The Regrettable Century

Soldiering on and finishing Chapter 3 of Bauer's excellent Marxist analysis of the nation. Read along with us: https://libcom.org/article/question-nationalities-and-social-democracy-otto-bauer Send us a text Support the show

This week, we read and discussed Eley and Blackbourn's indispensable discussion of the Sonderweg, or special path, of German history. It is often said that Germany's path to the Holocaust begins with the failure of the bourgeois revolution to take hold. This book posits a top-down Bonapartist "revolution" led by Otto von Bismarck which thoroughly bourgeoisified German society from the top to the bottom. Blackbourn, David, and Geoff Eley, The Peculiarities of German History: Bourgeois Society and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Oxford, 1984; Oxford Academic, 3 Oct. 2011) Send us a text Support the show

Kicking off Year VII, Chris and Ben are joined by Daniel Saunders to discuss Herbert McCabe's Class Struggle and Christian Love. The intention was also to cover pieces by Dennis Turner and Terry Eagleton but time got away from them, so Daniel will have to return again... Herbert McCabe: The Class Struggle and Christian Love https://www.christiansocialism.com/2020/05/14/herbert-mccabe-class-struggle-capitalism-marxism-christianity/ More of Daniel: Ideology, Fetishism, Apophaticism: Marxist Criticism & Christianity https://www.buzzsprout.com/220523/episodes/14978167-ideology-fetishism-apophaticism-marxist-criticism-and-christianity-with-daniel-saunders Ideology, Fetishism, Apophaticism: Marxist Criticism and Christianity: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/nbfr.12642 And Here: https://daniel-saunders.com/ Send us a text Support the show

The long-awaited part two of our year six in review episode. We kick it off with a little geopolitical discussion but get around to discussing our personal lives and the podcast. Send us a text Support the show

We are back at it again talking decadence theory with Varn. This week, we dig into Samir Amin's piece from Monthly Review. We discussed the following materials: Morley, Neville. "Decadence as a Theory of History." New Literary History, Vol. 35, No. 4, Forms and/of Decadence (Autumn, 2004), pp.573-585 Decadence: The Theory of Decline or the Decline of Theory? https://libcom.org/library/decadence-aufheben-2 Revolution or Decadence? https://monthlyreview.org/2018/05/01/revolution-or-decadence/ Check out Varn Vlog Here https://www.patreon.com/varnvlog Send us a text Support the show

As we wrap up another year of podcasting, we offer our expert opinions on everything that sucks about the world. Stay tuned for part II. Send us a text Support the show

The long march through the text continues as the gang tackles chapter three. Read along here: https://libcom.org/article/question-nationalities-and-social-democracy-otto-bauer Send us a text Support the show

This is part two of a discussion based on a paper Chris wrote about the concept of "German Socialism" from which groups like the NSDAP, the National Bolsheviks, Conservative Revolutionaries, and Black Front draw the basis for their ideologies. Mosse, George Lachmann. The Crisis of German Ideology. 1964. Reprint, New York: Schocken, 1981. King, John. “Writing and Rewriting the First World War: Ernst Jünger and the Crisis of the Conservative Imagination, 1914-25.” St. John’s College, 1999. Kedar, Asaf. “National Socialism Before Nazism: Friedrich Naumann and Theodor Fritsch, 1890-1914,” PhD diss., (University of California, Berkeley, 2010). Krebs, Gerhard. “Moeller van Den Bruck: Inventor of the ‘Third Reich.’” American Political Science Review 35, no. 6 (December 1941), 1088-1089. Stachura, Peter D. Gregor Strasser and the Rise of Nazism (RLE Nazi Germany & Holocaust). Routledge, 2014. Stern, Fritz. The Politics of Cultural Despair : A Study in the Rise of the Germanic Ideology. 1961. Reprint, Berkeley: University Of California Press, 1974. Tourlamain, Guy. Völkisch” Writers and National Socialism : A Study of Right-Wing Political Culture in Germany, 1890-1960. Oxford Et Autres: Peter Lang, 2014. Waite, Robert G L. Vanguard of Nazism : The Free Corps Movement in Postwar Germany 1918-1923. New York: W.W. Norton, 1969. Ward, James J. “Pipe Dreams or Revolutionary Politics? The Group of Social Revolutionary Nationalists in the Weimar Republic.” Journal of Contemporary History 15, no. 3 (July 1980): 513–32. Woods, Roger. The Conservative Revolution in the Weimar Republic. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire : New York: Macmillan Press ; St. Martin’s Press, 1996, 62. Ley, Robert. 1920. “The Program of the NSDAP.” The 25 Points 1920: An Early Nazi Program, February. https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/25points.asp. Paetel, Karl O. The National Bolshevist Manifesto. 1933. Reprint, Coppell Tx: Red Flame Press, 2021. Strasser, Otto. Germany Tomorrow. Translated by Eden and Ceder Paul. 1932. Reprint, London: Jonathan Cape, 1940. Send us a text Support the show

The boys dive in to Dugin's thoughts on civilization, colonialism, and imperialism. Don't worry, there are literally no digressions and the guys stay on point the whole time. Check out the full episode here: https://www.patreon.com/c/theregrettablecentury Check out Varn Vlog here: https://www.patreon.com/varnvlog/posts Check out Antifada here: https://www.patreon.com/theantifada Send us a text Support the show

In what turns out to be an offshoot of our Czechoslovak socialism series, we dive in to the ill fated and short lived Hungarian Soviet Republic. This also turns out to be incredibly relevant to anyone who is following along with our series on Otto Bauer and the national question. Send us a text Support the show

This week it's just the Regrettable brothers and we are talking about "leftism" and whether the category of "left" still holds any meaning. Send us a text Support the show

Wherein we cover the entirety of Chapter 2, dealing with the concept of the nation state. A link to the PDF: https://libcom.org/article/question-nationalities-and-social-democracy-otto-bauer Send us a text Support the show

Continuing what has become a series on Czechoslovak Socialism, we dive into the attempt to reform the Czechoslovak system. The official ML narrative and the liberal narrative about the Prague Spring are the same, they say that it was an attempt to re-establish bourgeois democracy. However, it seems clear that the intentions of its participants were the opposite. They appear to have been a genuine attempt to revitalize and push forward the communist project. The Action Programme of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia https://www.marxists.org/subject/czech/1968/action-programme.htm Stoneman, Anna J. “Socialism With a Human Face: The Leadership and Legacy of the Prague Spring.” The History Teacher49, no. 1 (2015): 103–25. Prague Spring Archive at MIA (worth browsing for historical first impressions) https://www.marxists.org/subject/czech/index.htm The Prague Spring of 1968: a glimpse of socialism? http://isj.org.uk/the-prague-spring/ Liehm, A. J. (1978). The Prague Spring and Eurocommunism. International Journal, 33(4), 804. doi:10.2307/40201691 Skilling, H. Gordon. "The Prague Spring Reassessed." Slavic Review 38, no. 4 (1979): 663-66. doi:10.2307/2496570. Reform and Counter-reform in Bureaucratic Power https://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/si/reform.html Music: Karel Kryl - Veličenstvo kat (English Translation) In a gloomy light of a gothic hall the scared profiteers are gazing into their missals and a horde of slayers is asking for blessing After all the first of the knights is his majesty executioner Aaah look the first of the knights is his Majesty Executioner Priest – the devil who served the mass is wearing a stole made from a hangmans slope Having a bottle of vitriol under the purple rochet The smell of sulfur coming from the mortars is crawling under the red hood of the first from all the knights his Majesty Executioner Aaah to the first of knights look it is his Majesty Executioner On the national flag there is an emblem with guillotine And the barbed wire smells by something decayed In our region is a flock of raven nesting the master hangman reigns these people The king is kneeing infront of Satan eagers to have the sceptre And the rabble is hanging the wise council at the plane tree And the heretic crowd is exhilarated and rejoices After all the first of knights is his Majesty Executioner Aaah the first of knights is his Majesty Executioner At a streetcorner a murderer is holding a lecture about moral Infront of the prison's door the guardians are walking From the military armour plate the black sign proclaims that the first of the knights is his Majesty Executioner Aaah that the first of the knights is his Majesty Executioner Over the government palace rises the flag with guillotine The children love the ice cream cornets The judges were upset about them so they killed their ice cream man A horrible state it was, as you had to watch the writing beeing forbidden and the singing beeing forbidden And they didn't have enough they commanded the kids to pra Send us a text Support the show

We are back at it again talking decadence theory with Varn. This week, we dig into Samir Amin's piece from Monthly Review. We discussed the following materials: Morley, Neville. "Decadence as a Theory of History." New Literary History, Vol. 35, No. 4, Forms and/of Decadence (Autumn, 2004), pp.573-585 Decadence: The Theory of Decline or the Decline of Theory https://libcom.org/library/decadence-aufheben-2 Revolution or Decadence? https://monthlyreview.org/2018/05/01/revolution-or-decadence/ Check out Varn Vlog Here https://www.patreon.com/varnvlog Send us a text Support the show

Kevin interviews anarchist author Alexander Reid Ross about fascism, environmentalism, some of the differences between anarchism and Marxism, and his views on the state of today's left. Since we are grouchy old Marxist pessimists, we naturally don't agree with everything he says, but he's provided us with an interesting conversation. If you are interested in hearing the second part of the interview, please subscribe to our Patreon for the low price of $2 a...