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Description
The Measures Taken is a project to survey and reconstruct the history of Marxism from the development of mass Social Democracy to our own moment.
Recognizing that Bolshevism has lapsed as a living political tendency, those of us who remain committed to revolutionary communist politics and convinced by the Marxist critique of political economy are left searching for a past capable of orienting us in the present. Mindful of the threat of eclecticism and all too cognizant of the infelicities of sectarianism, the hosts of this podcast embrace a non-denominational Marxism.
Our purpose is self-education, never the display of expertise. We hope that our listeners extend to us the same principled courtesy we do our forebears: not to judge too harshly.
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28 Episodes
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Send us a text We discuss Lenin's "'Left-Wing' Communism: An Infantile Disorder" as well as the responses and political positions of some of the pamphlet's main targets. We also examine the concept of left-wing communism itself, asking whether or not it is a category that can clarify our political lives today.
Send us a text What components of Marxism can most successfully help us to understand the appearance and shape of the phenomenon of ‘Red Terror?’
Send us a text The seizure of state power by Russian social democrats, and the success of their party in developing military and administrative capacities, forced the class-conscious worker the rest of the world over to decide to what extent it was appropriate to accept organizational leadership from the first and only proletarian dictatorship (if one does not count the inspired and brief experiments in Paris 1871). The choice all but made itself, especially if bearing witness to industrial w...
Send us a text The climax of the World War would present socialists with the actuality of revolution and result in a new North Star for Marxism, but its immediate effects were to irrevocably destroy the fabric of the international socialist movement, and in doing so inaugurate a period of painful soul-searching. In this episode, we will trace the responses of socialists to the war, as well as responses to the existential crises it provoked.
Send us a text The question of Social Democracy’s role when it came to peasants and agricultural laborers opened the floodgates to a wide range of theoretical and tactical debates. In this episode, we will dive into this era’s landmark texts and strategic, Party-level debates and decisions on the agrarian question— a question that will arise and be contested many more times as we proceed through the history of Marxism as a political tradition.
Send us a text It has hardly been lost on convinced readers of Capital that the book contains no blueprint for building an organization, one that might sound the “death knell” of the capitalist mode of production, expropriate the expropriators, and usher in the free association of labor. In this episode, we will open up the organizational question to see what we can learn from our traditions best planned failures.
Send us a text Questions of the bourgeois state, democracy, and the proletariat’s conquest of state power were the subject of a number of debates and attempts at theoretical formulation in the Second International. In the aftermath of the 1917 Russian Revolution and the dissolving of the Constituent Assembly, the stakes of the debate became even more pronounced, with figures such as Lenin, Kautsky, and Luxemburg focusing especially on the concept of dictatorship of the proletariat.
Send us a text The most popular book produced by a Second International figure was August Bebel’s “Women Under Socialism.” It introduced scientific socialism to a question prominent on the political scene, namely, that of women’s oppression and emancipation. For decades, Marxists would argue, both amongst themselves and with their opponents, on the relationship of the so-called “woman question” to class struggle and the social revolution.
Send us a text Despite the simplicity and strong appeal of the slogan “Proletarians of all countries unite,” the early Social Democratic movement would find themselves divided on how to carry out this task. Alongside controversy over Revisionism and the early debates on Imperialism, the National Question would be hotly contested across the Second International.
Send us a text From the moment Social Democracy was compelled by virtue of the maturity of its institutions to formulate policy and strategy, Marxists have feared for the timeliness of their theoretical commitments. Efforts to brings Marxism up to date most often manifested themselves as theories of "imperialism." In this episode, we do our best to unpack this capacious concept, with an eye to learning what we can from its use by Second International social democrats. And since this terrain c...
Send us a text The battle over Marxist orthodoxy was not long in arriving. Almost as soon as it emerged, it was subjected to a sustained theoretical assault from within, most notably and thoroughly by Eduard Bernstein, the foremost protagonist (or antagonist) in what was called ‘the revisionist controversy.’ This episode examines the political motivations and theoretical repercussions of this period of debate.
Send us a text The emergence of ‘Marxism’ as a ‘worldview’ and political tendency was not achieved during Marx’s lifetime, but remains the achievement of his epigones. This episode establishes what was meant by ‘Marxism’ when it forged its first orthodoxy by examining the popularizing works of Engels, Kautsky and Plekhanov.
Send us a text Despite its obvious centrality to the entire corpus of historical Marxism, Capital remains contested territory on the left. We examine its publication history and how we can understand what’s at stake in competing readings and approaches to the text.
Send us a text Our first episode attempts to justify the act of bringing another Marxist podcast into the world. This is an introduction to the project and ourselves, and we explain our shared orientation towards the contemporary left.
Send us a text Is left woke? Has woke left? Susan Neiman's "Left Is Not Woke" provokes us to consider these questions and more.
Send us a text We discuss the positions and influence of the Workers' Opposition in the Soviet Union.
Send us a text The high-profile assassination committed by Luigi Mangione, the enraptured public response, and his impending trial all demand a coherent political response from Marxists. Paired with discussion of the famed trial of Vera Zasulich in 1878, we take up the contemporary left response to Mangioni's actions and discuss how Marxists should understand and respond to the challenges of individual 'terrorism.'
Send us a text The three of us reunite to discuss E.P. Thompson's 1967 essay on the "new time-sense" that came into being with the rise and development of industrial capitalism.
Send us a text Nathan and Stephan discuss C.L.R. James' "Every Cook Can Govern," the Johnson-Forest tendency, democracy, and sortition.
Send us a text We return with our new *weekly* episode release schedule! In this episode, we discuss Jean-Luc Melenchon's "Now, the People!: Revolution in the Twenty-First Century."
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