Marx Engels Institute

Following the events in Georgia last week I spoke RT correspondent (and host of the Revolution Report) Donald Courter.  He has been reporting from Tbilisi during the riots that were triggered by the governments attempt to pass a law regulating foreign controlled NGOs.

We talk about the actual forces in play in Georgia, the long shadow of the 2008 war, former President Saakashvili and the turning of the country into a free market laboratory and the effects of this.

Be sure to check out The Revolution Report which has a lot of coverage of the post Soviet world on it.

Outro Music is The Anthem of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic

In light of the recent developments in Georgia the subject of, so called, color revolutions is being widely discussed again.  In this episode I look at the origins of the color revolution strategy in places like Yugoslavia.  I then turn to look at the development of this tactic by US imperialism through the 1990s and how this tactic is able to exploit the weaknesses of the post-soviet states.  The failure of these attempts in Cuba, Iran, Venezuela and Nicaragua is also examined and how their relationship with the masses helps them to defeat this tactic.  

Episode image is taken from the demonstrations against Milosevic in 2000, one of the first successful color revolutions

Outro music is "Glory To The Party" a song of the Georgian Communist Party from the Soviet period. 

In this follow up episode on Scottish nationalism we examine some of the reasons why the British left has come to support this particular cause.  The reasons range from the ridiculous notion that Scotland is somehow more "progressive" than southern England to the equally ridiculous opportunist reasononing of the Trotskyites.  Many of the reasons are more about sounding "left" than they are about actually challenging British imperialism.  

Outro music is "Where Is Out James Connolly' performed by Andr Irvine

Christian Parenti joins me for this episode to talk about his two recent articles Trump Against Empire & Will The Left Stand Up To The Deepstate

We had a wide ranging discussion covering how Trumps blundering and crude understanding of American capitalism led to him inadvertantly disrupting certain aspects of the US imperial management system.

We also cover the vast expansion in the powers of the security state in the USA and how the brings into question how much of the American system can be said to be a "managed democracy".

Outro Music is 'The Revolutionary Alphabet' a song from the early period of the American Revolution

In the first part of our analysis of President Putins speech to the Russian Federal Assembly we examine the part of the speech dealing with the Ukraine war and special military operation.  This leads into a discussion of the class war that has been waged upon the Ukrainian working class by the oligarchy and why they turned to a coup when they couldn't get the EU agreement through in 2014.  We then turn to look at old man Bidens ramblings in Poland and his farewell to Zelensky in Kiev. 

Outro music is The International sung in Ukrainian 

Reporter for the Grayzone and Mint Press News, Kit Klarenberg returns to the programme today.  We talk about the potential British involvement with the Nord Stream pipeline bombings and the Seymour Hersh story neglecting that angle.  We then discuss the stitch up job that was done on the Cambridge Analytica scandal.  The episode concludes with a discussion of the German "coup" plot and it's mysterious disappearance from the headlines.

The sound quality on this episode is variable due to a poor connection whilst recording.

Be sure to check out Kit's substack

In this special episode I look at the recent resignation of Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.  What does this tell us about the state of the SNP? Could they have won a 2nd independence referendum? Why is the Scottish left so bought into the idea of independence?  All these questions and more will be addressed in this episode.  Due to the lenght of the episode there will be a second part of this released next week looking why petit-bourgeois nationalism has grown in Britain since the 1970's.

Outro Music is "Workers Song" by Dick Gaughan

As the Russian forces continue to encircle Artymovsk/Bakhmut and the Zelensky regime starts dragooning the blind and disabled into the Ukrainian army we look at what the Nato gang might be trying to achieve.  

We then turn to the most recent revelations from former Israeli PM Naftali Bennett regarding who made sure that the peace talks in March of last year did not succeed. 

Be sure to check out the latest on the Marx-Engels Institute site

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Episode Artwork is 'After Shift' by the Soviet Russian Artist Nikolai Ponomarev