This episode of The Dig is brought to you by our supporters on Patreon and by Verso Books,

which has loads of great left-wing titles, perfect for dig listeners like you.

One that you might like is Revolution in the Air.

Sixties radicals turned to Lenin, Mao, and Che by Max Elbaum, with a foreword by Alicia Garza.

This is the new edition of the first in-depth study of the Long March of the U.S. New Left after 1968.

The 60s were a time when radical movements learned to embrace 20th century Marxism.

Revolution in the air is the definitive study of this turning point,

and examines what the resistance of today can learn from the legacies of Lenin, Mao, and Che.

It tells the story of the new communist movement,

which was the most racially integrated and fast-growing movement on the

left. Thousands of young activists, radicalized by the Vietnam War and Black liberation,

and spurred on by the Puerto Rican, Chicano, and Asian-American movements, embraced a third-world-oriented

version of Marxism. These admirers of Mao, Che, and Al-Makar-Kabraal

organized resistance to the Republican majorities of Ford and Nixon. By the 1980s, these groups

had either collapsed or become tiny shards of the dream of a Maoist world revolution. Taking issue with the idea of a

division between an early good 60s and a later bad 60s, Max Elbaum is particularly concerned

to reclaim the lessons of the new communist movement for today's activists, who, like their 60s

predecessors, are coming of age at a time when the left

lacks mass support and is fragmented along racial lines.

Revolution in the Air, 60s radicals turned to Lenin, Mao, and Che by Max Elbaum, with

a foreword by Alicia Garza.

Out now from Verso Books.

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