Ep 377 - Revisiting the Stalin Eras Part 1: Understanding Democratic Centralism with Jeremy of ProlesPod

** Come to Macro ‘n Chill, our online community gathering, where we listen to and discuss the current episode. This week, Jeremy of Proles Pod will be joining us. If you have questions for him, bring them! Tuesday, April 28th, at 8pm ET/5pm PT. Register here: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/G7ijDSVmTcKeDc82AAs0XQ

Last year, Proles Pod completed a multi-part series on The Stalin Eras. Now Jeremy, one of the co-hosts, joins Steve for a conversation about it, resulting in a two-part dialectical excavation of Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Project. The purpose of this exploration is neither to sanctify nor condemn, but to strip away bourgeois mythologies and ground the discussion in material conditions and collective processes.

In Part One, Jeremy and Steve look at democratic centralism, where rigorous debate is followed by unified action, then contrast it with the false choice offered by US electoral politics. They draw on Rosa Luxemburg, Julius Nyerere, and materialist analysis of US history (slavery, settler colonialism, Jim Crow as inspiration for Nazi laws), and agree that both Democrats and Republicans serve the same capitalist-oligarchic permanent state.

Proles Pod is an explicitly anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist podcast run by four ADHD-addled individuals. Although the foundation of Proles was built on the topic of history, more recently they have branched out into theory, politics, and culture. You can find them anywhere fine podcasts are distributed.

Join their Patreon https://www.patreon.com/c/ProlesPod/posts

Check out a teaser for The Stalin Eras https://www.instagram.com/reels/DP81SiTjQry/