RevolutionZ

Episode 400 of RevolutionZ assesses Classical Marxism are a conceptual framework for guiding political activism. A revolutionary theory can feel powerful precisely because it is big, elegant, and confident. The problem is, big and elegant or not, what does the theory help with or hinder when you try to use it on Monday morning. This episode takes a hard look at classical Marxism as a practical...

Episode 399 of RevolutionZ continues the "Ideology Sequence," this time criticizing Leninism based largely on last episode's presentation of Bolshevik practice. Why do revolutions that promise liberation so often end up with new bosses? Leninist strategy is a living set of assumptions about leadership, discipline, “efficiency,” compromise, and more and about how to think about and apply each. The...

Episode 398 of RevolutionZ discusses how a revolution that topples a targeted regime can nonetheless fail to meet its grass roots aims even while celebrating victory. It continues a sequence of episodes aimed to assess Marxism Leninism as an ideology that might or might not usefully guide contemporary revolutionary practice. Having presented Classical Marxism and Leninism in the prior two...

Episode 397 of RevoluionZ takes a careful walk through classical Leninist strategy, presenting it as sympathetically as we can so that the real strengths and real weaknesses show themselves without caricature. The context is Marxism-Leninism as an ideology--Classical ideologies as a way to read social conditions, determine goals, choose strategy, and treat organization as a complex revolutionary...

Episode 396 of RevolutionZ presents Classical Marxism as Marxist Leninists typically utilize it. It is part of a sequence of episodes aimed at helping to assess classical ideologies to determine whether activists should opt for one or reject them all and move on to something better. Marxism can feel like a master key: one theory that explains why society is stuck, who holds power, and how history...

Episode 395 of RevolutionZ continues our What Is To Be Undone sequence of excerpts to this time discuss ideology in general, not yet specific ones. Ideology decides what we pay attention to and what we miss. It tells us what we should call realistic and what we should instead consider impossible. It guides us concerning what and how to win. And that means that whether consciously or not ideology...

Episode 394 of RevolutionZ continues the evaluation of the New Left from within begun last episode. This time the focus is the Anti war movement, Weatherman, the Yippees, the Black movement, and the womens movement. The fastest way to break a movement is to let “being technically right” replace getting stronger. Starting with the Vietnam War antiwar movement we ask a painful question: how did a...

Episode 393 of RevolutionZ is Part One of a two part critical discussion of the Sixties New Left. It doesn't remember in order to praise what was done. It remembers to find flaws to correct. The content arrives like a time capsule a young me sent from 1974. The sixties didn’t just “happen” and then fade into nostalgia. The story of the New Left gets fought over because the stakes are still here:...

Episode 392 of RevolutionZ uncovers and visits a half-century-old file on my computer to address a surprisingly urgent question: are we building new revolutionary ideas, or just renting space in inherited ones. I recently rediscovered the text of my 1974 book What Is To Be Undone? written when the arguments between Marxism-Leninism, Maoism, anarchism, and other currents were not academic history...

Ep 391 of RevolutionZ has as its guest Vincent Emanuele to talk about the movement against data centers, the logic and methods of organizing, and movement culture. Your town’s next big fight might not be a highway or a stadium. It might be a windowless warehouse full of servers that power AI, cloud computing, and the apps you use every day, while quietly consuming electricity and water on a...