This special session features dialogue between our 2025 NPC candidates. Take a listen to see what we're looking forward to, what we've learned from our time on the NPC already, and what Red Star is bringing to the NPC in 2025.
This is a reading of Marta Harnecker's "Ideas for the Struggle", read by Red Star member Megan Romer.
Red Star member Zoe interviews outgoing NPC members Jenbo and Jen M along with Red Star NPC candidates Megan R and John L about the past two NPC terms, what they've learned and what they've accomplished, and what our hopes are for the upcoming DSA convention and NPC term.
Red Star member Matt interviews EWOC volunteer and Communist Caucus member Matthew about EWOC, local EWOC, and different approaches to labor organizing in DSA.
00:00 - LeftRoots, "Protagonism, Socialist Leadership, and Socialist Organizing"
49:12 - Harnecker, "Ideas for the Struggle: Convince, Not Impose"
53:50 - Michael Lebowitz, "Protagonism and Productivity"
An audio recording for the 6/21 RED START reading hosted by @hanginoutonline Sam Heft-Luthy.
Timestamps:
0:28 - "Dialectical Materialism" from Constructive Criticism
12:30 - Afterword to the Second German Edition of Capital — by Karl Marx
20:15 - Fragments on Dialectics - from "Dialectics of Nature" by Frederick Engels
41:43 - The Principal Contradiction and the Principal Aspects of a Contradiction — From “On Contradiction” by Mao Zedong
This is a book reading of excerpts from Marta Harnecker's "Rebuilding the Left."
An edited live recording of comrade Michael's Red Start session on the second half of Lenin's "Imperialism: Highest Stage of Capitalism" (recorded September 7, 2022). In this session, comrade Michael explains Venture Capitalism from a socialist perspective and extends Lenin's theory to more modern economic developments.
An edited live recording of comrade Joseph's Red Start session on the first half of Lenin's "Imperialism: Highest Stage of Capitalism" (recorded August 31, 2022).
An edited live recording of comrade Greg's Red Start session on George Jackson's "Blood In My Eye" (recorded August, 2022).
An edited live recording of our 7/2022 Red Start session on "Organizing Methods in the Steel Industry" by William Z. Foster.
00:00:03 Introduction
00:24:07 The Accumulation of Labor and the Degradation of Women-Introduction
00:31:48 Capitalist Accumulation and the Accumulation of Labor in Europe
00:40:05 Land Privatisation in Europe, the Production of Scarcity, and the Separation of Production from Reproduction
00:44:13 Population Decline, Economic Crisis, and the Disciplining of Women
01:42:49 The Devaluation of Women's Labor
01:12:18 Women: The New Commons and the Substitute for the Lost Land
01:14:27 The Patriarchy of the Wage
01:23:06 Capitalism and the Sexual Division of Labor
R. Palme Dutt was born in the U.K. in 1896, and came of age during the lead up to World War I. He was a conscientious objector, and after the war ended, he joined the newly-formed Communist Party of Great Britain. He was a strong supporter of the Soviet Union, and was an important figure in the Comintern, where he eventually rose to leadership of the CPGB and also served as an advisor to the Communist Party of India.
In Fascism and Social Revolution Dutt places the emergence of fascism in Europe in the context of the capitalist liberal democracies that spawned it, and carefully lays out the conditions of its emergence and the functions it performs. Drawing on Leninist ideas about Imperialism, Dutt sees fascism as another step in Capitalism’s degeneration. Writing well before the Second World War and the atrocities that carved the word Fascism into history, Dutt’s analysis is prophetic, both for his time and our own.
This recording covers Part 1 of the reading for the Red Start discussion.
TIMESTAMPS
(00:03) Introduction
(11:26) Chapter 1 Summary
(12:23) Chapter 1
(13:41) Chapter 2 Summary
(14:27) Chapter 3
(17:22) Chapter 3 Summary
(18:27) Chapter 3, Section 3
(21:39) Chapter 3, Section 3 Summary
(24:50) Chapter 3, Section 4
(29:58) Chapter 3, Section 4 Summary
(32:30) Chapter 3, Section 5
(45:14) Chapter 3, Section 6
(53:22) Chapter 4
(56:55) Chapter 4, Section 1
(58:45) Chapter 4, Section 1 Summary
(1:03:45) Chapter 4, Section 2
(1:10:25) Chapter 4, Section 3
(1:21:22) Chapter 4, Section 4
This is an unabridged audiobook-style reading of William Z. Foster's 1936 pamphlet 'Organizing Methods in the Steel Industry,' the first known how-to guide for organizers. In the years following the violently-busted 1919 steel strike, of which Foster had been a lead organizer, steel organizing in the USA had ground to a halt. After the signing of the National Labor Relations Act by President Roosevelt, a new generation of organizers were ready to give it another go and Foster shared what he had learned through the previous failed drive, carefully politicizing the courses of action that would be required in order to achieve union militancy.
Reading by Megan
Listen to this recording of our discussion of "Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised In Brief," a summarized version of the parliamentary rules most DSA chapters operate under.
After a brief hiatus, Red Start is back on! We'll aim to host a session about once a month. Stay tuned for updates at https://twitter.com/redstarsf
Listen to this recording of an introduction to "Dialectical and Historical Materialism" by Joseph Stalin, as well as a Q&A that touches on DSA's national platform, the difference between Marxism and anarchism, and whether things do, in fact, exist.
The LAST Red Start Session (at least for this phase). Plus a nice discussion on "the party" and the state of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Register for next time at https://bit.ly/redstartreg
NOTE: When Sam says that one of the priorities resolutions is to give everyone a dog, this is a JOKE because on the zoom screen, several participants had dogs. There are only four priorities resolutions going up for chapter consideration, and the chapter remains neutral on the position of cats vs. dogs.
Register for future sessions at https://bit.ly/redstartreg
Register for future sessions at https://bit.ly/redstartreg