Marxism for the Masses w/ Savannah from All Power Books

Upstream

Politics, Society & Culture, News

4.9 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 11 March 2025

⏱️ 109 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Marxism is not some esoteric philosophy meant to be analyzed and discussed in the ivory towers of the academy—not that appreciating Marxism from an intellectual perspective is wrong, or anything—we do that quite a bit—but at its essence, Marxism is a weapon. It’s a tool for change—revolutionary change. It helps us understand the world around us not just for the sake of knowledge—but so that we can act accordingly.

This is the focus of our episode today—and the focus of our guest, who came to Marxism through real life struggle and teaches it to others with the very same spirit. Savannah is a co-founder of All Power Books—a radical bookstore and community space in Los Angeles. She developed and teaches Marxism 101 and 102 classes as part of All Power’s People’s Education Program.

In this conversation, we take a deep dive into these classes which aim to bring the social science of Marxism up to speed for our time and context. These classes are taught at an 8th grade level to be universally applicable and easy to understand—but they are crucial not just for newcomers to Marxism but for those of us hoping to improve in our communication and dissemination skills when it comes to radical theory and practice. In an incredibly effective and accessible way, Savannah teaches us about the differences between Private and Personal property, what the ‘Means of Production’ are, who owns them, how to easily grasp Dialectical and Historical Materialism, and more—all while dispelling some of the most prevalent myths about Marxism along the way.

Further Resources

All Power Books
Savannah on Instagram
Socialist Reconstruction: A Better Future for the United States, by PSL
What Is To Be Done? by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Marx's Capital Illustrated, by David Smith (Illustrated by Phil Evans)

Related Episodes:

Intermission music: "Keep Planting Flowers” by Stick to Your Guns

Upstream is a labor of love—we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support

If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship

For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey everyone, Robbie here with a quick announcement before we jump into this episode. So it is still
0:06.1	a few months out, but we just wanted to announce it pretty much as soon as we found out that it was all
0:11.5	going to sort of come into place. We've got another live show coming up and it will be with the
0:17.6	terrific, the two and only red menace. So that is, of course, Brett O'Shea
0:24.5	of Revolutionary Left Radio and Allison Escalante, both of whom you probably be familiar with,
0:32.1	if not from their own vast repertoire of amazing work, but we have also had them on multiple times on this show. And so
0:39.4	we could not be more excited for this. This will be a live podcast recording, much like our last
0:46.1	and so far only live podcast recording with the one and only Abby Martin. And it will be on the
0:53.3	weekend of August 23rd. So quite a ways away,
0:57.2	later in the summer. It will again be in Los Angeles and hosted again by our friends and comrades
1:04.2	at All Power Books. So we will have a lot more information as we get closer to the summer,
1:10.5	including things like
1:11.8	ticket information, venue info, the topic of the episode, etc., etc.
1:17.8	But just wanted to share that with you and formally announce it here first.
1:22.7	Okay, now, on to the show.
1:48.2	Oh, oh. Now, onto the show. Oh. I was exposed to Marxism.
1:52.3	When I was working as a bottle server in a Hollywood nightclub,
1:55.6	going home to a tiny studio apartment that I couldn't afford after serving celebrities who would waste like $15,000 on just a night out and then step over homeless people on the
2:03.0	sidewalks to get to their range rovers or whatever that like does something to a person.
2:08.0	I don't come from an intellectual or scholarly place and Marxism doesn't have to be that.
2:13.6	I humbly teach this class at all power, not because I'm an expert or some kind of professor,
2:19.7	but because I'm a person and like an activist struggling in many of the same ways that anyone else is.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Upstream, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Upstream and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.