“The challenge of modernity is to live without illusions and without becoming disillusioned.
I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will.”
-- Antonio Gramsci
The old forms of the Left are moribund and the new forms are stupid. We're making a podcast that discusses the need to organize a Dialectical Pessimism and develop a salvage project capable of sparking a new workers' movement for socialism.
A clean, honest, and unsentimental melancholy is required; we are cultivating one and would like to share it with you.
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Episodes
Monday Nov 04, 2024
Monday Nov 04, 2024
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.
Sunday Nov 03, 2024
Sunday Nov 03, 2024
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
Wednesday Oct 30, 2024
Wednesday Oct 30, 2024
First of all, if you are listening to a version with bad audio, don't worry, I reuploaded a version with good audio and you can probably just refresh your podcasting app to get the newer version.
This is 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.
Friday Oct 25, 2024
Friday Oct 25, 2024
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.
Monday Oct 21, 2024
Monday Oct 21, 2024
This week it's just the Regrettable brothers and we are talking about "leftism" and whether the category of "left" still holds any meaning.
Wednesday Oct 09, 2024
Wednesday Oct 09, 2024
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
Monday Sep 30, 2024
Monday Sep 30, 2024
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 ha
Wednesday Sep 25, 2024
Wednesday Sep 25, 2024
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
Wednesday Sep 18, 2024
Wednesday Sep 18, 2024
Come listen to the boys discuss Hegel's enduring importance to the contemporary world.
Hegel Is Still an Important Thinker for the Left
https://jacobin.com/2023/11/hegel-political-philosophy-world-revolutions-book-review
Hegel in the Era of “Wokeness”
https://jacobin.com/2023/12/hegel-wokeness-world-spirit-political-theory-history-philosophy-richard-bourke
Reading Hegel on Bastille Day
https://jacobin.com/2016/07/hegel-bastille-day-burke-french-revolution
The dialectic in the service of revolution (up to/until the Marx section…)
https://links.org.au/dialectic-service-revolution
Thursday Sep 12, 2024
Thursday Sep 12, 2024
We soldier on through this excellent but little known work on the national question. This week we FINALLY finish Chapter 1.