The Dig: Lessons from the New Left with Max Elbaum

Jacobin Radio

Jacobin

Socialism, History, News, Left, Jacobin, Alternative, Socialist, Politics

4.7 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 10 October 2018

⏱️ 102 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Let’s ensure that the history of American socialism doesn’t repeat as farce. That’s one reason that Max Elbaum wrote Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao and Che, an account of the little-remembered New Communist Movement that defined the American anti-capitalist Left of the 1970s. Their internationalism, anti-racism and cadre organization were in many ways admirable. Their dogmatism and sectarianism proved disastrous. Elbaum relates this history, and the lessons that the New Left failed to learn from the Old Left—lessons that today's resurgent left would be wise to study.

Thanks to Verso Books. Check out their huge catalogue of left-wing titles, including Revolution in the Air, at www.versobooks.com

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode of The Dig is brought to you by our listeners who support us at patreon.com
0:05.9	and by Verso Books, which has loads of great left-wing titles, perfect for dig listeners like you.
0:13.0	One that you might like is betraying Big Brother, the Feminist Awakening in China by Leedah
0:19.2	Hongfincher.
0:21.3	On the eve of International Women's Day in 2015, the Chinese government arrested five
0:26.0	feminist activists and jailed them for 37 days. The feminist five became a global cause sulleb with Hillary Clinton speaking out on their behalf
0:35.0	and activists inundating social media
0:38.0	with hashtag free the five messages.
0:41.0	But the five are only symbols of a much larger feminist movement of
0:45.2	civil rights lawyers, labor activists, performance artists, and online warriors
0:50.8	prompting an unprecedented awakening
0:53.5	among China's educated urban women.
0:56.6	In betraying Big Brother, journalists and scholar Lehta Hongfincher
1:00.9	argues that the popular broad-based movement poses the greatest challenge to China's
1:05.7	authoritarian regime today.
1:08.6	Through interviews with the Feminist Five and other leading Chinese activists, Hong Fincher illuminates both the difficulties they face
1:15.0	and their joy of betraying Big Brother,
1:18.0	as one of the Feminist Five wrote of the defiance she felt during her detention.
1:23.0	Tracing the rise of a new feminist consciousness now finding expression through the Me Too movement,
1:28.0	and describing how the communist regime has suppressed the history of its own feminist struggles, betraying big... this the feminist awakening in China by Leda Hong Fincher out podcast from Jacobin magazine. My name is Daniel Denver and
2:02.3	I'm broadcasting from Providence, Rhode Island.
2:06.0	Let's ensure that the history of American socialism doesn't repeat as farce.
	...

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