CLUMSY COMMUNISM LOSING BADLY IN BEIJING: 5/8: To the World: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Communism by Sean McMeekin (Author)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 5 May 2025
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
https://www.amazon.com/Overthrow-World-Rise-Fall-Communism/dp/1541601963
When the USSR collapsed in 1991, the world was certain that Communism was dead. Today, three decades later, it is clear that it was not. While Russia may no longer be Communist, Communism and sympathy for Communist ideas have proliferated across the globe.
In To Overthrow the World, Sean McMeekin investigates the evolution of Communism from a seductive ideal of a classless society into the ruling doctrine of tyrannical regimes. Tracing Communism’s ascent from theory to practice, McMeekin ranges from Karl Marx’s writings to the rise and fall of the USSR under Stalin to Mao’s rise to power in China to the acceleration of Communist or Communist-inspired policies around the world in the twenty-first century. McMeekin argues, however, that despite the endurance of Communism, it remains deeply unpopular as a political form. Where it has arisen, it has always arisen by force.
Blending historical narrative with cutting-edge scholarship, To Overthrow the World revolutionizes our understanding of the evolution of Communism—an idea that seemingly cannot die.
1954 MAO AT BEIDEIHE
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Continuing my conversation with Professor Sean McMeekin, his new book, To Overthrow the World, |
| 0:06.0 | The Rise and Fall and Rise of Communism. |
| 0:09.0 | Karl Marx is a Prussian, a European. |
| 0:13.0 | Vladimir Lenin is a Russian, a European. |
| 0:16.0 | Mousie Dong is neither. |
| 0:19.0 | He is a man who comes from the peasant, pigtail-wearing Chinese, born in 1893, so much younger than the older revolutionary communists that we've been watching in Europe. |
| 0:33.3 | However, he is radicalized as a student, especially something called the May 4th of 1990, I believe, |
| 0:43.0 | in reaction to what was considered to be a sellout of China at the Versailles Treaty. |
| 0:51.3 | That is not his Marxism, however. |
| 0:54.0 | He comes to Marxist-Linism later on, reading the |
| 0:57.9 | Communist Manifesto, reading what he can of Marx. However, Professor, again, congratulations for this. |
| 1:06.7 | In reading the Europeans in their struggle with Marx when he was obtuse and when he was rhetorical, |
| 1:14.5 | Marx is a great writer. |
| 1:16.2 | He would have been successful in Hollywood for making up titles and easy ways to explain motion pictures. |
| 1:23.0 | However, I'm struck by the fact that Mautzy Tong and his followers were not Marxists. |
| 1:29.3 | What were they? |
| 1:30.3 | How did they regard Marx's writings that was supposed to be the genesis of their revolution? |
| 1:36.3 | Well, I think the key to understanding some of the differences of Marxism and later communism in Asia, is that in some ways it's |
| 1:45.5 | agglomerative, you're taking some of what you had in Europe already ideas about this kind |
| 1:50.7 | of binary struggle between oppressor and oppressed, but it's blended together with this very |
| 1:55.5 | sharp anti-imperialism, because of course this is a country which is not in Europe, a country |
| 2:00.5 | which had been prey to a lot of exploitation. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from John Batchelor, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of John Batchelor and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.