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Ep 233: Post-Soviet Space w/ Volodymyr Ishchenko
🕑 Added 2023-12-13 11:00:03 +0000 UTCSean and Andy are joined by Volodymyr Ishchenko, Ukrainian Marxist and sociologist, to discuss his upcoming collection of essays "Toward the Abyss" from Verso Books. (You can and should preorder here.)
How does a 'civilizational' or 'cultural' or 'decolonial' understanding of the Russia-Ukraine conflict obscure the underlying class conflict at its heart? What is the political economy of 'corruption' and anti-corruption? How has the delegitimization of the post-Soviet political capitalist ruling class led to stagnation and civil war? Why have their been a series of Occupys, EuroMaidans and Arab Springs that seem to change nothing? What does the left look like in Ukraine at the moment and how can internationalists help build a working class movement adequate to social revolution in a global capitalist social order in steep decline?
Join us for this very timely and important episode.
Articles:
https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii138/articles/volodymyr-ishchenko-ukrainian-voices
https://jacobin.com/2022/10/russia-ukraine-war-explanation-class-conflict
Song: RotFront - Sovietoblaster
Comments
Jeannette
Same.
lookylou
So dense I had to listen twice
Trebor
Awesome interview! Book status = ordered
The Inner Moon
On the topic of the Ukrainian Left, I think it's a careful needle to thread between uncritically supporting a handful of 'war anarchists' (who might well be digging their own graves), and condemning any Ukrainian English-speaking leftist as an opportunistic 'NGO-ist'. That's a nuance worth attending to. Curious how your upcoming talk with Bevins will go; I was looking forward to his text, but ultimately found its conclusions to be too much like a reflexive demand for more 'verticalism'/'organization'/Leninism. Rodrigo Nunes' account in "Neither Vertical Nor Horizontal" seemed more convincing to me. Nunes is someone who'd be worth having on in general, whenever you're looking to discuss the questions of Organization.
