that was, again, yeah, I think, you know, to focus on books, is I think is some of our skill sets

is one reason why we've done that of course we all have a passion for books but we also all remember Mao's opposed book worship so you know we recognize the books are a tool and not just a fetish object but equally as we were talking about a little bit

earlier when you walk through a bookshop in the UK at the moment if you go to Chinese history or Russian history or any of these sections you see the enormous amounts of resources still put into making reactionary works. So I still think that although it might seem like a retro format in some ways,

the powers that be can see the power of books and they still think they're worth investing in them in that sense. So I think for us as well, we can see that they still have a power. And obviously we've all experienced that power in our own lives and seeing the reactions we get from, you know, young people, you know, speaking of young people, but younger readers who they still seem to really respond to what we're doing in book formats and still find a lot of value in them. So that keeps us going on that topic as well.

But I'll let other comrades come in with that thoughts. Yeah. So for a while there, it looked like e-books we're going to take over. But really, it's you can't be a physical book. It's just you cannot beat it. Everyone tries. It's like, I know. How can you? Like, it's been scientifically proven that when you read something on a piece of paper rather than a screen, you retain it more. And it's like you are touching the book. You can smell the book. I don't know about you, but I know most librarians like love the smell of old books. Like it has a homely feeling to it. It's just. I don't know, like, you cannot be that tech. And it also opens up conversations with other people. People will be like, oh my God, you're reading Stalin? Like, why are you reading that? And then it opens up a conversation with other people. And then you just create comrades that way. Like, it just, like, e-books are great. I love them because it does make information, like, easily accessible and at your fingertips. And I think that's why Gen Z,

has radicalized so quickly and so much just because they have all this information in their computer like that. But there's just nothing beats a book. Absolutely nothing. And it's been proven that the stats are e-books and physical books are like at the same level now. For a while their e-books were outselling physical books,

but now it's dropped and people just find what they like, what they prefer. Like, I prefer reading fiction on a screen, but I do prefer reading nonfiction as a book form. Yeah, those are all really great points, comrades, too. And I think that maybe it's important to circle back, too, that that Congress, a cultural freedom thing, I think one of the things that they really sort of tried to foster within, you know, the Western compatible left was this, you know, that the individual theorist or the individual thinker or author should be a critique of all power structures.

Right. So that the person didn't necessarily have to be anti-communist or anti-capitalist. They just had to, like, more so engage in a critique of all power structures. And really, I think they, you know, the idea there was to foster that sort of, you know, the more anarchist, you know, critique of power more generally. And so I think that it's really clear, you know, just in looking at our catalog composition and a lot of our editorial decision making, it's pretty clear like on which side, you know, we stand in contradistinction to that more general. like we critique all power structures like we are very much like we've like picked the side you know and in the you know the era where the contradictions are sharpening and it's anti imperialism versus imperial and we're very clear i think uh in our perspectives and i think that there's like to leo was saying there's things that you like with catalog composition there's things that you can do and there's things that you can't do anyways so circling back to this idea of our like looking at the old versus the new like with regard to like ebooks and pdfs and actual print copies. From a design perspective, there's also simply things that you just cannot do with digital, right? There's things that you can do really well. And like to Leah mentioned,

there's like an accessibility dimension there that I think is like incredibly important, right? There's, you can get it around the world like the same day of publication. And I know a lot of people will like disseminate PDFs and ebooks at a cost at like a delay, you know, and in our professional experience like liaising with other publishers, that whole digital rights management thing. It's a really, it's a really like sticky point of contention with publishers and they're really really guarded about digital rights management and this idea that you you know like none of this can be released for free out there where we stand sort of opposed to that but I think that more or less just from a design perspective you know and being sort of like bibliophiles ourselves you know like opposing book worship but at the same time like secretly worshipping the book and the art of the book there's like really really beautiful things that you can do there and I think that in the effort of accessibility you're you're fulfilling the mission. right like you're fulfilling the mission of publishing and getting books into people's hands when you embrace sort of like broad and diverse publishing tactics you're embracing the new you know you're looking at like ebooks and digital media and like unfettered accessibility with pdfs and whatnot but at the same time too you're really bringing people in i think with you know beautifully designed like taking an artisanal approach to publishing um you know not to sound whatever but there's something really special about that i think you know and i think it really it brings people in and i think people really love that and so far i mean i I couldn't have imagined. I think Henry, with the Stalin book, there was, like, I don't know how many selfies floating around on Twitter with people like holding the book and sharing the book.

And people respond to this like so positively and so beautifully, you know, like it makes you want to tear up a little bit. Like you put the books out there and they've impacted people so much that they feel compelled to like share themselves with the book. I don't know. I still see those. And it's more than a year, almost a year and a half since we published that. Yeah, absolutely. There's something really, really beautiful about that, I think. And so I think that really, maybe to kind of like, you know, put a nail on that question, it's, you know, not so much like embracing the new sort of in favor of the old or like balancing that out.

But like Talia said, you know, the physical book, I think is eternally relevant. It allows you to do things from an artistic and aesthetic and design perspective that you just cannot do with, you know, with digital only. And, you know, further, I think it just feeds the mission of radical publishing more generally, increasing accessibility. So sorry, a little onwinded, but hopefully there's something in there worthwhile. And with physical books, there's no government tracking on it if you pay for it in cash. Good point. And just to jump in, Adnan, you were talking a little bit about other media types as well and the relevance of those. And yeah, one of the aspect of our publishing mission is, you know, we know our skill set and we're focused on prints media,

but we want to rebuild the kind of artistic culture of communism. And we, through our work, we've been able to connect with people making documentary media and making even short form TikTok and all sorts of things that are, you know, and each era of revolutionary struggle is going to have its own different formats of media that it uses to carry along radical messages. Just yesterday, we published the Lost and Early Writings of James Connolly

and a quotes from Connolly that we all really love is that no revolutionary movement is complete without its political expression. And obviously we do that without books and we're on a work with as many comrades as possible doing that through TikTok or doing that through YouTube or doing that through whatever, creative dance, whatever they think is going to get the revolution going.

That's where we're here to support it. Yeah, that's great. I mean, I think dare we say, maybe we're in the era of the radical podcast. You know, to self-describe why we think it's relevant. in an audio format to have these conversations. This allows us to have conversation, often about books, but to engage a community for a sense of a wider public. We keep hearing things about how people don't read. I mean, Talia, you were just mentioning, however, that, you know, book sales are

still up and physical books are, you know, as strong as, you know, e-books and so on. People are, you know, reading, I think one of the other functions of it, of the physical book, or at least a monographic kind of large-scale publication as opposed to small blog posts and articles and short videos and things like that is one, it generates more media, you know, more engagement because it's a substantial piece that represents some kind of authoritative, you know, research and statement, it opens up, it requires concentration where you really are absorbed in a particular thought world. You know, it's not something you just come in and out and then that's over, but it requires, if you're going to read a book, it's compelling because you

have to actually put yourself into the thought world of the argument of the book. It's its own world. It's a universe. And so that's very powerful and compelling. And it speaks to, you know, having some kind of substantial research or claim and authority that then generates other kinds of content. So it is very important to have radical publishing, radical books be written in contrast to a lot of the dribble that's out there. And as David mentioned, you look on the bookshelves. You know, if you want to find out about Russia or China, you're going to be met with a lot of pulp, you know, work that those writers now have established themselves in a certain respect as authorities to go talk about these issues on the news shows, mainstream news shows,

to write, you know, opinion pieces in the journals of record and so on. And it's because they wrote a book on the subject, whether it's a good book, whether, you know, it is based on anything real, whether it's analysis is true. I mean, these things are elided by the authority of having published a book on it. You know, that means, oh, you're an expert. And so we need experts, expertise on the left that's based in genuine materialist, you know, analysis, dialectical materialism, genuine research and investigation to counterpose that. And also to have our experts that sometimes may, you know, at least on the margins of these more mainstream venue. use, be able to talk about them and to amplify those voices because they're generators of more

engagement and content when they're based on a book rather than something very evanescent or temporary or short. So I think that's another kind of component of it. And as it makes me also want to ask, you know, getting back to the kind of object and value of it is how you situate what you're doing within a kind of history of radical publishing and maybe specifically for Ben first and then to others is also

the visual component the design, the art of several of you have alluded to that the books are very compelling that Iskra produces. The art is very powerful. I mean, the Stalin book is just like the cover.

I had to get it for people just because I said, this is one way I can slip you Stalin because the cover is so powerful and visually arresting that you might actually read it or something. So there was some kind of visual component. David, you'd mentioned building an artistic kind of culture on the left. So I'm just wondering how you situate the kinds of visual and design work you're doing within a tradition of radical publishing.

What are some of the histories that you could. connect what you're doing with as you're, you know, charting new directions. But, you know, what speaks to you and how do you see yourself connecting with that, that tradition of radical publishing? Yeah, that's a really great question. And I mean, so I think just to put it out there up front, I think we really see ourselves in conversation with this lengthy lineage of socialist publishing more generally, right? Which I think was always at the avant-garde. It was always culturally and aesthetic-wise and arts-wise, you know, very progressive and very much embracing the latest and the, you know, the most forward-thinking, you know, cultural and artistic trends in

addition to the most forward-thinking political trends. And so I think, you know, at root, really, we try to capture that. And we try to, you know, see ourselves as like, you know, as communists as like inheritors of that legacy, right? Like, we're moving that forward and not simply trying to, you know, be, you know, retrogressive or sort of, you know, like rear-looking in a sense, but we're trying to take that spirit more generally and move it forward. Like, what's the avant-garde currently, you know, how can we remain in conversation with this legacy, but also push things forward. So, you know, getting that out of the way, I think a lot of it really began, you know, Peace Land and Bread was our first publication. And I think really what we tried to do there,

that, you know, that emerged from, uh, during my PhD, I had this like service learning requirement. And instead of a teaching assistantship, I had, you know, completed an editorial assistantship. And it was just, you know, we were already doing this work inside of another organization. And it just worked out that we had the time to do this. But the motivation there was like, you know, in looking more generally, I think at like communist and Marxist-Lennon scholarship, a lot of it, I think, like you had mentioned at the beginning was really, there was like a posity or like a, I don't know, the design was really lacking. And there's like, you know, people would publish things and there's that, like we've all seen that standard clip art of Marx Angles and

Lenin that's just reproduced. Like you type it online in Google, let me like Marx Angles, and PNG and it's like everybody uses the same the same materials and nobody's developing new materials and so I think you know really in the like early 2000s mid 2000s we saw that but when we sat down to do to piece land and bread we realized like that that wasn't the kind of journal we wanted to do you know so I think the goal was to really you know and oftentimes too scholarship and professional academic journals of note right there it's you know very dry there's like a really specific sort of academic format that you look at and it's not a not weird to pull alone. It's not like it's like in the mess there and be important. But I think for a

lot of people, there's a sort of like disconnect. Like this is this like stodgy boring journal. That's 500 or 600 pages long. Um, so anyways, I think, you know, circling back what we really, what, what we, sorry, what we really wanted to do was to like push forward this, uh, you know, very critical scholarship with design, using design to really get that into people's hand. Right. So like, not so much like, tricking people to ring with art, but sort of, right? Getting people to reach that might be out of their comfort zone by packaging it in a really sort of like progressive

creative style. So that's really the motivation. And it started off with Peaceland and Bread and it's carried through to Iskra. That's really, it's our design ethos emerged in Peaceland and Bread and we really just branched out with the books. I guess you could see each book as a sort of like, you know, kind of individuation of that or something.

Yeah, I'm kind of losing my point. I'm going to hand it over to Talia who has, you know, much more of academic art background than me here to maybe say a little more about that idea of like the necessity for like ephemeral art and this idea of like I mean there's like the beautiful black panther newspapers and journals that you know like you know beautiful artwork that speaks to people I think and really like moves forward of message and so I think that yeah I'll just pass it off but there's good stuff there good stuff there for conversation uh yeah so like the working class deserves to have access to beautiful art and that's

been like why I'm like so interested in femoral art like posters and a flyers and stickers and political cartoons that's like my main focus is political cartoons that those are also very dangerous the government the US government has had made laws making them illegal um they're just very powerful and make a very big impact because any person can understand it and that's why I liked Peaceland Bread so much is that anybody could have access to, like, this absolutely gorgeous art. And I know we are planning on publishing capital and lithographs, which was originally published in 1935, I believe. And it just takes sections of capital. And then on the other side is a lithograph illustrating that concept from that exes.

from Capitol. And it was done by Huger Gallert, who was a hard and fast communist, and he said, I'm making this book so any working class person can understand it because the visuals help. I think we would all have liked to have some sort of visuals while reading Capital, like, especially during the third chapter with like all the linen and stuff. But he makes it so accessible to anybody

and it's only like going to be a hundred pages but yeah like art is so important if you're if you're not very like word literate you could be art literate and then merging those two is really a powerful powerful thing and i think ben does an amazing job with his art and making the working class feel like i have art that speaks to me well that's amazing You know, it gives me a thought. An amazing project would be to do something like a graphic novel version of the Communist Manifesto, you know? I think that's been done. Has it been done? Yes. Sorry. So it is a good idea.

It's a great idea. I'd love to get a cop. I think there's like an illustrated guide to the manifesto. I personally don't like the illustrations that much. So maybe a really good Still room. Yeah. Yeah, we had planned

like for the 175th of the Communist Manifesto, we had planned an illustrated edition that didn't quite come out just given the workload that we had at the time. But that's still on the books. There's still definitely

something there in the future. So hopefully we can circle back to that at some point. Yeah, I managed to Oh, sorry. No, go ahead. Go ahead, David. Go ahead.

Yeah, I managed to get, when I was in China earlier this year, I managed to get a, you know, a Mandarin language version of capital and it had loads of visual like images of Renate of like paintings from you know the period of Marx's writing and images of workers and images of the history of the revolutionary movement afterwards and like annotations and yeah it was so interesting and I haven't seen much like that in the English language so yeah but just just to I wanted to jump in

just to say another part of you know the how the we work with art in our movements in Nisgra is that, you know, as well as being, um, wanting to continue the avant-garde um, of the, of the contemporary, another big thing that inspires us and we want to bring forward is to remind people of the incredible artistic legacy of the communists and the progressive movements and the anti-imperialist movements. Because, you know, the anti-communist would have it that all, all communist art is, is of a certain very drab and gray and realistic and it completely ignores, you know, not only is it very Eurocentric, but it completely ignores so many, even within the Russian, you know, the Bolshevik history, there's so much

avant-garde art and things like that as well. So, yeah, it's really important to bring that forward. And one example of that, we've just recently published a book called Building of People's Arts, which centers the artistic propaganda of the Vietnamese revolutionary movement. And also has some of the, alongside their, you know, critical aesthetic arguments and an essay. So it's a really very under explored history in the West and really absolutely beautiful paintings. So I really, and obviously we have a free PDF on the website. So please go and take a look. And even though it's quite a large and heavy, high-quality page book, I really recommend people that they get a physical copy because it's so beautiful and so moving.

The artworks are really beautiful. Yeah. I echo that entirely. The physical book is a bit pricey because of, you know, it is an art book. It's like a massive book filled with art. But as David said, we also, of course, we at Isra offer all of the texts available as free PDFs as well. So if you don't want to have like a coffee table, art book of Revolutionary Vietnamese art, you can still get the PDF version of it and still see the imagery and also read the analysis of those things.

but I know when I get to a place that is not sanctioned, I am getting that coffee table book because it really, really looks incredible. But I want to take us away from art for just a second and talk about the political purpose of publishing. So when we think about publishing historically within revolutionary movements, there has been various forms in which that has been undertaken, some of those underground, some of those above ground, some of those within the academy, most of them outside of the academy, particularly within revolutionary movements. But we have to analyze the role of publishing

within revolutionary movements and then the importance of revolutionary movements in supporting the publishing as well. There is a dialectic at play here that I think needs to be analyzed. But also, I want to refer to something that I believe Adnan had said previously and maybe it was a reflection of something that Tilea had said. So I want to put this in there as well. And then, again, just kind of generate this conversation on the political purpose of publishing, as well as the way in which people consume political content.

So I know Adnan had reflected on the fact that it's often accused that young people don't read these days. And it was something that I had brought up in a conversation which hasn't been released yet. So I know that the three of you haven't heard it yet, but it was one that we just did with our friends, Sina from the East is a podcast on media as anti-imperialist practice. So the two sides of this conversation that we're having, this one publishing as anti-imperialist

practice, that one was media as anti-imperialist practice. One of the things that came up is that young people don't read these days. But actually I had actually had that view previously that the amount of reading and the amount of media consumption more generally in terms of analytical media consumption has gone down dramatically within recent decades. My wife has corrected me on that as somebody who is much smarter than I am and who does research on these sorts of things. She points out that actually when there are studies that are being done in terms of how media is being consumed and how reading is being done, there actually is not a decrease in the amount of reading that is being done and there is

not a decrease in the amount of media that is being analyzed. It's just the form is changing. so while we may not see as many people sitting on a subway train with a book open on their lap as they're going that does not mean that there is not content being read the form excuse me the form ice changing we have people reading excerpts on social media we have people that are going to youtube and analyzing things that are being said on there it's a different form it is not different in terms of content. And one of the things that I think is really important for us to think about these days is ISCRA, as a publishing company, is still putting out books, right?

And we have to acknowledge that a lot of people are not reading entire books today. Many of us are. I'm sure that many of our listeners are as well. But we have to acknowledge that a lot of people aren't reading entire books. But I do see one of the things that is pleasant for me to see is when I go on social media, which I try to avoid, but sometimes I do have to go there for advertising purposes or whatever. I often will see people who take screenshots of excerpts of books, and those screenshots will have like 4,000 likes or 12,000 likes of an excerpt of a book, sometimes

a digital version, sometimes somebody will literally take a picture of half a page of their book, and it'll get thousands of likes. Now, why is it getting likes? People are reading and people are consuming, even if they're not reading the entire book. So one of the things that I think is particularly important for those of us who do consume books is to make it more accessible for people to get those sorts of messages from the texts that they otherwise wouldn't read. And it reminds me back in the day, I know I'm not that old, but I like to say that. Back in the day, one of the things that these political groups would do, people that were

in physical organizations that, you know, would analyze text together, reading circles, things like that, you would have somebody who would have a text and annotate that book and then give the annotated book to someone else so that not only would the person have the book to read, but they would also have the annotations that would highlight bits that they thought were particularly important, notes that would tie work that the organization was doing to analysis that was being done within the book, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. These annotations were a really big part of that sharing of those political texts. Today we don't have physical annotations. is being passed around as much. I know I like to annotate my books, but when I share these,

I am not handing my book with my hundreds of sticky notes that are sticking out with my scribbled cursive writing on it to someone. I take a picture of that annotated section and send that picture of the annotated section to the person that I am trying to communicate this with. That's also an important political tool. So, again, I understand that there wasn't much of a question there. The question is, can you discuss the political purpose of publishing? Because ISCRA is a political publisher and how we should engage with the political process involved with the consumption of media, the consumption of print media, with the knowledge that many people these days, while they are still consuming media, are not consuming it in the same form that they

did necessarily in the past and in the form that ISCRA necessarily is publishing it in. I know David hasn't gotten to speak much recently, but I'm going to turn it to Leah because I know you have to go relatively soon. I guess I'll talk a little bit about what the imprint that we're starting. And that's part of like the dialectical of hearing. So I'm an Irish language speaker. My husband's an Irish language speaker. And there is a call. There was a call for more Irish language publishing.

Irish, the Irish language is a minority language. It doesn't get much support from the state. And there is a call for radical Irish language publishing. So we have started an Irish language imprint because people want that. Irish Republicans want that. And part of the political aspect of this is it's like decolonization work. It's anti-imperialist work. It's uplifting this language that has been suppressed by the Brits, sorry, David, for 800-plus years, and it's still an ongoing struggle.

So the fact that we are publishing these books in the Irish language is incredibly important. It's a way of stopping that English language majority, it's oppressive. The English language is oppressive in Ireland, I feel, and especially you see that in the north. So having those books out there is just a radical political act in of itself. Yes, we should mention that, Henry. Please got that. So, and then the annotations, I don't, the fact that you're writing in books really upset, sweet. But I don't, no, no, Delia, I don't. I don't. I think sticky notes. I can show you my books. There's a hundred sticky notes sticking out of my book, books so that I don't write on the pages.

Adhesive ruins the pages, but whatever. But yeah, like, it's just really important to have these radical texts in the hands of people who are already oppressed or feel oppressed. And with the Minion, we have a Twitter account, and I totally get what you're saying, like, we'll take pictures of books that we're reading for research and we'll put that, like, paragraph up on Twitter. And it just, like, blows up. Like, those are our most popular tweets are the ones that have citate, like, it's from a book. Like, people absolutely love seeing that. And I think it's because the book is seen as, like, an authoritarian, like, figure on a topic. And that's why I think people say, oh, well, I read it in a book that must mean it's true. And that's why we have all this garbage in these bookstores about Russia and China.

And so I think that's why it's so important what we do is we offer an alternative to these mainstream publishers who will just publish crap, even though it's not cited properly, like people just make up stuff and then put it in a book and then get it published. I don't know. Does that answer? We can turn it over here, too.

Yeah, thank you, David. Stalin used to write in books, so it can't be all bad. He gets a pass. Yeah, so Henry and your question, you mentioned a little bit about the kind of historic structures of reading and book usage, especially in the political movement. And that is something that we're very interested in, again, part of the revival of the artistic culture

and the reading culture and all of those things is something we want to support as much as possible. And you mentioned that, you know, the interactions between organizations in the movement and publishers and that dialectical relationship. And absolutely, that's something that we want to further. You know, we are a non-sectarian and non-affiliated publisher. So, you know, there are certain lines of certain organizations, of course, that we would work with. But in terms of the communist movement, we work with various organizations and we support their reading groups and we work with radical bookshops and we want to build as many relationships with radical bookshops that we can. And yeah, so we want to support them when they have reading groups and it's always really great to hear.

I just heard recently that we had a book on Claudio Jones called Internationalism Practice and it's Black History Month at the moment and there's a reading group in London who's going to be studying that book affiliated with an organization. So that's really wonderful and we want to support that sort of comrades are listening now and they're setting up a book group or they're thinking about a bookshop or their organization wants a reading group or anything. Please do reach out to us. Our emails are on our websites and yeah, we can do whatever we can to support.

you if people want to have physical copies in their hands we can help with uh you know at cost prices and so on and so yeah we want to revive that kind of relationship between the movements and between the publishers and you know equally we're all about we want ideas we want submissions from people we're open for submissions so please do uh you know we that's one of the key ways in which we source new texts is obviously we're very responsive to what's going on in the world and um uh what the movement requires, but also what people are submitting is very important for us. And another thing, just in terms of the books, you know, there is a kind of book as a pure academic thing. And that's something we publish as well, purely historical books and purely theoretical books and

they're great. But also, we're very interested in the book as a tool, especially for organizational work. And the piece, sorry, the Palestine Liberation Organization organizational documents book, which we published this year, the kind of function of that is hopefully to support, especially anti-Zionist movements, but any kind of progressive movement to learn from the PLO and the Palestine movements, you know, how did they organize themselves? What were their, what were their structures, what were their rules and regulations and organizations as well? So there is, it's just a reading and a pleasure and everything. That's something we want to keep pushing.

Yeah, those are all great points, comrades. Oh, I'm sorry. No, go ahead, Ben. Go ahead. Well, I was just going to bring it home a little bit, too, with, you know, circling back to Henry's, you know, point on the political purpose of publishing or the political significance of the book more generally. I think it's important to say, too, that we, you know, the field of radical publishing is dominated by political tendencies that are not, you know, similar to our own. We're communists, you know, and there's a lot of, as far as bookstores go, it's like the anarchist bookstore sort of rules the roost.

As far as publishers go, the Trotskyist publisher, you know, sort of rules the publishing roost, I think. And so I think that we we also, you know, like David said, we're, you know, we're nonpartisan in the sense that we all do individual party work on our own and our respective countries. But we come together specifically, you know, sort of anti-sectarian and nonpartisan and, you know, try to, you know, work broadly with groups that are, you know, doing the, doing the work that we do organizing-wise. And so I think that's important to point out, too, because we do, you know, respond to a gap in the field. We respond to some, I mean, there's not, I mean, if you look at the sort of like field of radical publishers, especially. with some of the ones who popped up lately there's a couple of Marxist-Leninist publishers out there

but not many I mean there's there's an increasing chauvinist presence you know sort of in the field trying to co-opt socialist practice and you know existing socialist iconography and stuff like that really poorly I must say with like AI art and this really like

sorry for the swearing but like a dog shit aesthetic it's terrible it's not doing the world of publishing it's not doing readers it's not doing organized there's any good. Aside from the sort of like national socialist, you know, Nazi rhetoric that's inside of that stuff, it really, overall, it's not good for the movement, I think. But I think that, you know, like aside from all that, you know, like, I mean, we respond to a very real need inside the movement to have a publisher that's not specifically partisan. I mean, there's a place. I mean, I think inside of revolutionary studies, we all understand the import of the party publisher, right?

Parties need their own publishers. They need publishing houses connected to the party to put out party opinions, but at the same time, if you're trying to reach a broad audience, right, like a person who's not necessarily like aligned with the party or a person who's just getting into organizing or activism, they're going to see a party publication and they're immediately going to sort of like delegitimize that a little bit. They're going to say, well, this is a party line, you know, well, of course, you know, X, Y, and Z party is putting this position out because it supports their positions. But I think when they see general sort of like, not to call this big tent, but to see a sort of like non-aligned, you know, nonpartisan publisher,

you know, working specifically in the sort of like more academic sort of activist dimensions of this, it grants the scholarship legitimacy, I think, too. So I think that's really important to touch on. Sorry if it derailed anything that anybody else was saying, but yeah. It's very interesting. Yeah. I mean, I think that's interesting to think of it as something different from like party organ publishing, but it's still radical, independent, and facilitating movement. I mean, things that David mentioned quite interesting to imagine these as connected with study circles, radical political education that needs to take place. But also you have an interesting form, things like the notebooks, you know, that you, that you

published. I mean, I was interested in thinking a little bit more about what that medium of publishing is for. Maybe you can describe a little bit more, you know, what these notebooks are, why you've done them the way you have. They're clearly meant to facilitate some connection between activism and learning and scholarship and connecting those two realms through publishing things in a particular sort of way. Maybe you could a little bit more about what's at stake there and what's the, you know, what are the goals? What are you trying to accomplish by creating these notebooks? Yeah, absolutely. So I think a lot of this stuff really, you know, so like I'm just going to put it out there front that we're a nonprofit publisher, right? So we don't, you know, we're not

following a logic of profit. We serve the public good. And we conceptualize the public good as organizers and, you know, the subaltern and the oppressed and the exploited. And, you know, all the people that we serve as communist, right? So we serve the public good. We're not driven by a logic of profit. And I think that decoupling, you know, the publishing practice that we do from profit motives, it allows us to pursue projects that are like near and dear to our hearts, right? And so I think that those, the notebook projects really emerged at a time, for me anyways, I was just, and this is really kind of a lame reason, but I just couldn't find a notebook that I really liked that was like where I was able to put footnotes on the things that I was writing and like being a, you know, like eternally bound, you know, to higher ed, you know, whether I like it or not, you know, in various forms of, you know, professorship and, you know, graduate study in these things, you know, like we all take notes and we need the notebook. And so I think maybe a little bit selfishly form-wise, there was a need to have a book that was like easily, you know, separatable topic-wise that had the ability for footnotes that had the ability to like label top pages that was like there was like they were, you know, paginated to the point where you could have a table of contents at the beginning. So, you know, perhaps most selfishly, I think it just served a very real need in our lives.

And that was like the primary motivation like, well, if we find this useful. maybe other folks would find this useful as well because I think that one of the things that occurs is that we're you know like as comrades we're all doing so much right we teach we organize we study we publish we we do all of these things right and they're there are things that can I think feel to us like a little bit disparate and so I think that that was the purpose right like all of my other notebooks it's really hard for me to like okay is it like you know this page here is from class this is from you know teaching the page before that you know so it gets a little jumbled so I think that was that was part of the purpose

Another purpose is that folks, I think, really respond nicely to the art. And I think it's nice to have, like, you know, revolutionary quips and slogans, you know, Lenin writes against, you know, sloganeering a little bit. But I think that there's a place for that, the time and a place. And so we try to include, like, you know, inspiring revolutionary, you know, quotes and to, you know, kind of couch some art, the fur of free Palestine notebook, which is stupidly overpriced. And the only reason for that is print costs are so high. We don't make really any money on that.

And all the money we do make it set to the Middle East Children's Association. by the way so if folks need a notebook please pick that up it's for a good cause um but yeah there's something there i think i want to explore but a little bit more in the future which is like doing a little bit more full color stuff making these a little more like fundraiser and so you're checking boxes like this is a good notebook for folks that are involved in these like multifaceted struggles they they're fundraiser things they don't necessarily make us money but they're just like useful for people so hopefully that answer the question yeah well you know you've mentioned a few times the importance of delinking this project from the profit motive, which is, you know, the reality

for even left radical publishers is that they need to find ways to make it cost neutral or at the very least, and to stay, as it were, in business, your collective and publishing project is a bit different. I'm wondering, you know, how you connect and link with groups, maybe. be like radical publishers alliance, something that I saw came into existence because of the problems all publishers were facing during COVID, many businesses, were that especially vulnerable our left publishing houses during this kind of a period where it's already so difficult, the costs are so high. You know, what, you know, what kinds of initiatives can you see in left radical

publishing that could genuinely contribute to collective vibrancy of the community of left publishers and also what is the sort of relationship between Iskra's model and some of these other ones. I'm wondering, curious about your thoughts on some of those efforts to try and preserve niche publishing houses that might otherwise not survive. in very difficult economic times. Yeah, David, why don't you say a little more about that, but just really quickly before you do, do I just wanted to say that the RPA,

they're actually, they're kind of a defunct organization. They did arise during the pandemic to support, you know, left publishers and, you know, the vicissitudes of, you know, you know, the economy that was occurring at the time, you know, but they don't, yeah, they're not really, they're not really like a thing anymore.

There's a lot of organizations that are like signatories. However, the organization doesn't do much. And to sort of, you know, preface maybe what David's going to say, say there's not a lot of professional, like outside of the big publishing, like, associations of like big capitalist publishers. There's not really a lot that happens, but because they're all competitors, right? They're all, they all exist in a capitalist market. They're all essentially capitalists themselves, you know, serving the logic of profit more generally. And so there's really,

I think that there's not as many of those networks as there should be. And I think for our part, we really do, I mean, there's a circle there. There's a circle between reader, bookseller, publisher, and there's intermediaries to, you know, like distribution. And we really, try to close that circle right like we really like we're a reader focus publisher you know to the detriment a little bit of the seller you know i think but like we do our best i think and we have a really robust network of sellers readers publishers that we're having to develop because of these structures i mean more or less in the radical world don't really exist across political barriers right yeah and obviously you know we're communists we're keen to you'd come up with these

like union like networks and and supportive networks of organizations, and we have ad hoc relationships with radical publishers and radical artists and bookshops, as I've mentioned, and so on. So we are keen to keep developing that and perhaps come up with some. If we can't find the organization that we want, that was the case with ISCro. We couldn't find the publisher that we want, so we set it up. So maybe it's the case that we, with some other comrades, and obviously, as I mentioned, our emails are on the website. So if anyone has any good ideas, please get in touch, then that's something that we could build together.

But yeah, and equally, talking about the financial side of things a little bit, one thing as well that we've learned, and we would hope other comrades would be able to replicate is, you know, there has been in the last few years or, you know, a few decades or whatever, there's been something of a democratization of print culture. I think a lot of people talk about, you know,

the self-published book on Amazon is some horrible embarrassment kind of a thing, but there are ways that you can print beautiful looking books and you can do it without a huge upfront cost and you can do it just being a few comrades together who decide to do it. So yeah, one of the things that we would really want to get out there is, you know, we want to promote other people to become radical publishers and, you know, look into it a little bit and speak to comrades and we can we can help with that as well. But yeah, it isn't the case that you need a huge lump sum or a huge seed countertile or anything like that to become that you just need to do the work

out and then people will come to you if you're putting good work out there that you will get an audience and yeah that's something you know and that's using the market efficiencies kind of against the network because we can hopefully put out anti-capitalist messages while taking advantage of the way that they've socialized production essentially so yeah that's something that i think is really important for comrades to think about if they want to a certain type of publisher out there, you can do it. So, yeah, it's not impossible. Well, I think it's important to say, too, that even within publishing, even within large-scale publishing, David, that there's a changing of the model, right? And we saw that recently, I mean,

the folks who were in the sort of like Twitter X-Sphere, you know, saw recently with Verso's issue that they had with their distribution folks on that side of the Atlantic, right? Like, there's the traditional models, I think, that we're looking at as publishers are sort of like revealing themselves to not really work as well as they used to. too, right? And so I think that just, I mean, logistically, we're searching for models that are better. And, you know, we're doing this. It's kind of like the Wild West a little bit, right? In the sense that we're, there's, like, nothing is set in stone. The old models don't necessarily work for us anymore. And so we do have to develop these things. We have to seek alternative

models. And it's interesting to note, too, that like the way that we print and distribute is the same way that'll, I mean, the majority of like mid-scale publishers do this, you know, academic publishers notwithstanding, folks like monthly review, uh, to like the hundred year old publishing houses like international publishers like we're you know we're pursuing print and distro in a way that I think is becoming you know while it might not initially have been like industry standard or industry norm for the large scale publishers who could you know go with a thousand book run like a first edition and you know could you know guarantee that they were going to like move those titles you know like we work on a very different model that's you know

quickly being adopted by many publishers and so I think that yeah we're in the midst of a you know kind of a sea change a little bit and we're we've found ourselves kind of like surfing the wave and it's really like it's a cool thing to be a part of you know it's a cool thing to be a part of and like david said too like let a thousand flowers bloom right like we really are interested you know there's things that we just you know given the um the constraints of labor power like which is an interesting thing to bump up against right like you've like there's so many cool books we want to publish and so many cool things you want to do and so many cool things that we do but i think that we're just like bumping up against what we physically can and can't do you know just you know given however many hands we've have on deck. And so I think that, you know, supporting other people to do the good work, it really only serves the movement. You know, if you're, like, if you're decoupled from the profit motive, if you're not trying to sort of like monopolize the market or, you know, do the thing where you're trying to be the one that's really drawing in, you know, all of the, all of the revenue. But what you're trying to do is serve a movement and the public good more generally. It only helps, right?

It only helps to have more people out there, getting more materials out there that then find, you know, find their way into the hands of organizers and activists who, like the PLO book, right, put those things into practice, you know, through organizational study or whatnot. So, yeah, it's only good. It's only good to see this, you know, kind of going forward. This has been a really great meditation on why publishing is so important, why books are so important, and the connection between those things and movements. I guess the only thing that I was still wondering that maybe you could give us some

further insight on is perhaps editorially and you know how do you find the works to publish you know especially as a new venture that had to try and develop you know some kind of list you know and also

you know how do you choose if you have like lots of submissions you know what are you looking for what are the kind of political goals, I guess, or objectives maybe behind what you want to publish. Like what kinds of things are high on the priority list for a radical publisher? I mean, you mentioned already a variety of different kinds of genres and forms. You've got a journal. You have books on theory, you know, you have the notebooks, which are kind of a nice art and activism kind of tool. But so, like, what does Ispre try and produce, particularly if we're thinking about

how publishing can be, you know, anti-imperial praxis? What are you seeking? Yeah, wonderful question. So that's, so I think a lot of, and I'm not sure if we're unique in this regard, right? But because we started off first as an academic, you know, sort of academic activist journal, we've really continued that editorial decision-making process from the journal towards the book, right? So we do a pretty standard like reviewer one, reviewer two kind of a thing. Logistically, we operate similar to how a scholarly journal operates with like editorializing the workflow and all that stuff, right? We, at the very onset, you know, you did make a good point there. At the very onset of piece landed bread, we, it was primarily,

we put out a call for submissions, but when you're brand new, this is back in 20, 2019. When you're brand new, nobody really wants to submit to your journal. So we did a lot of direct solicitation. And then I think from that, you know, is like where the political significance of the work comes in, right? And it's the political sort of like, you know, direction, you know, direction seeking from the editorial board, I think really comes into play. And I think it's it's that thing where you're stronger together. You're stronger with your comrades, you know. And we had, I mean, we've always been amazingly fortunate to have a really, really solid crew. And I think from the onset, we've had an editorial board as big as like 30 folks. And I think right now we're

sitting right around 20 something. We're all volunteers. We all do this because we love the work that we do right. And so I think that, you know, above the work, we're all really like we're friends and we're comrades. And we, you know, we're all, you know, kind of bonded for this, you know, like for this thing through that. So I think that really helps. And I think we really, you know, we teach each other. And I think, you know, politically we really grow together. And, you know, like if, I mean, there's a lot of things that I don't know. There's a lot of things that other folks don't know, but we can all, I think we all fill the gaps pretty well, and we're all committed to the same things. Yeah. So I think really, you know, but I mean, going further than that, I think what

we're really trying to do, to answer your question, like, what are we looking for, like, significance-wise? Well, like, what are we looking for politically, you know, catalog composition? I think, and I don't just think this, I think it's pretty demonstrable, right? But there's a massive imbalance in catalog composition that's seriously biased towards like white cis het dudes right like and if you do i actually in the second doctoral program i hope you know it's like an organizational studies uh doctorate um and there's like some pretty cool instruments you can develop where you look at catalog composition you know based on demographic data and when you i'm not going to call out specific publishers but when you like develop these instruments that look at like you know catalog demographic data you know

it's it's like wildly imbalanced in the radical sphere too radical publishers reproduce that problematic catalog composition that all capitalist publishers are guilty of they all they primarily published men they primarily publish you know like white folks they primarily publish cis folks you know so I think that what we try to do specifically and looking at catalog composition as we really try to walk the walk and I think what we're looking for really is to like de-center like delia said earlier, decenter the hegemony of, you know, like the extant hegemonies that are like built into publishing. And so I think we specifically, when we're like looking for works, when we're looking for collaborations, we really seek to like elevate voices from the global

south to elevate voices that are typically, you know, gate kept and withheld from publishing spaces. So I think, you know, whatever we can do to, to platform those voices, to privilege and to center those voices, I think is the most important, right? And, you know, centering the voices are the most impressed, the most, uh, or sorry, the most oppressed, uh, the most revolutionary, I think is constantly a driving factor for us. Um, that we take into, you know, like into consideration with all catalog composition, uh, editorial decision making. So I don't know, David, if you have more to say about that, but I think we try to be as progressive as possible when it comes to, you know, the catalog, you know, composition. And I think that, too, just like looking at

how that imbalance persists, you know, not only in regular publishing, but radical publishing, too, it's, we're also guilty at that. Not to. say like, you know, we're super like beyond that and have this like very sort of like perfectly harmonized and balanced catalog. But we, yeah, in looking at other publishers and looking at ourselves, there's there's imbalances there to correct that I think is like really important to correct. Yeah. And I think, you know, another factor of how we choose and Ben mentioned around the, you know, the peer review kind of process. So we want to make sure that our, you know, our editorial line is kind of fixed on centering voices like that and centering and team.

periodist messages and theoretical stuff as well so but then equally you know unfortunately there is a tension between publishing moves quite slowly but we also want to be responsive to the needs of the movement right now so you know obviously in the last year or so we've been really focused on trying to publish around you know Arab

Marxism and Palestine um uh Palestine uh Palestine activism and so on. So we've had the PLO book out. We've had the reading in our Mastarak book about an Iraqi Marxist. We're hoping soon to have books from Yemen, revolutionary Yemen. And so that's one aspect that we try to be responsive to the needs of the movement

and the focus of people's movements and whatever we can do to help support those progressive movements. So that's another way that we want to, you know, how helps us choose what we publish? Well, that's, I mean, I think from my perspective, you also should mention that you have, you know, documents from the public front coming out. And so, you know, the contribution to people getting a sense of the historical depth of Palestinian resistance and the movement for liberation, the anti-colonial struggle, that is obviously a major contribution, a publisher like yourself can make. What I think is great about it is that it's also publishing historical documents that can inspire this kind of historical consciousness, but not just through narrative history, but people feeling the dimensions of how struggle was being crystallized in political demands and in political statements. I mean, there's something that I really love about reading.

from this, you know, world of decolonization struggles in the 60s and 70s in particular are, you know, the way in which so, like, for example, the FLN, you know, like it put out these declarations, you know, and it would put them out on radio as well as in their organ, the al-Mujahed, the, you know, the fighter for liberation, the newsletter or newspaper that they would publish periodically to give voice to the struggle that, Franz Fanon himself wrote for, you know, that there's a long kind of, and I would say noble history of anti-colonial and anti-imperial publishing, that in some ways publishing these documents are meant to inspire, and it's useful for us as a history podcast, you know, very interested in having more resources, sources and methods, you know, the kind of series that we have, looking at actual primary source documents to teach people how you can study the past through their original work. So that seemed to me one kind of contribution that this historically minded documentary publishing, less a kind of monographic account, but giving people

the raw resources for sharpening their political analysis and thinking about the contemporary in relationship to these precedents, you know, what's changed, how did they envision their struggle and liberation. That's something that's very hard to reproduce for readers if you just publish a kind of narrative history. So that's, I found that very interesting that Iskra was doing that. And I'm wondering if, you know, you have anything more to say about why make those decisions to do source collections? And do you have more of those kinds of things in mind I can think of, for example, that very useful now would be something related to a Communist Party of China documents, you know, to really give people a sense of texture. There's so much mythmaking about it, so much hostile media, but to put in people's hands, some of the published sources in translate, if there, you know, some of them might be already translated, but others you might need to be translated.

But that would give people a window onto, you know, a society that there's so much propaganda around, you know, that there's a real antidote to some of those books we were talking about that are pushing, you know, hostile, aggressive intentions, militaristic intentions towards China. I wonder if you have any further thoughts on, you know, how and why these choices might facilitate anti-imperial politics as much or better than maybe other choices when it comes to public. Yeah, I should just say, just as a plug, you know, a timely plug, obviously this week we had out the lost and early writings of James Connolly, which kind of function in a similar way, you know, the newspaper articles, clippings, letters, all this kind of historical documents that are so fascinating and so inspiring. And I think, yeah, another reason why I think is so generative to look at these documents is it makes. radical revolutionary life real it makes it feel more tangible you can see the process of movements you can see the length of struggle which you know hopefully will be inspiring and not depressing in that kind of a way but yeah I for me you know as someone who's also very interested in history it just kind of it connects you to that world again and we've we've mentioned about you know the kind of lost worlds of artistic and vibrant progressive movements

in certain parts of the world, there's been ebbs and flows all over. So, you know, the ones that we are publishing, hopefully we can kind of bring those back to life. And that's why I think those kind of first source documents can do that in a really more effective way. Otherwise, you know, the monographic ones can have their own achievements and pluses and minuses. But yeah, that's one thing that is one reason to do it.

And yeah, you mentioned, yeah, obviously I'm connecting. of friends of socialist China, so something on China would be really good. I don't have anything in the pipeline just now, but there is so much narrative making around China that they've abandoned Marxism and some, there's such vibrant culture of Marxist writing in the party, some non-party writings as well that would be really interesting to kind of put those together in some format, so that's definitely something to take away. I think, yeah, we're definitely seeking out more of those things. We've been in contact, you know, with not that every, we have, you know, so many hands and so many fires, so not everything always comes to fruition, but, you know, we're talking

with people in Swatini and, yeah, it's on the movement there to try and get documents, you know, and likewise with the revolutionary Yemen, so there's stuff definitely in the pipeline, more of that style. Yeah, there's something beautiful to say, too, for this idea of, like, fleshing out the field of critical organizational studies, which was something that I've only recently encountered, you know, in this like postdoctoral study that I'm doing. But it's a really vibrant field. And I think, you know, too, I think there's a lot of, you know, in reading about that and reading about how when the Soviet Union was, you know, first being formed and, you know, they were pursuing their own avenues of organizational studies that like nothing really existed

in that realm. And they were really leaning heavily on American organizational studies and then taking that in the Soviet, you know, kind of socialist direction. But, you know, outside of that, there's not a lot. Like when you dig into critical organizational studies, there's nothing there. And I think that there's deep lessons there, right, for organizers in the West, you know, primarily, like organizers in the global South have it figured out, right? But organizers in the West, we're behind. We're really behind in a lot of regards. And so I think that taking a critical organizational study dimension with these texts is super important in the sense that, I mean, like you said, you're putting together primary source documents. You're

contextualizing them with, you know, new writings that offer like, you know, a kind of how to read this text kind of a thing. And they're ultimately, there are lessons for organizers who, who haven't gone through the struggles of the peoples in the global south, the peoples in Palestine, right? Who were like directly under fire, who were being assassinated, burned, blown up, and they're still organizing and they're still winning. They're still fighting and they're, you know, so I think that that's really what we're looking for, I think, with these guides. Or that's at least maybe the academic reason is it's a critical organizational studies guide, but the secret reason is as organizers, we're like, yeah, people need to learn from these,

right. These are tactics we can implement inside of our own organizations. We can become organized better as working class like activists. Yeah, it's an important field and I think your, yeah, your point is really amazing. I was taking notes when you were talking on none. I think that's something that definitely has to happen. I think seeing the success of this series, I think

in its first month, yeah, this first month alone, we managed to raise a really significant amount of money for the Middle East Children's Association, which was like so beautiful. It's so beautiful to get to send that money to where it's needed, you know, through these projects and just, you know, seeing how good and how well people are responding to them, I think it really merits a continued

series. So yeah, we'll definitely explore that. And if folks, listeners, if listeners have any idea, please head us up. Yeah, it's our first name. Atchesterbooks.orgie. Right. Yes. And I mean, just to testify to that, I've been away, you know, on research, just have come back to my university in Canada recently. And so I've seen a lot of colleagues who I haven't been in direct contact with because I'm on campus and they haven't seen me for a while. One of the first things that came up was a colleague said, I really need to talk to you about that PLO work that you did with guerrilla history because they thought that it was like great to have both the book published and document and they thought it was an interesting thing to do in this moment and there

should be more things like that. They were using them in their class, you know, as ways to kind of build a discussion using history, using these documents, and talking about the present in this kind of interaction sort of way. But I think also they were interested in the commentary, you know, that we've done about some of those documents. And I think finding ways to use history in educative sorts of ways in different formats and different media, building off of a I mean, I think this has a lot of potential in modeling some of what you've been talking about, Ben, organizational lessons that come from, you know, observing, you know, how people struggle with organizational questions and political defining political objectives and how to achieve them

and so on. It's very valuable, particularly, I think, in this moment, especially when there have been so many kind of trends in activism and activist movements that have arisen from spontaneous, you know, you might say spontaneity, you know, the Occupy movements, and so on. But there was kind of lacking in organizational foundation and maybe even vocabulary and conceptual apparatus that maybe undermine the effectiveness of some of these. movement. So we need to kind of learn some lessons, not to repeat structures and strategies that didn't work, but at least to develop appropriate modes of political organization for the struggles, the huge challenges that we're facing today. And so I think that's beneficial

in political activism today, very much so. And I think, you know, the publishing, as you've been doing, can make a major contribution in making available exemplars and models like that for people to work with and through, work through. So just riffing off that organizational point is I think it's both for study in political education, but also there's a lot we can learn organizationally by studying PLO, PFLP, other examples.

You know, there would be, you know, I think a lot to learn maybe from things like documents from, you know, the Vietnamese liberation struggle, from other decolonization struggles in Africa, and so on. And, of course, war documents from, for example, Cuba's way of envisioning and expressing solidarity and organizing itself to support anti-colonial struggles and so on, This is actual textured, you know, the texture of real anti-colonial and anti-imperial struggle in those kinds of documents and in those kinds of accounts that are very relevant right now. Yeah, definitely. I think we just turned this two-part series into an ongoing. I think we have a, like on the horizon, I think we have a guerrilla history, ISCRA, you know, a series of indeterminate length ahead of us that we should really. strategize on going forward. This sounds really amazing. I'm super excited for it, very clearly

here for all of it. And I think, too, it's really cool to hear the feedback from your, from your colleagues. We have a colleague that we're working with right now who's trying to pitch a study of the book to the other RPA, the Radical Philosophy Association, to do a panel on this at one of the RPA conferences. And so, I mean, that's sort of, you know, following up with what you've said. It's really cool to see, to see these really reach beyond, like what I thought would be their intended targets, which is primarily organizers, but it's really cool to see these move into, yeah, like more professional sort of higher ed worlds and people are actually studying these and critically engaging.

It's really, yeah, it's amazing. It's amazing to see it, I think. And I think it really, yeah, really does merit a further 50 volume series, you know, on the horizon or something. As if we didn't already have enough things to do. So by way of closing, and we really need to close because my voice is very clearly on the fritz at this point. I want to give each of you the opportunity to tell the listeners where they can find you on social media, but also tell the listeners what your current project that you're working on is or ISCRA.

Of course, most of us have more than one ongoing project. So, you know, you can talk about more than one. But what is the most active project that you're working on right now for ISCRA? And I can talk about one of the projects that Talia is working on because I'll be working on the same one as well. Tilia had to leave early, unfortunately. But listeners, you'll hear from each Ben and David. And then just a reminder that after we wrap up, you'll hear my seven-minute presentation that I did for the Friends of Socialist China, China at 75 conference on publishing as anti-imperialist practice. David, I'll turn it to you first. What are you most actively working on right now for Iskra and where can the listeners find you online? Well, Henry, the book that I'm working on right now, I've always actually co-translated by yourself. I collaborate, you know,

we had our fantastic collaboration previously with the Dominico Loserdo book on Stalin and with Salvatore and yourself you've translated a book by Gialmo Suing, which the translated title in English is communism, the highest stage of

ecology. It's a really fascinating book on, it's a kind of case study of Cuban and Soviet ecological practice in many ways which, you know, preempted what now we might refer to as agroecology and also other ways of understanding, you know, the best way to live in the world and not destroy it. And it's really fascinating to learn the history that was, you know, at different times of Cuban and Soviet

socialist construction, they've had these movements and when there's been big movements in one direction, you know, kind of regressions. And it's such an amazing book. So, yeah, I'm very excited for that to come out in due course. On social media, you can find me on Twitter at D-A-J-V-E-I-S-M and also David at IskraBooks.org email address. So yeah, we're always open for submissions, questions, contact. I'd love to hear from any readers or people, prospective writers or anything like that. So thanks so much to Henry Nadnan for having us on and all the support that you give Iskra Books as well. And obviously, we love guerrilla history. So thanks so much.

Absolutely. Ben, what are you currently working on most active for Iskra? Oh, most actively. That's the hard conversation. Yeah, it's hard to parse that down. I'm working on everything, right? I think, yeah, the primary thing that I'm working on right now, though, is getting ready for the launch.

We just celebrated the launch of James Connolly, an unprecedented title. It's the first brand new Connolly that's dropped in 100 years, right? So I think it's really exciting for that reason. Everybody check it out. But primarily, aside from that, we have another. massive name coming out. Torkel-Lowson has written a brand new book. The long transition towards socialism and the end of capitalism. It's phenomenal. It's kicking up our aim series, which is anti-imperialist Marxism.

It's more of our sort of academic graduate reader line, right? But still accessible. We're not getting too bougie on it. You know, still accessible for organizers and for everybody else. It's a phenomenal book. A brand new work from Torkel-Lausen with the comrades at the Critical Theory Workshop, who are Gabriel Rockhill Jennifer Ponce Leon and then our good comrade Emmanuel Ness are all the series editors and it was a

laundry list of amazing comrades who were on the advisory board for that project so this book is kicking off the AIM series we're really excited about it November 2nd David I believe is the lock plate for that so keep an eye out we're ramping up promo on that pretty soon and pre-order links

should should pop up aside from that I'm working on it all we got a thousand books coming out they're all amazing I'm excited to share every single one of them with comrades. Keep an eye on our socials where you can find us on most platforms. It's at PLB magazine, which in fact might be a little

outdated. Maybe we should change that to Iskra. But at PLB magazine on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and then on Twitter alone, we're at Iskrabooks. You can find me, you know, by email, Ben at Iskrabooks.org. And then in my personal account, I'm

at Ph. Dirtbag, which I thought was a really funny sort of thing when I was doing my PhD now that I'm like a professor not so much but I'm stuck with it uh hit me up anytime I look forward you know I look forward to hearing from folks and like David said we're always taking submissions we're always looking to build networks with other good principled anti-imperialist comrades uh you know we're here for the struggle um I would just encourage everybody to get involved on the street you know anti Zionist work is the most important work right now I think in this moment that we're in so encouraging folks and then as a final word Henry and Adnan, I love you, comrades.

This is an amazing podcast. It's by far the best podcast, my absolute favorite. And it's an absolute honor to be here with you, comrades. So I really appreciate you. Yeah, I'll wrap up for Talia and also talk about a couple of the projects that I'm working on before I have Adnan read himself out and then myself out. And then again, listeners, I will turn it over to the monologue at the end. But Talia, I know is working on about three projects right now, but there is one in

particular that I want to mention because it's my next project that I will also be working on for ISCRA. We have a memoir that's going to be coming out. And let me tell you, it's quite the, it's quite the memoir from quite the person. She is, I won't give too many details away yet because we want it to be a bit of a treat for you when we can finally announce it. But she is an old revolutionary activist who in this memoir talks about joining up with the guerrilla. in Peru, meeting with Malcolm X, having a leadership position in an SDS chapter, being tasked by Eldridge Cleaver before he lost his mind to deliver a message personally to the Cuban government active in Vietnam during the Vietnam War.

I mean, let me tell you, there is quite some stories in this memoir that we are going to be working on, and that's something that's going to be coming out early to mid-next year. So do keep your eyes peeled for that. Talia, I don't think she has a personal Twitter account or anything that you can follow, but you should check out the Minyan, which is the podcast that she hosts. Really terrific resource, and I'm hoping that we can have her back on the program soon. Just to talk about two other projects that I recently have more or less wrapped up before I'll be turning my attention to that memoir alongside Talia.

So I know, Ben, you mentioned Torkel-Lawson and the Longtree. transition towards socialism. That is not the only Torkel Lawson book that is coming out. I guess we might as well announce here. It'll be a couple weeks between recording time and release of this episode. It'll be about the time that we announced publicly. We are doing a re-publication, a new edition of unequal exchange in the prospects of socialism, which was a book that came out in the 1980s from the communist working group, which was Torkel Lawson's group that was active in Denmark, you know, the group that was robbing banks to send money to the PFLP, that group. They had done a book on Equal Exchange and the Prospects of Socialism, which had

a forward by Argyri Emanuel. We have a brand new prologue, epilogue by Torkel, which is something like 45 pages long between the two. So, you know, there is quite a bit of new material. going into this book, and also a foreword co-written by myself and Namanya Lukachievatt anti-imperialist network. And that book is going to be very much in a retro style. So whereas the long transition is very much like a textbook, this one is going to look like it came out of the vault somewhere. So the dichotomy between these two Torkel-related books is going to be very interesting. And I hope that you listeners will find that dichotomy as interesting as I do. I know I am really looking forward to getting each of those copies to sit next to each other

on my bookshelf because it's going to be quite a difference between the two. And then also the other one was the swing book that David is currently doing the internal editing on. A really, really fascinating book, as he said, kind of an agro-ecological history of the Soviet Union and Cuba. It's really a fun read. I know you may hear the words agro-ecological history and start to doze off. I can assure you, it's a really, it's a fun read, and I think David can testify to that, that it is a fascinating read, not just from an academic perspective, but it's also fun to read. So, Adnan, we won't tease what your forthcoming ISCRA contribution is going to be,

but we will tease that you have something that's planned to come out through ISCRA sometime next year, but I'll turn it over to you now to tell the listeners where they can find you in your other excellent podcast. Great, yes. Well, I think Escrow Books is an important publishing initiative for the struggle. So I'd be honored to contribute in some way to it. I hope to do so. But for the moment, you can follow me on Twitter at Adnan, A. Hussein, H-U-S-A-I-N. And you can listen to my other podcast, The M-A-J-L-I-S. And if you're interested in the Middle East, Islam, world. We do have some episodes in the pipeline coming now that the school year has started. So we're off of our summer hiatus and listen out for it. You can find it on all the usual platforms. Absolutely. As for me, listeners, you can find me on Twitter at Huck 1995, H-U-C-K-1995. You can help support guerrilla history by going to patreon.com forward slash gorilla history. That's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A history. Follow us on Twitter to keep up to date with everything that Adnan and I are doing

individually and the show is doing collectively at Gorilla underscore Pod. That's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A underscore pod. And I would normally close by saying, and next time, solidarity, but you are going to hear a monologue now. So I'm going to turn it over to that, comrades. But Until next time, Solidarity. Comrades, my esteemed fellow speakers, listeners, and dear friends of socialist China. I'm Henry Huckimacki, and I'm honored to be invited to this seminar today as a representative of guerrilla history and Iskra Books to discuss a topic that is crucial in the fight for a more equitable and just global society, publishing and radical, socialist and communist, independent media as anti-imperialist practice.

As we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the People's Republic of China, it is essentially that we reflect on the power of knowledge and narrative in shaping our understanding of the world. The Imperialist West has long dominated the global media landscape, constructing and disseminating narratives that serve to uphold its hegemonic capitalist system. This narrative is designed to obscure the realities of imperialism and to vilify alternative systems, such as socialism and communism. It is within this context that the role of publishing and independent media becomes paramount in the struggle against imperialism. The PRC's journey over the past 75 years

has been one of monumental achievement and resilience, a testament to the power of a people united under the banner of socialism. Yet, this story is often distorted by the lenses of Western propaganda, which seeks to diminish the significance of China's socialist experiment. To counteract these distortions, we must engage in a rigorous practice of publishing and media creation

that provides accurate, and nuanced accounts of China's history and its contributions to the global socialist movement. Domenico Lissorto's work, which I have had the privilege of co-translating and editing, offers a profound analysis of this phenomenon. In his book, Stalin History and Critique of a Black Legend, Lacerdo deconstructs the prevailing narratives

about Stalin and the Soviet Union, revealing how these narratives are not merely historical misinterpretations, but are politically motivated to vilify socialism. His methodology underscores the importance of critically examining sources and questioning the ideological and political motives behind historical narratives. Similarly, in our quest to deepen the understanding of socialism and the PRC, we must challenge the dominant narratives that have been crafted by the imperialist West.

This requires publishing works that are not only factually accurate, but also provide a holistic and emancipatory perspective, one that centers the experiences of the oppressed and marginalized, one which highlights the achievements of socialist systems in the face of imperialist aggression and imagines and critically theorizes a communist horizon beyond the capitalist reality that our historical moment situates us in. Independent media and publishing houses play a pivotal role in this endeavor. They serve as bastions of radical thought and intellectual resistance against this hegemonic

system, providing a platform for marginalized voices and dissenting opinions that are systematically silenced by mainstream outlets in the imperialist west. Through the dissemination of such works, we can arm ourselves with the tools necessary to critically assess the information we receive and to resist the seductive allure of imperialist ideology. The construction of narratives is not a passive process. It is an active and dynamic endeavor that is shaped by the prevailing power structures. For, as functional linguist Michael Halliday says, language does not passively reflect reality. Language actively creates reality. In the case of neoliberal capitalism, the narrative was one of inevitability and superiority, a story that justifies the exploitation of the global

south and the dominance of the north. This narrative is embedded in every facet of our lives, from the school textbooks that shape our worldview to the Hollywood films that entertain us. To effectively combat this, we must not only publish, but also promote materials that provide alternative perspectives. This means publishing, translating, and disseminating works from and about socialist countries and the socialist future, amplifying the voices of scholars and activists who offer insights into the successes and challenges of socialist societies, not least of which in the case of China. It means creating media that is accessible, engaging, and capable of reaching beyond the confines of the academic sphere. Our goal is not to create a mere image of the

imperialist narrative, but to dismantle it entirely, to lay bare the mechanisms of power and control that underpin it. By publishing and promoting anti-imperialist scholarship and media, we can empower individuals and communities to see through the fog of misinformation and to embrace the vision of a world free from the tyranny of capital. In the digital age, the battle for hearts and minds has become more complex, but also more vital. Social media algorithms and the monopolization of information by corporate giants have created echo chambers that reinforce existing biases, biases shaped and maintained by the hegemonic reality in which we currently find ourselves. It is our duty to break through these barriers, to introduce nuance into the discourse,

and to cultivate a media landscape that is truly democratic and reflective of the diverse experiences of the global majority. This is very much in the mission of Isker Books, which is an all-volunteer-run, explicitly communist publishing company. Not only is it within our mission to publish materials vital for our struggle, but also to make these works as accessible as possible. Those of you who are familiar with Iskra are no doubt aware that are in addition to our low cost print editions, we offer all of our materials as free high-quality PDFs on our site, Iskrabooks.org. Likewise, Gorilla History, the show that I co-host and produce, is committed to creating materials beneficial for our struggle

through democratizing radical historical perspectives and analyses for free. Many of my esteemed fellow speakers here have been on the show in the past. Ken Hammond, for example, has been on the show five times talking about the history of China. Gerald Horn has been on three times. Several others have been on the show as well, and no doubt you will continue seeing the participants here today on the show going forward. As we reflect on the past 75 years of China's socialist construction, let us not forget the importance of our own role in shaping the narrative of the future.

By supporting and engaging with independent publishing houses and media outlets, we can ensure that the stories of the oppressed are heard, and the truth about socialism, and its struggles, are not buried beneath the weight of imperialist propaganda. To conclude, publishing and independent media are not just vehicles for information. They are weapons in the fight against imperialism. They are tools that can be wielded to dismantle the ideological edifice that sustains the capitalist world system.

Additionally, as Rue Muller, the editor of Building of People's Art, selected works of Tron Chin and Tu Hu, our latest release from Iskra, said, when paraphrasing Chin in a conversation that we had, we don't just provide important literature to the community, but the tools necessary for oppressed voices to make their own. In celebrating China at 75, let us also celebrate the power of knowledge, the resilience of the human spirit, and the enduring belief in a better world, a world, where the principles of socialism and solidarity prevail. Thank you.

You know,