Rev Left Radio - Talking Marxism with the Proles

Episode Date: July 10, 2024

Jeremy, Rae, & Tony from Proles Pod join Breht to talk about the new show, the changes they have made to the original Proles of the Roundtable, Marxism and its relevance for the modern world and contemporary moment, the importance of the masses as well as leaders in the communist tradition, some critiques of the North American left, the essential traits that a revolutionary must possess, and much more! Check out Proles Pod HERE Check out the Actually Existing Socialism podcast on Spotify or Apple  Support Proles Pod HERE Follow Proles on Insta and Twitter Email the Proles: [e-mail] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Follow Rev Left on Insta Support Rev Left Radio and get access to multiple bonus episodes a month or make a one time donation via PayPal HERE  

Hello everybody and welcome back to Rev Left Radio. On today's episode, we are reintroducing ProzPod. They are back on the scene. They're revamped, renewed, renovated. And we're talking with Jeremy, Ray, and Tony from the new version of ProzPod about a bunch of different things. We talk about Marxism. We talk about, you know, wonderful comrades. and historical movements of the Marxist tradition in the past.

We talk about various criticisms and things that we find promising about the international and North American left. We talk about the world today, the crisis that the United States is in domestically and imperially abroad. Talk about important traits that revolutionary should try and consciously cultivate and so, so much more. These are all really wonderful, thoughtful human beings and comrades talking about this tradition that we all are in and that we all love and value

and we want to see succeed in the world, which is that of socialism, of Marxism, and ultimately of communism. So this is a really, really fun episode with three people that genuinely bring unique perspectives. And that's something I mentioned in the show is that, you know, this new revamped version of Prolspot is really interesting because all the people involved, they do have unique perspectives. They place their emphasis in unique places, but they all come together to form a really coherent and really principled Marxist-Leninist podcast and educational outlet. So this is a really

fun one. I really hope you guys enjoy it. And I hope you go subscribe and listen to ProzPod. It's a great show. They're great people. I knew the old Prols personally. I've just met some of the newer members, but I've always been close with them. They've always been close with us. And so there's always been a connection there and I'm really excited to see them coming back in a new and evolved form and before we get into the show if you like what we do here at rev left radio you can support the show directly we're 100% listener funded always have been always will be you can support us at patreon.com forward slash rev left radio and in exchange for only a couple dollars a month you get access to a backlog of over 300 bonus episodes as well as new bonus episodes every single

months. So it's a really great way to support the show. And I try to give back in the form of really hopefully engaging and interesting Patreon content. So thank you so much to everybody that supports the show. Without further ado, here is our conversation with Jeremy, Ray, and Tony from Perlspot. Enjoy. So I'm Jeremy. I guess I'm representing the old school. proles on this call. I was obviously there at the beginning, the inception of the first iteration of proles, and I'm happy to be back. My name is Tony. I am, I guess, the first of the new class of Prol's Pod. I'm a black Canadian. I live in Canada, Marxist-Leninist, as you can

imagine, being a member of Prol's Pod. You know, given the geographical location of me being located in Canada. It might seem strange to the original listeners of Bullspot who may know that the original podcast was based on a group of friends who live in a specific city in Colorado. I might seem like a bit of a random edition. But let me just give me kind of give you a quick rundown of how I got involved with the podcast. So it was about maybe six or seven months ago that Justin reached out to me. Apparently, he'd felt inspired to bring back Rollspot in part because of the other podcast, which I host, which is called actually existing socialism, which is a very much different, a very much of a different show than Pearl Spot. But it has quite a specific goal

in mind. On that show, I speak to people who have lived in, live in, or who have studied extensively a socialist country. So I've had awesome guests like Gerald Horne, Kala Walsh, and Ruehatechimaki. I've also had the privilege to speak to people who lived in, who've had deep experiences living in socialist countries, such as Victor Grossman, who's an American who defected to East Germany in the 1950s, and Monica Cassius, who was an African woman who actually grew up in North Korea as the ward of Kim Il-sung.

So definitely check that out if you have the time. But anyways, that's the reason I was called up to be part of the new Provols Group. I'm very excited to be a part of it. It's been great working with everyone so far. I guess I'll hand it over to Ray, who's the other addition to

our new group. Hi, I'm Ray, and I am half of the two newest proles, which is myself and my husband. I am American, but I live in not America with my not American husband. I was a proles head from the way back, and I believe, frankly, that I manifested my way to the round table because a few weeks before they put out the call for new hosts, I was speaking with some friends of mine, some solid comrades who came to visit us. And, you know, every group of friends, I mean, I guess Jeremy knows well, but every group of friends sits around and they're like, man, guys, we should really make this into a podcast.

And I was like, do you guys remember Poles at the wrong table? And we were like talking about it, you know, reminiscing about the episodes. Like, man, I wish that show came back. And like, I was such a fan that my Patreon was still subscribed to Pearlspod. And so I got the message that they were looking for new posts within minutes. And I drafted the email. and I got ready to send it. And I asked my husband if he would also be willing to participate in the project. And he was like, yes, absolutely. Thank God, because he has audio editing experience, which I do not have. And I sent the email. And somehow, I guess they could not find anyone better. So here I am.

That's awesome. They were awesome. And like to all the people that we did interview, because I'm sure they're probably going to be listening to this, it was a very difficult decision. but I guess just based on Ray and Martine's background and their experiences and, you know, we just, we couldn't go elsewhere. But yeah, we do hope to have those people who did interview with us to join us on some episodes in the future, so we're looking forward to that. Yeah, absolutely. Cool.

Yeah, that sounds great. And I'm so happy that the show is back. I'm so happy that it's revamped. Seems like you got a really great roster going forward. Huge shout out to actually existing socialism. That podcast, I'll make sure to link that in the show notes a lot. along with the new ProzPod link as well. But yeah, let's go ahead and get into it

because this is super exciting to have the show back. And I hope you guys can kind of talk a little bit about why you decided to return what the differences are with the new Proz Pod compared to the old, you know, Proles of the Round Table, which we've touched on a little bit, maybe you can go deeper in. And kind of what you have planned for the show going forward?

Yeah, so we did do like a reintroduction episode. And if you want to get like the full, rundown from top to bottom of everything that we're doing differently and why we decided to come back and all of this you can certainly get the full story there but kind of in brief the Reader's Digest version or whatever there were a series of events that happened uh gosh it's coming up on like a year ago now that kind of um you know i kind of assumed that everybody who was formerly a part of proles were so like the rift was so great that there was no chance that if we came back that would be something that everybody was cool with um and so when these events

happened i i kind of approached everybody and i when i say everybody i mean literally everybody who was a part of the original roster of proles but also everybody who was sort of secondary tertiary related to the original project and talk to them and, you know, some people, if they had said, no, I don't support this. I'm not okay with this. Then I would have just called it at that point. But as I kind of moved through the list, literally everybody kind of gave their blessing. Some were more enthusiastic than others. You know, we've had Taylor on one of the episodes already so he was definitely on board fully others were sort of had some trepidation about it they were like I have these concerns you know you need to make sure that you don't allow animosity

to build up within the group you need to make sure that you have a plan for dealing with conflict you know stuff like that those sorts of concerns not like I hate you and don't do this but like be careful you know don't don't make the same mistakes we made the last time which I think was pretty cool. So that's why we sort of started looking into coming back. The things we're going to do differently are we no longer drink on the podcast, which probably makes us less fun, but also probably also more thoughtful, less stupid, I guess. But, you know, we have talked about like doing some kind of a throwback episode where we do drink on the podcast.

but it just, I think it wasn't healthy for us because we were recording at that time, you know, two regular episodes a month, one bonus episode a month. We also did this RPG podcast with Ethan, and so that was four weekends a month, and alcohol was involved in all of them, and that's not super healthy, I think. It sort of encouraged bad behavior. So we decided to put that aside. We are also kind of shifting away from exclusively history, although that's going to be still the primary focus towards discussing aspects of culture and modern sort of recent politics. Ray and Martine both contributed to and put together this really great episode on Amlo, the most recent elections in Mexico, kind of the history of Mexican politics up to this point.

And, you know, some of that was history, but a lot of it was more focused on recent events. And then Tony did a really great episode on X-Men 97. He and Justin are big X-Men nerds. So that was a really great thing that we did. But it is a little bit different. You know what I mean? Jeremy, we're not nerds. We're enthusiasts.

Oh, right, right. Sorry. X-Men and Joyers is what I meant. Absolutely. So I'm actually a nerd. And this might sound kind of counterintuitive to those listening, considering that I am a communist history podcaster now. But I actually really struggled with a lot of history texts,

especially those that are, I don't know, know, heavy on like names and dates and chronological order, which I guess is most of what history is. But it's just really hard for me to connect with information that is presented in that way. And this made me feel really stupid and insecure. And eventually, it kind of dawned on me that if I struggle with this, others might as well. So another one of the changes that we've made in expanding the scope is to offer study guides that are available

for every full episode on the main feed. They're free. They're on the Patreon, but you don't have to pay to subscribe. They're just there for you. And so that's another way

that we're just trying to really examine in this go of the Prol's Pod. What purpose can podcasts serve? And can we make it as easy as possible for people to retain information to develop their own critical analysis and, you know, shock and awe to use these episodes as a way to actually have discussions or conversations with other people in their lives. So that's like also kind of a little thing that

we've added. Yeah. Yeah, I think that was a great innovation that it was Ray's idea. Absolutely like full credit there. And I think it's a great one because not, yeah, again, not only is it going to help people to retain information, but also if people are listening together, what a great way to start a discussion. As far as like what's coming up in the future, we're going to do, I guess, kind of a soft announcement. This is probably the place to do it. We are approximately six years after the Rev Left Stalin episode that Justin and I did. We're going to be doing an entire series on Stalin because I think when we did that, it was very limited in terms of our scope and how much preparation we did, how much reading.

So we are going to go very, very in depth. And we're going to do multiple episodes. And it's going to kind of be divided by sort of segments of Stalin's life and experience. But I think that'll be really interesting, hopefully, for people to check out. Yeah, that's awesome. And that's very exciting. I mean, the Stalin ep is still, to this day, by far, our most downloaded episode of all time. Which is crazy.

It's crazy. It comes with, you know, people that hate listen. people that love listened, but it left a huge impact and it really shook up the left, you know, in all different ways at the time. I'm still proud of it. I'm still happy we did it, but I'm really excited to see all of you comrades revisit it and go into, you know, even more depth. That is super exciting. I do have to say, I really respect, you know, your shift away from the drinking.

It was a fun part of the show, but I totally understand with the amount of content you're putting out that it becomes too much. one of the moments that I have in my head that I still remember is when I came to Colorado to meet up with everybody one of the times. It was actually one of my most embarrassing moments, although I'm sure you guys have totally forgotten it. But we were all hanging out. We were like kind of drinking and you busted out this nice whiskey and you're pouring glasses for everybody and I asked for a chaser because I'm, you know, kind of a little bit. That's where I come from. You know, that's how I was drinking at the time. and you guys all like in a loving way broke out laughing like this is not whiskey that you use

with a chaser and it's always stuck with me and when I came back to Omaha I made it a point to become a guy who can drink whiskey without a chaser so you know a small thing but yeah that was probably that was probably yeah I don't yeah I don't remember who brought out the whiskey but yeah that's pretty funny funny story still sticking with me but overall I'm very happy that you guys are back you know this second chance this new version is super cool people loved and deeply connected with Proles of the Roundtable, and I'm sure that's not going to change. I hope that this episode gets it out to more people and lets more people know that you all are back in a new way. You've always done really important educational work, and it seems like you're tripling down on that element of it,

of really trying to educate people on these things and bring a principled Marxist voice back to the airwaves. And more principled Marxist voices is always a good thing, especially at this moment of crisis and transition. our society and in fact in our entire world. So that's really cool to hear. And let's go ahead and move forward and just get to know more about you, all of you, and in your sort of views and your opinions. Of course, this is a Marxist-Leninist and always has been a focused podcast. But just kind of to toss out a question that we can start discussing, what does Marxism mean to you? And what relevance does it have for today's, as I said, rapidly changing world? Yeah, Ray, go ahead.

When do you all want to take this one first? You told me to raise my hand, so I raised my hand. If you'll all indulge me to share this kind of cringy origin story, my Marxist villain origin story. I have a background in wellness and coaching and personal develop me stuff. And I'm really influenced by Eastern traditions of. like meditation and yoga asana. And these tools, they help me a lot. You know, they tremendously positively impacted my life.

And they helped me examine my beliefs about myself, about the world around me, about what is possible. And they help me to learn to sit with my feelings and to develop healthy habits. And also, like, I met a lot of really cool people doing really good work. But the longer that I spent time in these spaces, right the more isolated i felt from the people around me and i guess the larger the chasm grew between what these people said that they believed in and what was important to them and the actions that they actually took um i could talk about that for a really long time but i won't all all i need to say about that is eventually i started to feel really disillusioned and i started to feel really

conflicted because like I said, I learned a lot. It really positively impacted my life. And I grew in a lot of really important ways. But I also felt like a lot of the people were just not making any sense. Like a lot of it was bullshit and a lot of it was really uncomfortable for me. And it felt like I wasn't really allowed to ask questions and I wasn't really allowed to push back. And I took a step back from all of those things, even the things that are sort of like individuated like yoga asana or meditation and it felt like even though I wasn't away on a compound somewhere it felt like I had left a cult and I lost a lot of really important relationships and I felt really alone and I was just in a place of like really deep despair

you can hear my voice I still feel emotional kind of just remembering it but as I said before I I'm a nerd and I'm a curious person and I feel like I just always want to be learning new things and before this period of my life, I lived in Vietnam for several years. And obviously while I was living there, I traveled a lot and I went to museums and I read some books, but I just found myself really missing Vietnam, really wanting to go back or at the very least to feel connected to that place in some way and to learn more about it. And so I started reading about Ho Chi-Men, like the man, the historical figure, not the city. And as I was reading about Ho Chi-Men, I got to a part in a book that I think is on both of our podcasts where Ho Chi-Men first comes into contact with the work of Lenin.

And he's standing on the furniture in his hotel room and he's pontificating and he's delivering these grandiose speeches. And I started to feel really curious. Like, who is this, like, who's this Lennon guy? I know. It's, like, super embarrassing now. But this was years ago, and I didn't know. And so I started reading Lennon, again, because I just had free time and I needed to focus my attention on something that was not my life, that I had just, like, burned down, essentially.

And I'm reading Lennon. I feel so cringe saying this, but it is the honest of goodness truth. I'm reading Lennon. And I'm like, holy shit, this guy is like, this guy's a life coach. This guy, this Lenin guy, he talks to you in this way that reminds you of your humanity. He activates something in you that lets you remember that you get to be a part of a more beautiful and more just world and allows you to orient yourself. And so here I am reading Lenin, reading Marx, reading, reading Rosa Luxembourg, reading more of the work of Ho Chi Minh, reading Stalin. And I was like,

these guys fucking get it. Not the neoliberal-washed girl boss spaces that I was spending time in, the image of a world of a future that you guys are putting forth. That is abundance. That is manifestation. I know these words are super cringe. It was like a lightbulb moment for me to connect these concepts that I had really tried to contemplate in these other spaces that somebody was showing to me. And I share all of that because, well, it's really fucking embarrassing, but I feel like maybe somebody else is in a similar situation and that will clarify something for someone. But also because I think that those of us, I know, Brett, this is something that you talk about a lot, who have a sort of, I don't know how to say like a propensity toward

seekership. I think that those of us with that tendency, we're always sort of looking, whether it's right or wrong or it exists or it doesn't. We're all sort of looking for this, like a theory of everything, right? Something that just makes everything makes sense. And in my experience, you know, like Marxism is the closest that I've ever come to that. And Marxism, to me, the importance that it still has is that it allows us, again, to remember that a more sustainable, more just, truly abundant world is not only possible, but it starts to give us the steps to orient ourselves in that direction. That's like really cringe and embarrassing, but it is my honest answer. Yeah, it's not cringe at all. I think it's genuinely beautiful and it resonates

deeply with me as well. I mean, the whole reason I'm into these politics is because of a love of humanity and a genuine wish for all human beings to live in a better state, in a better world without exploitation, oppression, etc. So I think that is that is a profound point. Tony. Yeah, no, Thanks, Ray. That was great. So from my perspective, and I think it's quite similar to raise in the sense that I understand Marxism to be essentially a diagnostic tool for like better understanding the world in a material way so that we can, you know, take their appropriate actions to fix it or to change it or to improve it. You know, for me personally, one of the reasons I was drawn into Marxism was through my own experiences of racism. And through

Marxism, I was better, using Marxist tools, Marxist analysis. I was better able to understand not only my own experiences of racism, but kind of the historical and the ongoing systemic problems as well. And this is in contrast, of course, to how liberalism generally is seen as the answer to combating or addressing racism in our world today. But that is quite a flawed approach because using liberalism, using that lens, tends to erase certain realities, right? For example, it doesn't take into account things like class struggle. It doesn't look at the relations to production that we have. It doesn't look at class consciousness or even class collaboration. Liberalism also, when it attempts to analyze racism, it generally individualizes

it. It puts its emergence and maintenance to being some sort of lack of education. Like, people are only the racist, the racist things only happen because we just haven't been taught enough, or that it's some ethereal concept of hate that, you know, pushes it forward or individual bias, or really that it's typified by some sort of outburst of meanness towards people of color, like something verbal or even physical, like, say, for example, of the murder of George Floyd. And this is all true, of course, but this takes away from presenting racism as it most truly manifest, which is a real systemic material deprivation of people of color. So see, for example, a Marxist analysis of racism looks at the emergence of racism

or locates the emergence of racism to the emergence of capitalism in its very early phase of primitive accumulation, which ongoing at the same time as this primitive accumulation, of course, was the genocide of indigenous peoples and the enslavement of African people as well and many other peoples across the world. So through this lens of class struggle, we get a better understanding of why racism even exists in the first place, because it becomes very clear by looking at those who first promoted these ideas, the bourgeois, the landowners, the wealthy landowners, the colonists, that it was a very specific tool to so do. division between the working class of black people, of Europeans, of indigenous peoples as well,

to separate us into these separate racial categories to better exploit us and to prevent us also from unifying to rise up against this emergent capitalist class, specifically in the British settler-colon projects and what is to the USA. So essentially, what I'm trying to say is that this is a much better analysis than saying, well, you know, people just need to learn not to Haiti, each other, right? That there's a real class-centered push, which is behind racism in our society. The other point I quickly want to make as well is that liberalism, as opposed to Marxism, really distorts the way we understand history. And I'll use the history of racism as another example as well. Willa Rosa Parks, of course, right? She sat on the bus. She was courageous.

she stood up against racism. And the way that normally gets presented to us is that it was an individual action and was just essentially a moment of bravery on her part. When the reality is that it was a premeditated act that was supported by an entire political organization that was set on dismantling segregation as it exists in the South, right?

Like there are pamphlets ready to be printed once they heard that she had been arrested, right? And liberalism erases all in this, all of this, you know, communal effort, collective effort to dismount the racism, puts it all in one person. And it erases also, Rosa Parks is an incredible, you know, work that she's done not only for the working class, but specifically she investigated sexual crimes against black women in the South, right? it just it just liberalism has a tendency to just erase things that try to um how i put this it raises things that um point us towards a collective solution to problems and puts it all in the individual um so yeah that that's how i be Marxism it's it's a tool to not only better understand history but to better understand the and figure out solutions of the problems that we

face today yeah absolutely whether whether that's poverty, unemployment, even mental health, a million other things, racism. It tries to individualize, personalize the issues and shift you away from a systemic analysis. It's kind of like we all joke on the radical left about the John Oliver effect where he's pointing out all of the problems of society, but never bringing them together the underlying cause, which is the exploitative nature of capitalism itself. And I think it's a perfect distillation of progressive liberalism in the sense that John Oliver is ostensibly a progressive, person that is actually correct about some of these issues, but never, ever bringing them together to show like the system itself is at fault. It's always this bad guy or this shitty company or this

weird thing. It's not, you know, the underlying mechanisms that has, you know, its hand around our throat for centuries. Jeremy? Yeah. And it's, it's always just, you know, contact your representative is a solution or, you know, vote out this, this bad individual here. And, you know, that's, that's not going to help. I guess, like, I don't think I could possibly follow Tony and Ray's answers there with anything that's going to be quite as poignant, but I will say to kind of synthesize these two things, these two perspectives. Ray mentioned looking for a theory that explains everything and how Marxism fits that bill. I spent quite a lot of time in academia trying to do something that that never really came to fruition, but they hate these grand theories.

The social sciences really, they have abandoned trying to look for grand theories or accept grand theories for everything. They want very focused, narrow research on very particular topics. And, you know, whether that's like an intentional thing, and I think it is, and there's problems with the academy that cause this, that push in that direction, which I'm not going to get into because we'll be here for like an hour or whether it's some kind of conspiracy

doesn't really matter. The fact of the matter is that this has the knock-on effect of people situating their research and therefore the results of that research in narrow chasms of ideology

that never connect to the bigger picture. And that is you know, when you're studying racism, you don't study the problem of racism. Generally, you study how government policy in Venezuela meant to help ethnic minorities actually hurts them, which is a paper that was published and was on the road when I was in academia at the time. Like, you know what I mean? And of course, it's Venezuela. So that's why it's, that's why it goes. gets all of this airspace and detracts from probably much more interesting and important

work. But yeah, I don't know. Absolutely. Well, moving on to the next question, those were wonderful answers, and I completely agree with all of it, the systematic analysis, a theory of how the world actually operates, a theory of how societies evolve over time and the sort of laws of motion that enable those movements. And yeah, deep critique of liberalism. from the left because regardless of any other detail the fact is liberalism has a sort of ideological hegemony on the world right now and people don't often think outside of of its confines and to have a left more progressive deeper understanding of the world from a revolutionary Marxist perspective has always been nipping at the heels of liberalism has always been condemning

its hypocrisies showing everybody else the ways in which it pretends to be one thing, but actually facilitates others. You know, liberals and liberalism wants to present itself as progressive, as, you know, liberation from all forms of tyranny, particularly state tyranny. But it has no critique of capitalism itself. It has no critique of imperialism itself. It has international relations theories, you know, and there's a one theory, there's the Marxist theory, there's the liberal theory, there's this theory, there's the realist

theory, et cetera. But, yeah, it's just, it's very limited. and I think it's bumping up against its historical limitations more broadly. I don't know if we're seeing the end of liberalism writ large currently, but I think we are seeing an interesting crisis period within globalized liberalism, not just globalized capitalism or imperialism, but the very ideology of liberalism itself, and it's going to be fascinating how it plays out. But moving on to the next question, you know, this is something that is kind of more personal,

but I think it is something that is worth talking about because, you know, I think of Marxism and I think of socialism and communism as this beautiful human tradition full of like deep, meaningful, passionate, loving human beings. Not that all of them weren't flawed, not that there aren't issues or problems, not that people didn't make mistakes, but that we look back over our tradition and we see again and again across space and time in different cultures, genuinely, you know, beautiful human beings way ahead of their time trying to produce a better world for themselves. And I think that's an important aspect that, you know, the center and the right and liberalism and fascism and reactionary versions of

all kinds of ideologies, constantly shitting on Marxism, constantly just saying it's all about tyranny. The Marxists just want power so they can step on you. It's just big government, etc. We're bombarded with that 24-7, but any of us in the know understand that this actually is a beautifully human tradition. And so in line with that sentiment, I'm, I'm, I'm just curious as to, for each of you, who are some of the comrades or the thinkers or the revolutionaries in the past and within this tradition that you personally relate to or draw the most inspiration from? So I can take this one first. So Haitian revolutionaries is what I'm going to say. And so for those that may not know, this is a group of mostly formerly enslaved African people who rose up and defeated empires, like empires of the plural.

And this happened on the island, which is now known as Haiti, from roughly 1791 to 1804. And so these group of formerly enslaved people, they beat the most technologically advanced societies at the time. They beat the British Empire, the Spanish Empire, the French Empire, against all odds, against conventional wisdom, producing really what I guess could be considered one of the first victories against emergent capitalism at the time. And of course, you know, if we want to get this specific people, there are the well-known names, Jean-Jacques Desilin, Saul Lufu Tour, a Cecil Fati man, but what most inspires me, the comrades that I get the most inspiration from are those unnamed persons who will never know their names, will never know their faces, will never know their stories, but that mass of people who were radically optimistic in the moment, they're radically motivated, and they're radically ready to participate in this necessary revolution. You know, how can that just not be inspirational? Not only just for black people, of course, but for everyone, I think. And in the wider story of the revolution as well,

there's so many lessons or things to take note of. Like, say, for example, the French, when in their attempt to retake the island from the revolutionaries, they hired about several thousand Polish mercenaries to help them retake. the island. And so these Polish mercenaries, they came with the hope that if they were to come fight for France, France would then help them with their own fight for Polish independence, because as we all know, Poland's throughout history is constantly being a recreated, reshaped, reform. So their hope was that France would help them after they helped, after they helped them retake the island. And what ended up happening when the Polish

people got there is that they were like, hey, wait a second, you told us that this was supposed to be capturing prisoners that had escaped, not a slave uprising. So the French had actually lied to them to them to get them to the island. Not only had they lied to them, but they ended up treating them like shit while they were there. So many of these Polish mercenaries actually switched sides and joined the Haitian revolutionaries. So they joined this revolution on the side of people who, you know, they probably didn't speak the same language or maybe they shared French in common. And they didn't have the same culture, the same backgrounds, the same even class position, right? but they knew that they had a common cause and the solidarity, which was, you know,

overcame any kind of difference that they had. And still to this day, their Polish Asian descendant on the island. The other thing I wanted to bring up about Haiti in terms of comrades that I draw the most inspiration from is the fact that Haiti was an early example of anti-imperialism, at least from a state itself. So soon after the establishment of free Haiti, their government actually ended up sponsoring providing material aid to Simone Bolivar, who is well known in South America as being a liberator of South American countries from the Spanish Empire. And so Haiti, despite being a country that was constantly understaged and still is to this day being in a very precarious position, they still provided Simon Bolivar these material. money, weapons, et cetera, with the promise that Bolivar would use these resources to abolish

slavery in the places in South America that he ended up liberating. And so fortunately, Bolivar didn't do that exactly everywhere he went, but Haiti definitely helped start a domino effect which led to the end of slavery as existed in South America. And like Haiti in this position really makes me think of Cuba, right? Cuba just being constantly underage, being pulled in a thousand different directions, yet still sending aid to Southern Africa, right, and helping destroying dismantle apartheid there. And the last thing I want to mention, too, was that, you know, these revolutionaries are not only inspiring to me, and I'm sure many other people around the world, they're particularly influential with the philosopher Hegel's conception of the mass,

their slave dialectic, because I believe as either this revolution was either happening at the same time he was coming up with this or before, actually. And as I'm sure, Brett Euler's there's no. Hegel was an incredible influence on the philosophies of Marx and through

that Marxism, that these revolutionaries, this unnamed, mostly unnamed mass of people who took up arms or their freedom have had a dramatic impact on all progressive movements today, whether people know it or not. A beautiful answer, and I truly love that you emphasize the nameless, faceless

people who have fought and died to advance the ball for humanity in these various struggles and continue to. I think the most Marxist answer to that question is precisely to get away from the great man theory and to get into the masses themselves, because there is no socialist or communist revolution in the history of humanity that is not backed and supported and made possible by the masses themselves rising up in their own interest and fighting valiantly, even though most of them, 99.9% are never remembered in our history books. So a beautiful answer. Who wants to go next? Once again, and every day of my life, as is reflected in our group chat, I am reminded that the people that I work with are just so fucking smart. Aren't they

so outrageously smart? Absolutely. Rather than, you know, taking this in the direction of specific revolutionaries because, Brett, I think that what you said, if I'm remembering correctly, is beautiful human beings way ahead of their time trying to better themselves in the world or something like that. And as you said that, it brought to mind someone that, you know, doesn't come up much on the left podcast chariot. And that is Maria Montessori. And whether or not, you know, I agree with, you know, every idea she ever had or endorse all of those things,

it's very clear that Marxism is an enormous influence and not covertly, I mean, overtly. She talked about the communizing of what was largely women's work and the hope that this would catalyze opportunities to communize. more unseen or underappreciated labor. And I'm reminded through that example that the front line of struggle can be and literally is absolutely everywhere, every single facet of life. Maybe also to that end,

in addition to Maria Montessori, I have a background, I studied acting. And so, like, Paulo Freire, author of Pedagogy of the Oppress, and that kind of work, the work of Brecht, things like that. Again, not necessarily something that I absolutely agree with or think was always inherently amazing and successful, but those who had the audacity to be influenced by this worldview, this theory, these theories,

and to approach other areas of life, other areas of struggle, and to reclaim them for those of us on the left or to try to repurpose things like education, things like entertainment, the arts, our understanding of knowledge production, culture, so many areas, and to try to reimagine them,

to creatively sort of reimagine them in an image that is more aligned to, in an image that is more aligned to a world that is less oppressive and less violent. And I find myself really inspired by that. And I think that so many of us can, really revere and honor those who participate in armed struggle. And then I know for me, you know, sitting on this side of middling aged in this specific

body with the limitations that I have or for other people who have concerns with their body's ability or maybe they have young children or maybe it's an immigration concern or whatever it is, feeling like, oh, that pathway is not available to me. And therefore, maybe I don't have a place in revolutionary action. And so I also think it's important to remind myself and maybe anyone else who's listening, to stay inspired by those who do the thing that you do, but in a way that you would more like to do it. I'll say.

Jeremy? Very good. I'm going to have a very boring answer, but Rosa Luxembourg was very important to me in terms of my political development. In about 2014 or 15, I was still more or less calling myself a libertarian socialist, which I don't really know what that means.

that's what I was calling myself and yeah and I read reform or revolution and I was like wow this is like this is such a such a concise way to express a very complicated and very multi-layered issue and as soon as I finished reading it I bought this book this enormous book it's just it's called the letters of Rosa Luxembourg and I kind of went through kind of dates that I knew were important I looked at you know well what was going on after she got arrested what were her letters like there

and then I was like okay well what were her thoughts on the Russian Revolution so I went back to 1917 and she had a letter that she trying to remember who she was writing to, I believe it might have been Clara Zetkin. But the letter more or less said, we must believe and understand within ourselves that the capitalist press is never going to give the Bolsheviks their fair due.

They are likely to lie. But even if every salacious thing they are printing is true, we have to give them our critical support because they are trying to do something that has never been done before in the entire fucking history of the world. And I was like, shit, man, that's a good point. And like the concept of critical support is something that gets thrown around a lot on the left, particularly amongst Marxist Leninists. but for me that was a new concept like the thought that like okay maybe they did go too far maybe they did make mistakes but they were they were putting into practice something that had never been tried before ever and if you're doing something for the first time you're probably going to fuck up sometimes but that doesn't mean you throw the whole project out and so yeah that

like that was a big deal to me. And it kind of put me on the path toward, you know, where I am now. That's great. Yeah, all those answers were absolutely wonderful. I put down three people that stand out to me, not to put them above anybody else or to say that they're objectively better than everybody else, but just that have had the biggest impact on me. And those are Rosa Luxembourg, Che, and Malcolm X.

Malcolm X, I just love his dignity, his utter fearlessness, the integrity. He carried himself with such integrity. with such, you know, take no shit from anybody. I think I've made this argument in our Malcolm X episode. You can draw a straight line from Malcolm X to the birth of hip hop. And it's black love, self-love, the refusal to bow down to mainstream white society and to often fly in its face. He was so controversial to white America.

And in the end, he knew he was a dead man walking. He was, not only was he like a family man who took care of his family, but he knew that standing up for his people in the precise way that he was meant a death sentence and he said as much leading up to the days before he was, before he was assassinated. All three of these figures, Malcolm, Che and Rosa all died brutally, you know, at the hands of assassinators. Rosa was killed by members of the Frye Corps who would eventually kind of were like basically proto-Nazis. And, you know, we have many episodes on Rosa. So if you're listening to this and aren't familiar with the story of Rosa Luxembourg,

I highly recommend you check those out. Because of her, I mean, among many other things, her dripping humanity, she was a tiny Jewish disabled woman who was a firebrand and who was, you know, just a top tier thinker and organizer, and she died for the cause that all of us are trying to advance. You know, on my personal Instagram is her quote, one of the quotes I love the most in which speaks to Rose's humanity. She says, I am at home in the entire world, wherever there are clouds and birds and human tears. And if you go into her journals, her letters to the people in her life, not only did she have this amazing politics and these really principled Marxist politics, but she was just so alive to every dimension of being a human being, every dimension of existing as a sentient, self-aware creature in the cosmos. And she was in a dark time.

And I always found that incredibly inspiring. And then, of course, Che, you know, just putting his whole life on the line, being genuinely moved by injustice. And to this day, being a universal global symbol of revolution, of resistance, of liberation. And yeah, the liberals in the right wing, they mock the idea of Chee T-shirts or whatever. But that is a, they mock it because it's such a potent fucking symbol. And underneath that symbol is the real human being. Che Guevara, who literally dedicated his entire life to revolution and liberation. And you can't help but just be in awe of people like Malcolm Che and Rosa.

But yeah, all great answers. And I'm sure you ask 100 different marks just they'll come up with different answers. There's plenty of other people we could mention. But moving forward, and I want to ask this question in the spirit of humility, right? This is not meant to be, let me tell you what's wrong with the left. But we should wrestle with criticisms. we should think deeply about the ways in which, you know, we are not quite up to snuff. Like, you know, obviously we have a lot of fucking work to do.

If you look around, it's pretty obvious. So with that, with that humility in mind, I ask this question to all of you. What primary criticisms do you have of the revolutionary left in North America broadly? And what aspects of it do you see as the most promising, perhaps? I so something which we were engaged in quite a lot in the first run of proles pod was we quite often spent significant amounts of time attacking other leftists and I think that's not incredibly productive to do for a few reasons one if you are attempting to win somebody over to your side, if you shit on them, they're not likely to join you. Two, if your idea is the best idea, go out and talk to people who are not political and convince them that you are in the right. Go out and talk to liberals, go out and talk to

conservatives, go out and talk to libertarians. Like, the left is a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, of the total population in the West, particularly in the United States. We're at maximum, what, like a few hundred thousand people, maybe a couple million if you get really, really diffuse in your definition of the left. But that's nothing as compared to the overall, whatever, 380 million people who live here. So maybe spend less time arguing amongst ourselves and and more time out in the streets talking to people who are not currently of the left and convincing them to join the left. And it is a hard road because, and I think this is maybe another criticism, I think a lot of people are feeling defeated by the conditions of the United States and the West and the world at large in terms of there's not a lot of revolutionary potential here.

as far as we can tell and so people are latching onto what I would consider to be extremely retrograde ideas right now trying to appeal to the worst amongst the working class kind of the most socially conservative

or reactionary positions and going well if I adopt those positions then I can speak to them And maybe that'll develop a revolutionary consciousness, but I think that that's, I think that you're basically flip-flopping two things. You are going, there is no revolutionary potential. The working class is socially, a lot of the work, and not even the whole working class, a lot of the working class is socially reactionary. I'm going to adopt those positions rather than going, the issue is class. And we need to. to speak to people on a class level the fact that multiple layers of the working class have these beliefs is irrelevant to

their position in class hierarchy but again I think I think these things are related you're attacking other leftists to appeal to people who aren't even interested in what you have to sell

yeah Tony yeah so my answer is actually kind of a variant of what Jeremy just had said there. But essentially one criticism that I would have humbly, of course, is that there is a lack of intellectual and material engagement with

actually distinct socialist countries in a way that really, I think, separates like North American socialists from this grander, wider heritage to socialism that exists. And that means that we miss out on lessons that we could be using

in our organizing here, or in our theory development here. It means we miss out on forming international solidarity with comrades who are perhaps further along with a struggle than we are here. And that essentially means that we're missing out on socialist construction that's occurring across the world and which could be occurring here in North America as well.

A few years back, I went to, I believe it was called a Marxist summer school and it was held at a locally university. And I was like, this is going to be sweet. attended it, and they had different speakers throughout the day, different conversations, a lot of dedicated comrades and socialists that were there. But unfortunately, a lot of the discussions that were had were targeted at critiquing socialist countries, more so actually than critiquing capitalism within Canada itself, which I thought was quite shocking.

So listeners, I implore you to engage with. socialist countries, and there's a variety of ways that you can do this. I know a lot of different socialist countries, China, Cuba, they have solidarity trips that they offer throughout the year. In your city, you may have a local organization, which puts out something like that, for people to join if they're able to. You can get engaged with political work that targets removing sanctions from socialist countries, such as Cuba. That's quite a big thing now. There's a Of course, a big push to get Cuba removed from the state sponsor of terrorism list, which is incredibly important. And all this can be buttressed by just personal education, reading more books about socialist countries, listening to podcasts, doing whatever to further educate yourself, not only for your kind of your own development and nourishment, but also so that you can go out there and help counter misinformation, that is just rampant on social.

media, which is rampant on capabilities, which is rampant in the workplace, which is rampant everywhere, right? You can, you can engage in that work of countering misinformation because all this is important because the problems that they are facing, there are problems that we are also basing to or will face once we get further along with our socialist development here. And I think in doing so, I think that is really the materialist approach is taking into all that information of what is actually being constructed by socialists around the world and trying to implement that here and to build those solidarity lakes for the betterment of all of us really.

Because this history, that is not only for past socialist countries, but current ones today, their experience is our experience. We're all trying to do the same thing here. Yeah, incredibly well said. Jeremy's point of this element of the ostensible left trying to tale reactionaries and take on board chauvinistic, shitty, bigoted, backward opinions in hopes of appealing to a certain segment of, you know, the working class is obviously a failure. And it's just not going to work, you know, for a million different reasons. It's deeply alienating to people

who are the most oppressed and who stand to gain the most from society. And also splits up the working class because the working class is multiracial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious, you know, of all different gender identities and expressions, etc. And so to start bringing and bigotry is just, I mean, and if you look at these movements, they're all very often disproportionately represented as like young white men, and that's no accident. You alienate basically everybody else. And then Tony's wonderful point about internationalism and just the humility, the curiosity, the willingness to learn from actually other countries who are going through the struggles themselves instead of sitting back relatively comfortably in the imperial core

and casting aspersions or thinking that your theoretical critique of this or this or that global south country has anything other, any relevance other than just, you know, solidifying the imperial core narratives and ideologies themselves. Yeah, I am always disgusted when I see people take, instead of a humble, willing to learn, curious approach, this condemnatory, I've read all the books, let me tell you people in this country or that country how to do socialism. It's, it's revolting and it's hubristic, it's pure ego and it's unnecessary, and it hurts the, it hurts everything. It hurts the cause locally, and abroad. Ray, did you have anything to add to that?

So, though, again, as I said, I'm American. I am not always in North America, although obviously I do engage with English language media primarily online. And so, you know, just speaking to that, I feel like I've made the joke so many times, right? Like with friends like these, who needs co-intel pro? And just to remind ourselves that the internet could be, a neutral tool, but it's not. And it's molded by capital and it's molded by billionaires and oligarchs who make their money by extracting our pain and our rage and sort of like farming that and extracting that from our bodies and our minds. And to just remind ourselves that the internet and social media obviously are powerful tools and we have to constantly

fight against what they are and how they try to force us or contort us to show up, right? And really do things that bring shame to ourselves and really showcase the worst of ourselves, our humanity, and our movement. And so I think it's worth reflecting on what the platforms are, how to use them effectively, and also make a friend. I know that this isn't directly a criticism, but maybe more of just a suggestion. I think it's okay to want to exchange the memes about the tendency that's not yours and to make jokes about this person or that person, but like not on the internet for everyone

in the whole world, just to echo what all three of you have said. It's very disheartening. It makes people feel scared or unwelcome. Just make friends, you know? Get friends. Get friends. Get a friend. Get a hobby.

Yeah, I mean, I think whenever we're on the internet and on these social media apps, we are inherently on the enemy's terrain, these multi-billionaires and these huge corporations that own these things and that harvest our data, and it's going out into the entire world. And there's a lot of people across, I mean, this is not just to the left. This is a political thing across the entire spectrum, right, left and center, who mistake being active online as real activism, real organization. I mean, there are certainly things that being online can help. It can bring people together. You can learn things. I mean, without the Internet, like, you know, being out here in the middle of Nebraska, what are the odds that I would have fully been able to understand and grasp and think about things like Marxism and communism?

I was reading books and stuff, but yeah, there's online communities that helped me a lot in my development. So there are positive elements of it, but if you're spending hours and hours a day, if you're disconnected from people in your actual life, you know, then it really becomes a lot. a problem. And again, you see that across the entire political spectrum. It's not just a problem on the left, but it obviously hurts to see it on the left as well. So all really important things to think about for people listening. The next question I want to ask is, you know, the original way I was going to frame this question is which country in the world today is carrying the torch of socialism in the most promising way? But rather than just making it like what country do you think is doing it the best, I just want to ask you, is there a certain country you want to highlight?

Like what country would you like to highlight as like caring forward either a socialist ideal or an anti-imperialist ideal or an anti-colonial ideal in a way that is worth studying and learning from? Yeah. So I'm not the most educated on this country, but given recent events, so we're recording this the day after the failed coup in Bolivia. And so kind of going off that common Twitter me that's been used for China as of late, I'll say this. There are incredible things happening in Bolivia. Absolutely. The current organization of the Bolivian economy, of course, is not socialist in the sense. One could say China is or Cuba's or even what the Soviet Union was back in the day.

But the governing party for the past 20 years has been socialist oriented and has been their main goal is to build towards socialism. And really what I wanted to kind of point out here is that. During the coup itself, the Bolivius Trade Union Confederation, I believe it's COB is the acronym. As this coup was ongoing, as this military leader was storming the gates of the palace as military troops were out in that plaza, this trade union to the Federation of the president had called for an immediate mobilization and a general strike in response to what was happening to ensure that democracy would be upheld in Bolivia. And I believe this Confederation

consists of at least 2 million workers peasants of all sorts across the country. And they came out en masse to support the president, Luis Arche, I believe his name is. They came out in mass to support him, but most importantly to support the building of socialism in their country. And it was such a wonderful thing to see that kind of mass politics,

that doesn't, you know, we don't necessarily see mass politics like this in North America, for example, of people coming out on the streets to defend socialist construction, right? We might see things like January 6th, for example. But I don't think if, say, for example, Biden was overthrown or whatever that we'd see liberals, Democrats out in mass to support it, right? So, yeah, I just wanted to, to make that point that. Belivia is definitely a place to keep your eye open towards. Currently, of course, it is experiencing economic hardship, mostly as a result of rebounding from COVID, but the achievements that they've made in the past 20 years really are remarkable. And they take an example to the world. I completely agree. I echo that sentiment. And the connection with the indigenous community in particular, I think, has really been the backbone of that entire. movement, which is, you know, something we should all learn from, absolutely. I am really excited by a lot of what's going on in the PRC in China.

It is incredible in terms of technological development that's going on. It's incredible in terms of the, you know, the elimination of extreme poverty has been accomplished. The gap between rich and poor is shrinking in China. They just put a cap on bankers salaries. It's like, and, you know, and I know that a bunch of ultras are going to be like, oh, caps on banker's salaries. How socialist. But I'm going to say what was said to me when I said a similar thing probably about a decade ago. China is on a 100-year trajectory. and the fact that we think in economic quarters or in five-year plans or, you know, which China still does five-year plans, but my point is like, yeah, so four-year election cycles, you know, we are

very in the West, I think, fixated on rapid change in development. And if we don't see that, then we're not happy. But again, China is. on a long path, which it has continued down since its beginning. There have been setbacks, the Sino-Soviet split, the collapse of the Soviet Union. All of these things had negative impacts that caused them to have to change their trajectory, but never have they abandoned socialism. I mean, there are way more co-ops there than there are in the West. There are way more collective farms there than there are in the West. So even if you believe that socialism is those things and nothing else. They've got that.

But anyway, China is killing it. I mean, they are pretty close, I think, to getting nuclear fusion to be an actual sustainable source of power. They probably have eliminated or figured out a way to eliminate diabetes, which is unbelievable as well. These are developments that would never happen in the West because they are not economically profitable, you know, to eliminate diabetes as opposed to selling insulin for

$1,000 a dose or whatever, you know, it's exciting to me. And the fact that they are consistently undermining the United States and its allies is also very exciting. We may be seeing, as you mentioned earlier, sort of the cracks in the neoliberal order that may cause a fracture. Yeah, one of the things I always say about China is, like, regardless of what you think about it, in the U.S., the state is subservient to corporations in their power, and in China, corporations in the private sector are subservient to the state. And they're doing big things. They're eating America's lunch. They are presenting themselves as the responsible player on the world stage, as the U.S. backs the genocide in Gaza, as the U.S. backs this proxy war in Ukraine, you know, this bullshit about the international rules-based order that the U.S. always likes to advance. China's just calling their number over and over and over again,

and it's going to be very interesting to see where they go. The one thing I do have to promote is our recent over, it's a four-part series on the last 250 years of Chinese history with professor and scholar Ken Hammond. And we released it in four installments going all the way back to the Taiping and Boxer Rebellions, up to modern day China, the Deng reforms, the cultural revolution, all of that stuff, the long march. And if you haven't heard, that yet. It's a collaboration I did with guerrilla history. The last thing we sort of did together as I was parting ways with those comrades. But if you haven't heard that yet, it's over eight hours of a deep dive into Chinese history with a really engaging and really knowledgeable

scholar. So I highly recommend people check that out, regardless of your position on modern-day China, you will learn so much as I did interviewing Ken. But Ray, do you have anything to add to this? Yes. First, I want to zoom out a little bit from the singular nation state and remind Westerners especially that it is vitally important that we, as they say, pivot to Asia to examine not only the variety of socialist experiments that happen in Asia, right, primarily the former Soviet Union, China, Lao, Vietnam, and North Korea. But also, it's the only example that we have globally for how socially, countries and now former socialist countries interact with one another.

And for Westerners who maybe don't know who aren't familiar, and of course it's really challenging because there isn't always something accurate and solid and reliable to consistently read in English, although I know China has been making strides in order to make a lot of their stuff available for non-Chinese speakers. but that's just like a general area of interest right of all of us obviously we're coming this history of podcasters but I think that there's so much that we can learn from their collective example and both mistakes that were made and progress that is really exciting and interesting and decades of information that we can look to to understand more mature in

terms of like their longevity projects and how they interact with one another. I really do look to Vietnam as an example. As I said, I used to live there. It's my favorite country in the world. And I think that they're often forgotten about in a lot of these conversations. But, you know, just for based things that are happening in Vietnam. Yes, I go talk about, oh, they had the largest growing middle class for I think six consecutive years or something like that. But, you know, they recently also sentenced a billionaire to death for fraud. So, nice. Cool things happening, you know? And then after kind of the zoom out, when I'm looking for things that feel really alive or that feel really interesting, sometimes I feel less inspired

by individual nations todays just because that the scope of that can feel so overwhelming to me. And I feel a lot more connected to obviously like smaller pockets of disruption. And in this really difficult and intense time, I look to people who are trying, for example, to unionize their workplace for the first time, to people who are showing up to protest for the first time, obviously the student encampments and people coming together against the violence of Zionism and imperialism globally. And sometimes I just remind myself again, that I that we are as we all because actually Brett I just want to circle back because I think the last question you asked if I'm remembering correctly you ask for criticism and then you also ask for

what we felt hopeful about or something to that effect and we all try to dance around and not be super critical which I think was the right move on all of our parts we were very kind but none of us really engaged with what made us feel hopeful and and that kind of just reminds me right that we're so acculturated to focus on the negative, and it's important to train ourselves anywhere. And maybe it is, oh, this China is developing a cure for type 2 diabetes. Maybe that's something that I can look to and go, wow, that's so incredible. That's so inspiring. I feel so hopeful about that.

Here's an example. And I think that there are other places as well that we can look. And, you know, on ProzPod, we have an upcoming episode about an indigenous community or several indigenous communities, but it focuses primarily on one indigenous community in the Ecuadorian Amazon. And also reminding myself that Marxism is an aperture through which we can view other things.

And we don't have to use it to feel inspired by or to see actually socialism or Marxism or anti-capitalism happening even in groups of people who don't self-identify as being socialist. And so I don't know if that is a good answer to the question. Yeah.

But to be fair, Tony, it took mine, and I wanted to do an episode on Bolivia, and I just want, I want that documented. I want everybody to know. No. I suppose, like, on the front of, like, things I'm hopeful about, like, people who in the past I have had arguments with, one in particular, you know, I tend to post a lot about the terrible things that go on in the United States. And one of my friends, who I've known for like 20 years was like, there's nothing we can do about this. Just like have a good time. Just party. Like just let's just all get drunk.

Let's get high. You know, chill. You know, quit complaining about this stuff. And she is now like free Palestine, you know. And this was, we're only talking about like two years. So I think people are developing, you know, if not class consciousness, then at least a consciousness of the, of the, of, the position of the United States as an imperialist power globally and how shitty it is. So, yeah, I'm hopeful about that.

I'm hopeful about the political consciousness that seems to be developing in people who even very recently were completely devoid of it. I totally agree. And it is worth stressing the positives and the reasons for hope. And, yeah, like, I think Palestine in particular, and the Palestinian, resistance has really brought this issue to the forefront in such a powerful globalized way that it's even penetrating the ideology of the imperial core to the point where they are scrambling genuinely in fear of the monumental shift in public opinion against Israel and in favor of

Palestine. And the Palestinian resistance, the armed resistance itself is the movement that put this issue back on the global map. They were they were ready to I mean, you know, Israel, the U.S., the entire region was ready to just quietly and silently shuffle off the Palestinian question as they were starting to make deeper ties regionally, Israel, I mean, with Saudi Arabia and these other countries in the area, and the armed resistance in the uprising of October 7th really put this entire issue back on the map and has been brutal to see the response by the U.S. and Israel, absolutely fucking disgusting, genocidal, criminal, but at the same exact time, it's revealed the rot at the center of

Israeli society and American society. And it's really shifting perspectives in a way that you saw happen before the fall of South African apartheid. You saw very similar shifts in public opinion, even in the Imperial Corps, while the governments of Israel, the UK, the US, were still firmly trying to maintain their support of apartheid South Africa and eventually it was just globally and internally too much for them to resist and we've seen apartheid fail. And now a problem still exists in South Africa. The legacy doesn't just go away overnight for sure. But there is reason for hope and we have to, every human being across the world interested in decolonization, interested in liberation, interested in a better future for all of humanity, have to pause and tip their cap to the Palestinian resistance.

and, I mean, the Palestinian people themselves who have persevered through tragedy after tragedy, brutalization after brutalization, and have maintained their humanity the whole way. They are the shining example of the human species, the best we have to offer. And I think Israel's time is coming to an end. And it's because of the Palestinian resistance that that's happening. And I think the U.S. imperial hegemonic rule is taking, at the very least, a fatal or terminally fatal blow, if not the end of U.S. imperial hegemony in large part because of Palestinian resistance. So it's always worth highlighting the Palestinian people and their dignity and their bravery and their perseverance. And I also want to highlight, you know, lots of stuff is happening in Africa, in particular Burkina Faso, remains.

a wonderful source of inspiration for people around the world. The new leader, Captain Ibrahim, is really, you know, picking up the spirit of Thomas Sankara and genuinely picking up his torch and carrying it forward in a really beautiful way. And I'm really keeping my eyes on that country in particular, but that entire area, that region and the continent itself to see what happens in the next several years to decades. because it seems around the world, and particularly in the global south, there has been a revolution in consciousness, at least, and a material revolution in some specific countries across the global south that are just saying enough is enough. And I'm really excited to see where those developments go. But all wonderful answers, and I really appreciate that.

So we have a couple more questions for you today, and now I want to shift a focus back to the United States. I know Tony and Ray are not necessarily living here, but certainly you're affected by U.S. policy. You're affected by U.S. politics. I'm sure you're very aware of it against your will and wishes, perhaps. But unfortunately, being the global hegemon, even the dying global hegemon, means everybody has to have their face shoved in the shit of American politics. So with that in mind, what are the fundamental divides and crises in the United States in particular today? And where do each of you see things going in the next couple of years? and of course you don't have to restrain your analysis merely to the United States.

You know, Canada and even Mexico, lots of changes are happening currently as well. So what are your thoughts on the fundamental divides and this ongoing crisis that we seem to be living through? I have concerns that what is much more likely than a socialist revolution in this country is a fascist one. and it is what will likely happen if that does transpire if there is some sort of a localized fascist uprising is that the neoliberal state will attempt to defend itself in spite of the fact that it does sort of tacitly provide support to fascists and fascism

because it would much prefer that to socialism or communism it does not want fascism as its primary means of defending capitalism. And that may be an opportunity when the state is fighting a common enemy with us. That may be our opportunity. But I think what we really need to be doing in this time is to start building networks of solidarity so that we can. feed one another and take care of one another and protect one another should the worst happen. And maybe I'm wrong, but that is sort of, that is my fear. Yeah.

And it's not just the U.S. It's across the entire Western world of this rise in fascist movement. I agree with everything that Jeremy said and would add to that and double down that even if, by the way, we get the opportunity for the revolution of all of our dreams, the alternate networks of care that need to be in place stretch so broad and so deep and in so many facets of our lives that I think it's really challenging to even conceptualize. So whether things go as bad as we fear or as well as we could hope,

the path forward for our cause is the same. And it is to do what we can to strengthen communities and networks of care that pose at least in some small ways to be alternatives to the existing system that we have. And again, kind of what we were all touching on earlier about people of different tendencies, needing to find common cause with one another. This is an area that revolutionary Marx-Leninists and other communists and anarchists really all have in common, right? There's a period of time where it is a vitality. importance that we're building things that counter what currently exists. Because, yes, it's so exciting to take control and to abolish the systems that are oppressing the majority of us so much. But if there's nothing left in place, we're really setting ourselves up for a tragic failure.

And I think my biggest fear is that those alternatives are not going to be in place at the tipping point that, you know, that Jeremy was kind of touching on before where it's like, yeah, there's a point where we can go one way or the other, obviously material reality is not so binary, but just in broad strokes. There are always sort of tipping points or turning moments that you can go one way or the other. And either way, the work in front of us in my mind is largely the same. Yeah, yeah. We desperately need means of growing our own food that does not depend on the current supply chains that we have. That's a very vital thing that we need to be able to feed ourselves and we don't have anything

like that. Prospod Prepper cast. Well, no, more so than Prepper, like we need to be able to share. We need to be able to grow enough to feed not ourselves, but hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of people. And we have nothing like that. So even if we were ready tomorrow for the revolution, it would, yeah, we don't have a means to feed our army.

That's the basis of dual power. Tony, go ahead. Exactly. Yeah, so to kind of add on to whatever it was saying here, establishing these networks of solidarity within the country, of course, and within our communities. But back to a point I made earlier in regards to creating these solidary networks with socialist countries in the world who have experienced similar things

who may have this knowledge that we've talked about about growing food for thousands of people when you might not have the resources or the most advanced technologies to do so. And they may be the ones coming to our aid when we need it. So again, right now, building these in our own, building these soldiers with our own communities, but also facing internationally and across the world as well

for those working class links. Yeah, absolutely. my friend and good comrade professor Alexander Avina recently shared a quote from the newer Colombian president Gustavo Petro who made this point about the broader crisis within the imperial core centered around anti-immigration policies the quote is this immense exodus will have a response in the north we are already seeing it in the anti-immigration policies of rich countries and the rise of the extreme right within them Hitler is knocking on the European and American middle class homes as doors, and many are letting him in. The exodus will be

responded to with a lot of violence and barbarism. What we are saying in Gaza is a rehearsal of the future. And I think that the idea of Hitler knocking on the doors of the imperial core is poetic and scary, but also this idea that what we're seeing in Gaza is a rehearsal for the future, I think, is a very fascinating and worthwhile point to reflect on, because Israel in so many ways is the front and center because it has to be based on its settler colonial and apartheid status of this systematic hyper technological 21st century apparatus of repression and as conditions become shittier in the imperial core as climate change bears down on all of us as the rich and the powerful refuse to hand over an ounce of money or power or compromise in any way the neoliberal

leaders and the centrist policies and the corporations that back a lot of these governments are hyper aware that they can't keep this going forever, that eventually it's going to sort of, the rabble are going to start picking up pitchforks. And what they have in store for us is cop cities, what they have in store for us in the most extreme instance, because I don't want to water down or act like what's happening in Palestine is some normal thing that's going to be inflicted on all of us. What the Palestinians are going through is uniquely horrific. but we see what the colonialist imperialist apparatus has in store for the masses when they do eventually, whether or not they do,

but if and when they do decide to rise up, what they have in store for us. And I thought that was incredibly on point and just really highlights the importance of our task domestically and globally, because there are people in every single country on every corner of the populated world that believe what we believe, that won a better world, that want to fight for something different than what the fuck is on offer, and the powers that be are not simply, and they never have in history, simply hand over, you know, power and wealth when we come knocking. So it's going to be a struggle, and we really have to be prepared for that, materially, organizationally, and even psychologically.

So I do have one or two more questions before we wrap up here. And this one is, I don't know, it just came to me, and I thought it was kind of interesting. you don't hear a lot about this none of us are perfect we all have things we can work on but it is interesting to think about what set of traits that are important for people

who do believe in a better world for revolutionaries of various stripes to cultivate within themselves you know sometimes it really makes me frustrated when the right wing acts like it has a sort of hegemony

on things like discipline on things like loyalty on things like honesty on things like honor and they act like you know the left is inherently disloyal unhonorable undisciplined etc and of course centrist um his hysterics feed into this with like you know working out as fascist or whatever you know discipline is fascist whatever just this this real widespread confusion amongst people about certain traits and certain stereotypes about the left so with all of that in mind what do you think are some important traits in individuals who are dedicated to building a better world that it is worthwhile

actively trying to cultivate. Yeah, to speak to a lot of what you just said, Brett, I don't think that we on the left should or can afford to seed an iota of ground when it comes to, as you said, things like morality. I think that the left should really stop shying away from conversations, for example, about the family, about fitness and health, I think it gets reduced and anyone trying to suggest that we should work to improve ourselves, we're automatically classist or ablest or, as you said, conflated with fascism. And all of these things are things that well-rounded people need to live a good life. But there are also things that people vitally need in order to participate with and for the revolutionary cause. Another thing

that I think people need to pick up on a thread that Jeremy mentioned earlier, you know, the neoliberal world order asks us to individuate, to isolate, and to become increasingly niched or specific with our work. Echo chambers in our lives, the media that we consume everywhere in our lives becomes, even though we have the internet, even though we have access to more information than we've ever had before, simultaneously narrower and narrower and more isolated and more individuated, and we need to counter that with well-roundedness. So if you have a strong knowledge, for example, a theory, but you lack emotional regulation skills or conflict de-escalation skills, if you're just a shitty, unpleasant person to be

around, you should fix that. You need to develop those skills. If you have a lot of ability with engineering or with plumbing or with marketing, right, the revolutionary might not be televised, but it sure as fuck is going to be propagandized. whatever skills you have double down on them be great at them and also work really hard to become a well-rounded individual um another thing that i don't think we talk about enough especially in north america but tony it touches on a lot of what you said if you only speak one language do what you can to try to become a multilingual person when we look at marks Stalin

uncle ho they were all polyglots they were all multilingual people not just basic Ola, Como Estats, conversations. These are people who were writing theory, delivering speeches in not their native language. So these skills are vitally worth your time. When we look at places like, as I said before, North Korea, China, Lao, Vietnam, an enormous reason that those countries are so hard for us to understand is because we don't speak or read those languages. And it's really, really, really important that, of course, people who have the time, people who have the discretionary income. But also, I'm thinking about Uncle Ho, riding around the world,

cooking and washing dishes on a boat and learning Russian, right? And learning French, well, he learned French in school. But learning other languages and coming back and doing theory in those languages, you know, as we're doing the Stalin series, you see time and time and time again this critique of Stalin and his writing and speaking without anyone stopping to be like, that is his second language. So that's something that I just think is really, really, really undervalued.

And I guess the last thing that I think is really important that we all develop is to unhook from ourselves the violence and the poison of neoliberalism. And one of the ways to do that is just to remind ourselves and each other all the time that no one is disposable. We haven't really talked a lot about the damage and the harm that sort of cancel culture and wreckerism. has done to most spaces, but especially in this case, in this conversation to the left, we are not disposable. And if you meet a person from whether it's another communist who has a different tendency than you or just like a liberal who's starting to question what's going on at their office, anyone who's willing to challenge capitalism is worth your time. And I think it's funny, right, that as like communists, we're largely very interested in history. And, you know,

it's a kind of joke about what you guys were saying earlier. We tend to have like a very short memory when it comes to our own political development. Right now, you're the revolutionary Marx-Leninist, but hey, some of the people listening thought Obama was going to save America, right? So it's important that we're really patient and we meet other people where they are. And anyone who has already taken a step because the propaganda is so strong. The capitalist world order is the oxygen we breathe. Literally, it's the microplastics in our balls. It's the it's the water we swim in and anyone who has stopped to be like how did that get there are people worthy of our respect our time our patience and our dignity so i think it's worth it if i said you know

what qualities does a revolutionary need to have it is being patient being open staying human because this is a human movement for the betterment of humanity right i i cannot agree more and you got my heart rate up in the best way. I agree with every syllable that you said right there. I have people in my life and my family and my friends. I mean, I live in fucking Nebraska. So, you know, I have conservatives. I have liberals. I have people all across the spectrum. They're all fed up. They're all working class. They're all fed up. They have different interpretations. First and foremost, they like and respect me as a human being. And that allows me the doorway in to give my views. If it was some random person on the internet or some random asshole at work or somebody they just didn't like or respect, they would completely shut me out.

But because they know me as a human being, because I've made human connections with the people in my life and my community, I have a doorway in to express what many people see as these radical, scary politics, but which makes sense when you actually talk to regular people about their regular lives and you point out all the ways in which, you know, working people at home and abroad are brutalized by this system. So I think everything you said there was absolutely spot on. Jeremy or Tony? Ray earlier, you had said that, you know, the other members of the proles pod are super smart. Well, I just want to say that what you just said was incredibly powerful moving, so thank you for that. There's very little that I have to add to what you said, but one thing that I wanted to bring up, and this is something I learned listening to Rev Left over the years, is being open to learn from anyone who has something useful to say, regardless of their specific, say, for example, tendency on the left, or even if they're not socialists or leftists at all, because, you know, whatever, I'm a Marxist-Leninist.

Marxist unfortunately don't hold the sum total of all knowledge, right? So there's so much that we can learn from each other and from other people. And it's something that I've really also had to wrestle with working on the Stalin series, which we kind of tease at the start, right? a lot of the research that we're doing, of course, is from mostly liberal scholars, right? And I may not agree with maybe their certain takes on things, but they've done a lot of archival research. They've, you know, learned the languages. They've done all the work that I can't do and fit and likely never would be able to.

But there's so much knowledge to gain from them, regardless of their own specific political outlook. So I just wanted to make that point. Absolutely. Well said. Jeremy. And I would say that you cannot, you know, sort of kind of piggybacking on what Ray said regarding, like, people don't remember their own political development, but also even further than that, you cannot expect people who grew up in this country or in the West in general under the edge of education system that we have with the values which are important in these countries to have the correct line on everything. And they will quite often hold retrograde opinions. And so I guess,

again, calling back to my oblique reference to the fucking patriotic socialists that I was talking about before, they're not wrong that like a lot of the left goes, Oh shit. These people are socially backward. I'm not going to talk to them. You have to, y'all. You have to make connections with these people because we're not going to have a revolution if like one tenth of one percent of us is a Marxist Leninist. You're going to need to make connections to people who are not currently politically conscious, who are not class conscious, and you have to make them that way. And part of dealing with that, situation is to listen to them say stuff that you know is wrong and backwards and uh fucked up um and i'm not asking people who are from marginalized communities to put up with bigotry but if you are like a white dude and you hear somebody say some shit that's fucked up you go hey man that's like you're you're off base here you're you're focused on the wrong shit and start guiding them in the right direction uh but like this this broadly can apply

to multiple, you know, not just white guys. Like, it's not like white guys have a monopoly on bad ideas or shitty opinions. What I'm saying is basically you need to be open to these people. You don't need to accept what they have to say, but you do need to make connections with them so that when the time is right, you can sow seeds of putting them on the correct path. Like I have a very specific example. my youngest daughter's best friend her father is like a Republican and like a he's he also smokes like dab though so he's like a weird libertarian-ish Republican but anyway I was at his house yeah I was at his house at a party and he starts complaining about trans women in sports.

right but like you know he doesn't actually give a shit right like that's not a thing he that affects him in any meaningful way he has no connection to women's sports he doesn't watch or care about women's sports he's just been told to care about this by reactionary media sources right and I knew that I you know one response I could be like you know what fuck you dude I'm not going to talk to you anymore you're a transphobe or I I could hit him with all the standard talking points, you know, well, you know, being a trans woman doesn't necessarily make you better than a cis woman at a particular sport, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But instead, I went around him and I went, why do we divide sports by gender anyway? Why don't we do it based on skill level?

And he, it like took him a back, you know, it kind of like it shook him loose from his fucking thought process. and he was like, yeah, why do we separate sports by gender? You know, and I was like, I think because there are some women out there who would kick some dudes' asses and that would make them very insecure. And he was like, you know what? You're right. He's like, I ride motocross. And there's this 13-year-old girl who she, like, kicks everybody's ass out there.

What? You know, and that's like, but you just have to, you have to engage with these people. You have to, you have to, like, listen to them, hear them. through and then redirect them in a in a like disconnect them from their their ideology and it it allows you then inroads to plant more seeds and more seeds and change people's minds but you can't change people's minds unless you talk to them first that's a great that's a great example and yeah you hear that shit a lot you know he was programmed to respond to the normal shit that maybe somebody you know a liberal would say and then you hit him with a totally new thing that made him

like sort of, you know, recast a question mark on his entire thing. Even if he doesn't fully make the connect the dots in that moment, you've sort of, you know, found a weakness in his overall ideology and put a question mark there that he now has to contemplate. But overall, you didn't just cut him off. You didn't, you didn't do the, the Pat Sock reactionary magoc communism thing where you take his bullshit on board and you didn't do the liberal thing where you just like, you're an irredeemable piece of shit, I hate you, fuck you.

You did the principal thing of trying to meet him as. a human being, understanding kind of where he's coming from, not taking a step backwards on the humanity of trans people in general, while also hitting him from an angle that he wasn't quite expecting, but engaging with him, right? And that's the thing that I think is important. We're never going to get anywhere if we just say, fuck everybody that's not completely caught up to where we're caught up. To raise point earlier about, you know, we all have these moments of evolution and we all come from somewhere and we all have to learn some way, yeah, that's true and so be be the be the force of education and enlightenment and progress not the

the the smug liberal or the the the reactionary tailist and i think that's the that's the balance beam that we that we have to walk but cutting people off and deeming them is irredeemable it doesn't help anybody and it just solidifies stereotypes about who they think we are so those those were all really really and i would also say good i would also say that like i i used to be very afraid to about being a socialist or a communist or a Marxist Leninist because I was worried that people would hear that and then just like stop talking to me, you know, be like, wow, this guy's like way out there. He likes Stalin. But people really don't care. They, they treat you initially almost as like a novelty, but eventually they start asking you questions. So like don't be

afraid to talk to your coworkers or your friends like about your political views they they may be like whoa but they're also going to ask you then follow up questions after their initial sort of surprise that you're willing to just sort of come out and say it like don't be afraid to talk to people like please it's not as scary as it seems yeah more than i've i've never been shunned by anybody or anything more than i've had like begrudging respect or like people say hey i don't agree with everything Brett says, but he knows what he's talking about. He's a smart guy. He has valid opinions. I might not agree with them. You know, that's what I get from coworkers, from people in my friends and family group. I've never once had anybody be like, oh, he's so far out there. I'm not listening

to them. Because again, you have those human connections in real life that people aren't willing to just cut off for no reason. And so you build up a certain level of respect. They know me as a father, as a brother, as a, you know, son-in-law or whatever. And then I also have these opinions. And they respect me enough to at least hear me out. And I think, you know, making those human connections and just presenting the humanity, right? Because like you were saying, like, if they, if people have never come across a communist, a Marxist, a socialist, they have all these stereotypes about them. But when it's their brother or the guy they work with who they like or the dude they drink beers with and shoot pool with on the weekends or whatever, it humanizes actually the entire

ideology. So the next time that they hear communism, Marxism, socialism, they don't think super scary big government tyranny they think tony or ray or jeremy or brett and that automatically is a win for us and it advances our cause uh ray you have something to add to that yeah i guess i also want to just underline something that you already said brett about the value of the human connection and i guess i can't emphasize enough how strongly i feel about reminding people that we are people and it's not about meeting people so that we can build a connection so that I can sell them on my communism anymore than it is about selling them on my religion or selling them on my business or whatever it is. Being sold to feels like shit because it's shitty, even if what you're selling is of value.

And I feel like just to remind people listening that if you don't love people and believe me, I mean, you're seeing the best of us right now. We all live in a group chat together where we're sewer trolls, right? So sometimes it's so hard to love people. But if you don't love people, human beings, more than human beings, the environment, the planet, if you don't love, revolutionary thought and action will not be sustainable for you and it will not be successful in changing the hearts and minds of other people. people.

Both said, Tony? Yeah. Further to what Ray said, I just want to, what she said made me think of this shake of our quote, and I just looked it up here. And he said, I believe this was during an interview he did when he was visiting the U.S. And he said that, at the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love.

It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's the perfect summation of everything I think that we're talking about and really honestly standing for. And I too absolutely love that quote. Well, before we wrap up here, well, first thing I have to say is it's really worth noting that you guys are a really great team. Like you all have unique perspectives and you place your emphasis on slightly different aspects of the tradition and the thought, but in a way that really is coherent and comes together to mutually reinforce one another. And it just makes for a really good and well-rounded team. You know, if you're listening to this, go right now, subscribe to ProzPod, support them, check them out, listen to their episodes. You won't regret it. And I think this is a perfect introduction for anybody who haven't heard of you or may have forgotten about, you know, Proz with a roundtable and didn't know that you were back. The perfect representation of the new version of ProzPod. And I absolutely love it. I fully support it. Highly encourage everybody listening to go support them, subscribe to them, follow and listen to them. Before I do... And if you sign up for the highest tier of our Patreon, we will give you the key to our end-of-the-world

bunker. Ooh, so that's a great... You're going to make it. That's great. I'm going to sign up for that, you know? But, no, seriously, go support them, check them out, subscribe to them for sure. Before I move into the last question about where people can find you and the socials and everything, I do want to emphasize this really cool thing that you've sort of introduced now with the relaunch.

of ProzPod, which is theory beats. Can you kind of explain to people what theory beats is? And maybe also my editor can put in a little clip, a little example of what theory beats is. Because I think it's a really cool and unique idea. It's, so this is, I kind of wish Justin was here for this one, because it's kind of his baby. He got the idea from listening to Tony on actually existing socialism,

where he had kind of this, the meme, the lo-fi hip-hop beats to study slash relax to or whatever it's called. Yeah, he was speaking over it. And Justin was like, you know what would be a really good idea is to take theory, to take sections of theory and put it over hip-hop beats. So it's like a music bed that sort of helps to tune out everything else around you. and allows you to focus on the words that are being said like you're listening to a song. And so far we've put out three different sections of foundations of Leninism by Stalin,

but we're going to shift into other things as soon as that's done. Yeah, Tony, did you have something to add? Yeah, no, I just wanted to say that I'm pretty sure that it was a reading of Stalin and it was on the nationalities question, I think it was, and I think that's what inspired him. Nice. Yeah. It's really cool. I listened to it.

I loved it. I was mowing my yard and had my headphones in with, like, these ear protectors over it, so I was fully immersed. It's a really cool thing. And you actually do kind of, you hang in there more, you listen to it more than if it was just a pure audio, pure podcast, peer talking. There's something about that background music that sort of locks your attention in

in a really interesting way. So I can't believe nobody's thought about it before. It's a really great idea. I know. Yeah, it's crazy. And Justin is, he is making those beats, by the way. They're, they are his creation as well. They're not like, we're not finding.

He is DJ, Justin. Death to America. It's, yeah. DJ DTA. I love that. But, yeah, like, it's impressive, honestly. Like, you know, we're not using open source stuff. We're not like paying somebody else to do it.

He's making them all, which is pretty cool. Super impressive. Shout out to Justin. And it's similar, apologies, and it's similar to the broader projects related to the study guide that we talked about at the top. When we think about it now and we think about pamphlets or newspapers or the ways that propaganda was circulating in generations past, we take it for granted. But in fact, those things were novel transmissions of information and media. And it is our responsibility to continue to make things engaging and accessible. for people as well as find ways that they will be interested, that they can retain information,

and that they can learn in different ways. And so that's also part of kind of our broader project right now, which is to be like, how can we get people like me, frankly, who really are interested in the subject, but for whatever reason are having a difficulty understanding it with the way that it's often presented. And so it's sort of part of a broader, I guess, project, educational project. Super cool. I fully support it. I absolutely love it. check out proles pod check out the theory beats check out actually existing socialism

before I let you guys go can you let listeners know where they can find you your show maybe your personal accounts online etc it's mostly at proles pod so between the first iteration of proles and this one I have shifted

for being extremely online to be extremely offline so sadly I'm no longer a meme lord but yeah mostly it's at prolespod we have a libsen we have obviously please email us at pollspod at outlook dot com and tell jeremy to each according to his ability i don't make the rules jeremy the people need your memes my brain my brain doesn't even think that way anymore it's i don't know i don't know if it's sad or if it's great but either way i don't know maybe i'll get back into it and i'll just be depressed but uh yeah at this at this point

uh my my my meming has fallen off pretty hard well um i'll link to to proz pod socials i'll link to the email so people can reach out um give feedback ask any questions they might have etc i'll link to actually existing socialism is there anything else that you would like me to uh to link to in the show notes um no i guess i should just say that in my if you'd like to follow the work at actually existing socialism by twitter is at aES the podcast AES, the podcast. All right, I'll link to that as well. We were just joking before we recorded that Tony would have to mention AES like multiple times

because he's going to leave us when he gets tired and just do his solo projects like a lead singer leaving a band. Yeah, we might have a one direction style breakup. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes. I can't believe I gave you Beyonce and Stevie Nix and you still went for one direction. One direction, come on, one direction. So I guess it's worth noting. I still do coaching things, obviously, from a Mars Leninist perspective, and you can just reach me at the Prol's Pod email if anybody's listening, and I can give you the information

for that just manually, I guess, if that's something that's of interest to anyone. Cool. Yeah, absolutely. So I'll link to all that in the show notes. Go support, actually existing socialism, go subscribe to Prol's Pod, et cetera. Really exciting to have you guys back. Thank you guys so much for coming on the show, sharing your knowledge, sharing your insights. And I really look forward to seeing how Pearl's Pod goes from here.

Thanks, Brett. Thanks, Brett. Thank you. To Theory Beats. This is an adaptation of Foundations of Leninism by Joseph Stalin, beginning with the historical roots of Leninism. Leninism emerged and matured in an era of imperialism, a time when capitalism's internal contradictions had intensified to their breaking point. The proletarian revolution had transformed from a distant prospect into an urgent reality.

The period of preparing the working class for revolution had concluded, giving way to a new phase, a direct assault, on capitalism itself. Lennon labeled imperialism moribund capitalism due to its exacerbation of capitalism's inherent contradictions, pushing them to their absolute limits

beyond which revolution becomes inevitable. Among these contradictions, three stand out as particularly significant. The first is the conflict between labor and capital. In industrialized nations, imperialism manifests as the unchecked dominance of monopolistic trusts, syndicates, banks, and financial oligarchies. Traditional working class tools, trade unions, cooperatives, parliamentary parties, and legislative action

have proven utterly insufficient against this overwhelming power. Imperialism confronts the proletariat with a stark choice. Submit to capital and continue a life of hardship, or embrace new methods of reshundred. resistance. It is imperialism itself that propels the working class towards revolution. The second contradiction lies in the rivalry among financial groups and imperialist powers vying for raw materials and foreign territories. Imperialism drives the export of capital to resource-rich regions, fueling a relentless struggle for monopolistic control. This conflict intensifies as emerging financial groups and powers challenge established ones for their

place in the sun. Notably, this contest inevitably escalates into imperialist wars aimed at seizing foreign lands. These wars, in turn, weaken the imperialists collectively, undermine capitalism's overall position, and hasten the advent of the proletarian revolution, rendering it a practical necessity. The third contradiction arises between a small number of civilized ruling nations and the vast populations of colonized and dependent countries. Imperialism subjects hundreds of millions to the most blatant exploitation and brutal oppression with the sole aim of extracting exorbitant profits.

However, this very exploitation compels the imperialist to constructs, infrastructure in these countries, railways, factories, mills, and commercial centers. Consequently, a proletarian class emerges. A native intelligentsia develops, national consciousness awakens, and liberation movements arise. The burgeoning revolutionary movements in these regions clearly attest to this process. This is crucial for the proletariat, as it fundamentally weakens capitalism by transforming colonies and dependent nations from reserves of imperialist power into reserves of revolutionary potential. In essence, these are the primary contradictions of imperialism that have transformed the once flourishing capitalism into a system in decline.

The imperialist war that erupted a decade ago was significant in that it concentrated these contradictions into a single focal point, accelerating and facilitating the proletariat's revolutionary struggles. In other words, imperialism not only made revolution practically inevitable, but also created favorable conditions for a direct assault on capitalism strongholds. This was the global landscape that gave rise to Leninism. Thank you.