"In moments of greatest difficulty and danger, when many stronger comrades lost heart and succumbed to doubt, Nadezhda Krupskaya remained always the same, totally convinced of the rightness of the cause and of its certain victory. She radiated unshakable faith, and this staunchness of spirit, concealed behind a rare modesty, always had a cheering effect upon all who came into contact with the companion of the great leader of the October Revolution."

In this episode we discuss 'How Lenin Studied Marx' by Nadezhda Kruspkaya. In this vital work Krupskaya uses her unique insight into Lenin's life to illustrate how he 'consulted' Marx as well as his method and the true depth of his understanding of the great thinker. Often dismissed merely as 'the wife of Lenin', Krupskaya shows here her profound understanding of Marxism and we talk about why she was such an important figure in the development of the USSR.

This episode is part of our series on Marxist feminists. As Mao and Thomas Sankara said, “Women hold up the other half of the sky.”  Red Book Club recognizes that including the voices of nonmen in our studies is not a niche activity, but is in fact an essential step in gaining  the most comprehensive view of the material conditions of the past  and present as we possibly can; so we’ve planned this series to amplify the ideas that nonmen have been bringing to the conversation for  centuries. From Federici’s analysis of women as a means of primitive accumulation to Luxemburg’s essay of the benefits of revolution vs the impossibility of reform, each of these works confronts history and the movement for social change through the lens of the experiences of nonmen in society. Follow us on Twitter at @RBCpod and feel free to message us if you need links to companion resources or have any questions. 

 You can also find us on our new site at www.rbcpod.wordpress.com  where you can find ebook copies of the works that we're covering and more.

 If you'd like to join the book club, you can join our podcast's discord  server Red Book Club: https://www.patreon.com/redbookclub  including  access to our Red Book Club server and more. 

Thanks to @NunezKeenan for the  intro theme; you can find more of their  work here:  http://tiny.cc/keenan  

Thanks to the Craig bot for helping us to record  via Discord!  

 Outro music: Надежда - Анна Герман - [Nadezhda - Anna German]