The Revolutionary Communist Podcast

Welcome to the official podcast of the Revolutionary Communist Party! Across the country there are already tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of communists - but atomized and alone we are powerless against the weight of the global capitalist system. How can we effectively join forces and organize into a collective? How can we clarify our ideas in order to fight the most effectively? To help us answer these questions, and more, we're joined by Julien Arseneau, editor of the paper Communist Revolution, to discuss the need for a Revolutonary Communist Newspaper. Join us: marxist.ca/join

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Founding Congress: rcpcongress.ca

Send us your contributions at "contributions@marxist.ca".

From the devestation raining down on Gaza to the ongoing conflict in the Ukraine, world imperialism is opening millions of people's eyes to the brutality of the capitalist system on a world scale. Already we have begun to see movements against imperialism ot tens of thousands of people, and we will doubtless see more as capitalism lurches further into bloody confluct and crisis.

But in order to fight against imperialism and win, we need to understand what exactly we are fighting against. What is imperialism? Where does it come from? And what would be necessary to put it forever behind us as a relic of human society's barbaric past? To help us answer these questions, we share with you a presentation given by John peterson, a leading comrade withthe Revolutionary Communists of America on Imperialism and War.

And if you'd like to build the forces of communism where you are, you can subscribe to our revolutionary newspaper, reach out to us, and register to attend our founding congress through the links below.

RCP Founding Congress: rcpcongress.ca Join us: marxist.ca/join Subscribe: marxist.ca/subscribe

Welcome to the official podcast of the Revolutionary Communist Party!

This week we'll be discussing the questions: What is the RCP? Why have we launched this party? What kind of party are we building? To help us answer these questions, and more, we're joined by Joel Bergman, a leading comrade in the RCP here in Canada.

Rallies on April 6th:

Toronto: Yonge & Dundas Square, 2:00PM

Ottawa: Confederation Park, 1:00PM

Montreal: Jarry Park, 1:00PM

Quebec City: Victoria Park, 1:00PM

Sherbrooke: Jacques Cartier Park, 5:00PM

Edmonton: Gateway Blvd. & Whyte Avenue, 1:00PM

Vancouver: Grandview Park, 1:00PM

Victoria: Centennial Square, 12:00PM

You can find the rest on our social media pages at marxist.ca/events, or you can reach out to us to organize your own activity!

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At some stage or another, every mass struggle necessarily comes up against the obstacle of the state - the police, the army, the courts - institutions which, we are told, exist to maintain "law and order" in society. The approach that the movement takes towards the state is therefore of vital importance; in fact, it is often what determines the victory or the defeat of whole revolutionary struggles. This is why the ruling classes have always shrouded their bodies of armed force in whatever mystical, religious, or democratic garbs they can. This week, we have a presentation by Ylva Vinberg, a founding member of the Revolutionary Communist Party in Sweden, on the marxist understanding of the state and our approach to state power in revolutionary struggles. Join us: marxist.ca/join Subscribe: marxist.ca/subscribe Bookstore: marxist.ca/store

Welcome the the very first episode of the Revolutionary Communist Podcast! This week, we're listening to a presentation by Rob Sewell, co-author of "In Defence of Lenin", on history's greatest revolutionary leader.

If you want to learn how you can fight against capitalism and for communism where you are, then reach out to us! We can provide you with all the tools you need to build the party wherever you are!

In Defence of Lenin: store.marxist.ca/products/in-defence-of-lenin

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In the coming weeks, we will be totally revamping this podcast, in tandem with the launch of our new monthly newspaper: Communist Revolution.

You can subscribe to the newspaper here: https://www.marxist.ca/subscribe

And, join us February 17-18 for the biggest Marxist event of the year -- the Montreal Winter School.

You can find the link to register here: https://www.marxist.ca/school

The state is ultimately the organ of domination of the exploiting class over the exploited classes, but beyond this "ABC" of Marxism, there are sometimes extraordinary moments when the state acquires greater independence from the classes and seems to rise above society. It then becomes the "reign of the sword", a military-police dictatorship, as with Napoleon Bonaparte, Hitler, Stalin and Putin. Fightback activist Hélène Bissonnette gives this presentation on "What is Bonapartism?".

In light of Israel's ongoing ethnic cleansing of Gaza, Joel and Julien talk about the complicity of Canadian imperialism, and what we can do in Canada to fight back.

Millions of people around the world have been horrified by Israel's brutal bombing of Gaza. Communists stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and their struggle for liberation. In this talk, Fightback activist Joel Bergman discusses what we can do to fight imperialism, end the war on Gaza, and free Palestine.

Fightback activist Renu Brar discusses Marx's labour theory of value, and its explaination for how workers are exploited.

This week, Joel is joined by Fightback editor Laine to discuss the outcome of the Alberta election. Why did Danielle Smith and the UCP hold on to power? What can we learn from the election? And what can the working class do about it?

75 years since the founding of Israel and "al-Nakba" (the catastrophe) Palestinians living in Gaza are again facing bombardments by the Israeli state. Today the plight of the Palestinian people is deeper than ever before, with their brutal oppression approved and sanctioned by the western imperialist powers. It is absolutely imperative as socialists and revolutionaries that we understand the history of this struggle and have a clear perspective of what is the way forward for Palestinian liberation.

This week Joel is joined by editor of La Riposte socialiste, Julien Arseneau, to bring a Marxist analysis to the largest PSAC strike in 30 years. What are the demands the workers are fighting for? What is the significance of the strike for the Canadian class struggle? And how do the workers win?

The assassination of Trotsky in August 1940 dealt a devastating blow to the young and untested forces of the Fourth International. Unfortunately, the leaders of the Fourth were not up to the level of the tasks posed by history. Deprived of Trotsky's leadership they made a series of fundamental mistakes. Only the leadership of the RCP in Britain was able to readjust to the new situation on a world scale after 1945. This was the result of the theoretical capabilities of Ted Grant. His writings on economics, war, the colonial revolution, and particularly Stalinism, were, and still remain, classics of modern Marxism.
In this talk from the 2023 Montreal Marxist Winter School, In Defence of Marxism editor Fred Weston discusses the Ted Grant and the Fourth International

In the 1950s the Indonesian economy was failing, with the division between rich and poor increasing sharply. At the same time the PKI, the Communist Party of Indonesia, grew to the third largest Communist Party in the world, with three million paid members and the support of ten million trade unionists and organized peasants. Sadly this explosive combination ended in the massacre of 1 million communists in 1965. Indonesia is a graphic example of how mistakes in theory have dire consequences.

In this talk from the 2023 Montreal Marxist Winter School, IMT activist Mike Leiden discusses the lessons of the Indonesian Revolution.

This week, Joel is joined by International Marxist Tendency activist Ted Sprague to talk about so-called "Chinese interference" in Canadian election, actual CSIS interference in Canadian politics, and growing imperialist rivalry between China and western capitalist powers.

The American Revolution was a dialectically complex, and profound political and social revolution, which rooted out most of the remaining traces of monarchic rule and feudalism inherited from the only partially complete English bourgeois revolution. Unfortunately, the Revolution has been reduced to a summer barbecue on the 4th of July that completely ignores the real class roots of this world-shaking event.

In this talk, Fightback activist Kian provides a Marxist analysis, to understand the inner contradictions, the fundamental forces, processes, and class struggles that motivated and drove the revolution. 

The history of Bolshevism has many vital lessons for today’s revolutionaries – particularly regarding the origins of the revolutionary party that led the masses to victory in Russia. At the second congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1903, the famous split between the majority (Bolsheviks) and minority (Mensheviks) took place. Many myths and distortion surround this split. It is often wrongly alleged the Mensheviks stood for a ‘democratic’ and ‘decentralized’ party, in opposition to Lenin’s ‘ultra-centralist’ and ‘authoritarian’ tendencies. In reality, this split on organizational questions was an anticipation of future political differences, which will lead the Mensheviks to betray the revolution.

This talk was given by Fightback editor Alex Grant at the 2023 Montreal Marxist Winter School. 

At the 2022 NYC Marxist School, Alex Grant of Fightback provided a brief history and background on the USSR, what it achieved, why it was hated by the capitalist world, and looked at the difference between genuine Bolshevism and Stalinism.

The Oka crisis is one of the most significant episodes in modern Canadian history. For months, all eyes in the country were pulled to a small Quebec town where a group of Indigenous activists lead an armed blockade against a golf course expansion that threatened ancestral lands. This standoff sparked a wave of protest across Canada and left behind a spirit of militancy that the Indigenous movement continues to draw from today. In this talk from summer 2022, comrade Marcus discusses the lessons of the Oka crisis.

For the first time, Canadian workers have forced the repeal of back-to-work legislation. The inspiring struggle of the 55,000 Ontario education workers has achieved an important partial victory, and sets a precedent for workers across Canada. When workers unite and fight, they win!

In this talk, Fightback editor Alex Grant discusses the historic outcome of this struggle and the way forward.

On November 5, in the midst of a rising strike movement of education workers, Fightback met to discuss the perspective for the class struggle in Canada. In this talk Joel Bergman explains how we got here and where the crisis of capitalism is leading.

In an attack on the entire labour movement, the Ontario government has tabled back-to-work legislation against Ontario workers before the strike has even started, and is using the notwithstanding clause to push through this unconstitutional attack.

This week, Joel is joined by custodian and organizer with the CUPE 4400 Rank-and-File Group, Hermes Azam, to talk about what needs to happen for the labour movement to fight back against this attack. 

This week, Joel is joined by Adam Booth from Socialist Appeal to talk about the fall of Liz Truss, the death of the queen, and class struggle in the U.K. 

This week, Joel and Alex discuss the Communist Manifesto, and the ways in which it continues to be incredibly relevant to the modern world. 

The movement against the Iranian regime has escalated on the streets spreading to more than 140 cities, towns and villages across Iran. What started as a protest against the killing of a young Kurdish woman, has turned into a powerful revolutionary movement of the youth against the entire regime. In this episode, Fightback activist Maral N. discusses what has led up to the current movement, and where it needs to go in order to win.

This week, Joel is joined by Hamid Alizadeh, editor of marxist.com, to talk about the mass protests in Iran, what's necessary for it to win, and what we can learn from the movement in Canada

We are living in a time of crisis on all fronts—war, poverty, oppression, political instability and economic collapse have all compounded to create a living nightmare for workers and youth. However, these are not unconnected events, but all different expressions of a single crisis: the crisis of capitalism.

This is the system that crushes the working class on a daily basis, and is particularly bad for the youth. Many young people have rightly concluded that capitalism has robbed them of their future. So, what is to be done?

In this talk, Fightback organizer Joel Bergman discusses the crisis of capitalism and how we can organize a revolutionary leadership to to lead the way to a socialist future.

Across Canada there is a marked increase in strike votes and strike activity among unionized workers, from public service workers in British Columbia to education workers in Ontario. Unionization drives for unorganized workers is picking up in Starbucks, Amazon and other workplaces. All of this is a response to rising inflation and the higher cost of living. As big corporations and their friends in government put the cost of their own crisis on the backs of workers, workers are instinctively beginning to fight back.

In this talk, Alex Grant speaks on the need to strike against inflation.

War, poverty, climate change, hunger, disease, the concentration of power, wealth, and influence in the hands of a few. These, and countless more nightmares have plagued the world for over 100 years, making life miserable for the vast majority of the globe. Lenin proposed in his work, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, that these phenomena are not a bug or mistake of capitalism, but rather the logical progression under a system based on the relentless and unending pursuit of capital. 

In this talk from the Western Canadian Marxist Summer School 2022, Fightback activist Larissa discusses exactly how the imperialist powers make life a living hell for the rest of us, and what we can do to fight back.

This week, Joel is joined by Daniel Morley, writer for In Defence of Marxism, to discuss U.S. and Chinese saber rattling over Taiwan.

The world economy is wracked with turbulence, buffeted by a perfect storm of war, pandemic, and protectionism. A toxic combination of inflation and recession looms for capitalism. This is a finished recipe for revolutionary explosions everywhere.

In this episode, Fightback editor Alex Grant discusses what causes capitalist crises and how we can change society through socialist revolution.

In this talk from the Western Canadian Marxist Summer School 2022, Fightback editor Alex Grant discusses imperialism, pacifism, and the Marxist analysis of war. 

This week, Joel is joined by Adam Booth, editor of Socialist Appeal in the UK, to discuss the crisis in Britain and what Marxists can learn from it. 

This week, Joel is joined by Koral to discuss the ongoing struggle for LGBTQ liberation, and why Marxism is the best tool to end oppression.

In this leadoff from Fightback's 2022 congress, In Defence of Marxism editor Fred Weston discusses the global situation and perspectives for class struggle

This week, Joel is joined by Laine to talk about the Liberal's Bill C-21 to restrict handguns, and what the socialist approach is to gun control. 

In this talk, given at Fightback's 2022 National Congress, Fightback editor Alex Grant discusses the perspectives for class struggle in Canada and the role of the Marxists.