Transmission – Page 2

2020.12.05

Revisiting the Lysenko Affair

In the second episode of our Soviet Science series, Donald, Djamil and Rudy sit down to contextualize an infamous episode of this story: The case of T. D. Lysenko and Lysenkoism. We discuss the origins of vernalization and Lysenkoism in peasant folk knowledge and Michurin’s plant garden, how the state of Soviet scientifical structures and Soviet agriculture favored his rise, how he took advantage of the Soviet purges to solidify his standing, how he managed to absolutely ban the research of genetics in 1948, and how this ban was negotiated by other scientists, his many downfalls and rehabilitations starting in the early 1950s all the way up to the removal of Khruschev, and the shadow Lysenkoism cast on Soviet agronomy and biology for decades both internally and in the West. We also contextualize Lysenko’s agricultural and biological theories using modern knowledge about epigenetics.

Sources/Further Reading:

David Joravsky, The Lysenko Affair (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970)
Robert M. Young, Getting Started on Lysenkoism (1978)
Levins & Lewontin, The Dialectical Biologist (1985)
Loren Graham, Lysenko’s Ghost (2016)
Dominique Lecourt, Proletarian Science? The case of Lysenko (1977)

2020.11.28

The Tragedy of American Science with Cliff Conner

Alex and Rudy welcome historian Cliff Conner for a discussion of his recent book The Tragedy of American Science: From Truman to Trump. They discuss how this tragedy is a tragedy of capitalist science which is seen across the capitalist world, the role of science as an unchallengeable source of authority, and how that is squared with the anti-intellectualism needed to sustain a power structure, the influence of money in regulation and research, the precautionary principle and the risk-assessment principles for commercializing new products and the use of reductionism in research and how that is inseparable from the bourgeois mentality. The conversation then moves to the American university and the effect of the Bayh-Dole Act, and the relationship between military spending and research, including the US’s economic addiction to “weaponized Keynesianism” and how American policy makers do not care about the failures of military technology as long as the money keeps flowing. They discuss the ideals of objectivity and neutrality, ‘value-free’ science as an ideological tool, and how the social sciences can strive for objectivity. They end off talking about what changes and what things will stay the same with Biden, and how non-capitalist economies have shown that other models of science are possible where innovation did not rely on profit as a motive.

Details on the financial interests behind Operation Warp Speed, by Marjorie Cohn: https://truthout.org/articles/trump-administration-is-paying-big-pharma-billions-in-rush-for-vaccine/

Science for the People can be found here: https://scienceforthepeople.org

Buy Cliff’s book here. For early access to podcast episodes and other rewards, sign up for our Patreon.

2020.11.212020.11.21

Pull the Plugs? Labor, Power, and the Rise of Fossil Capitalism

Join the Cosmonaut Ecocrew as they discuss Andreas Malm’s piercing 2016 text Fossil Capital and attempt to dispel the myriad of myths that have been erected around the energetic transition to coal. The fateful intertwining in mid-19th century British cotton districts of capital and fossil fuels is examined in the context of class struggle, the ascendancy of the steam engine, and alternative futures that were incompatible with the logic of capital.

Check the previous episodes of this series:

Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism: Capital, Nature and the Unfinished Critique of Political Economy with Red Library

Capitalism in the Web of Life: A Discussion

Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature

2020.11.082020.11.08

Organizing the Oppressed with Mara & Janaya of Philly Socialists

Rudy and Annie join the two co-chairs of Philly Socialists, Mara and Janaya, for what starts as a conversation on the issues women and non-men comrades face when organizing, and ends up being a discussion of Philly Socialists’ base-building activities and their philosophy on the party. The episode starts off with a discussion of the experiences in PS to make the spaces more welcoming to everyone, the role of child-care and of strong sexual harassment policies, and how to provide spaces for everyone to become leaders.

This is grounded in what PS calls base-building: for example, their English as a second language classes, their work in the Philadelphia Tenants Union and their community garden, where PS organize neighborhood residents to fight back against gentrification and reclaim land in Philadelphia. The conversation continues to PS’s view of how the party should arise, before cycling back to the issues that started it.

As always, support us on Patreon for early access to episodes and more.

2020.10.31

Revolutionary Parliamentarism with August Nimtz

Parker and Peter join August Nimtz, the author of Lenin’s Electoral Strategy (now reprinted as The Ballot, The Streets– or Both) to discuss how Lenin and the Bolsheviks approached electoral politics and what we can learn from them to apply to today’s situation. They talk about the origins of Nimtz’s research project as an attempt to refute the point that electoralism must mean programmatic compromises, the influence on Lenin of Marx and Engels’ 1850 address to the Communist League, and how Lenin’s relation to the ballot depended on the temperature of the street and meant alternating boycotts with participation on an independent ballot line. They pivot towards analyzing the behavior and discipline of the Bolshevik faction including the consistent attempts to build an alliance with the peasantry, and the contrast between the Bolsheviks and the pre-WW1 German Social-Democratic Party, and the role of democratic centralism in disciplining parliamentary factions. They end with a reflection of what the ballot means today.

Works mentioned: Marx & Engels, Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League (1850): https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/1850-ad1.htm

Marx & Engels, Demands of the Communist Party in Germany (1848): https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/03/24.htm

Marx & Engels, Circular Letter to Bebel, Liebknecht, Bracke and Others (1879): https://marxists.catbull.com/archive/marx/works/1879/09/18.htm

2020.10.25

Knowledge Democratization, Bourgeois Specialists and the Organization of Science in the Early Soviet Union

For the first installment of our in-depth study of Soviet Science, Djamil, Donald and Rudy sit down to discuss the scientific institutions and the practice of Science in the early Soviet Union up to the conclusion of the Stalin Revolution. They start off with a survey of the Tsarist Academy, and what kind of structures and specialists the Bolsheviks inherited. The conversation continues with the changing ways the Bolsheviks related to specialists during the Civil War and the NEP, and how they were trying to assimilate the culture of specialists when they realized it was impossible to seize cultural power, and how this relates to the present-day debate around the Professional Managerial Class. They then discuss the role of the two anti-specialist trials that kick off the Stalin revolution: the Shakhty affair and the Industrial Party Trial, and how that served to strengthen Stalin’s hand in taking over the politbureau and resulted in a culture of blaming specialists for the failure of five-year plans. They finish by analyzing the resulting academy and intelligentsia of the 1930s, fully loyal to Stalin, and how that sets the stage for the rise of someone like Lysenko.

The Politics of Drugs and Harm Reduction with Michael Gilbert

Annie and Cliff join Michael Gilbert, a public health technologist and a harm reduction organizer for a conversation on how communists should relate to harm reduction efforts. They discuss the reasons why people use drugs, the role of drug availability in harm reduction, how international regulations shape the drug trade, and how that is used to justify politics such as strong borders and even invasions. They also discuss the roots of drug criminalization in the US and how that relates to public health outcomes, how harm reduction can be both self-organization of drug users and something brought from outside, the particularity of the words harm reduction, and how that reflects on the ethics of drug use. Finally, they touch on Michael’s personal experiences organizing around harm reduction, and how to go beyond just being a red charity.

As always, support us on Patreon for early access to episodes and more.

2020.10.04

The Zhenotdel and Women’s Emancipation in the Central Asian Republics with Anne McShane

Donald and Lydia join human rights lawyer and fellow Marxist Anne McShane to discuss her recent PhD thesis on the Zhenotdel, the women’s department of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. They discuss the origins of the Zhenotdel, how it attempted to solve the shortcomings of the women’s movement in the second international and its role in women’s liberation after the October Revolution. The conversation then pivots to the specific focus of Anne’s thesis: the changing role the Zhenotdel played in women’s emancipation in the Central Asian Republics. They discuss how the Zhenotdel related to and incorporated indigenous women into organizing, the Central Committee’s takeover of Zhenotdel policy that resulted in the hujum campaign of mass unveiling and the disastrous reaction that followed, how this campaign can be contextualized within the rise of Stalinist policies. They end the episode with the final dissolution of the Zhetnodel in 1930 and the sanitization of Nadezhda Krupskaya’s figure.

Anne’s research interest is in women’s liberation. Check out her Weekly Worker pieces among which we highlight: A barometer of Progress, Soviet Russia and Women’s emancipation, The Will to Liberate and How Women’s Protests Launched the Revolution. Her PhD thesis can be found in the University of Glasgow’s repository.

2020.09.132020.09.13

Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism: Capital, Nature and the Unfinished Critique of Political Economy with Red Library

Remi and Niko join Comrade Adam from Red Library to discuss Kohei Saito’s Capital, Nature, and the Unfinished Critique of Political Economy: Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism. We discuss the concept of metabolism, Marx’s evolution of thought on ecology being the core realm of capitalist crisis, agricultural chemistry, the role of a Marxist ecosocialist perspective to stop the destruction of capital across the planet, and much more even including Žižek’s thoughts on ecology!

Note: The episode ends a bit abruptly as technology bailed on us in the final moments.

2020.09.06

Different Horizons of Science Fiction under Socialism with Virginia Conn

Rudy and Medway are joined by recently graduated Dr. Virginia Conn to discuss her research on science fiction in the USSR, the German Democratic Republic and China. We discuss what the purpose of science fiction under socialism is, the continuities and ruptures of science fiction in the People’s Republic of China during its diverse political periods, how the new Soviet citizen contrasted with the Chinese new citizen, the figure of Bogdanov within Russian Cosmism, how the particularities of the GDR reflected in its Science Fiction, and how many male-written stories in socialist science fiction both succeed and fail in capturing the intricacies of gender and social reproduction.

Read Virginia’s article “Economic Circulations: Blood-Based Systems of Value in Alexander Bogdanov’s Red Star” here.