/168/ Corona, Climate, Communism ft. Andreas Malm

On the 'war communism' solution

As we enter the second year of the Covid-19 pandemic and its attendant turmoil, suffering and lockdown, inevitably the search for systemic causes and systemic responses grows more intense. Swedish ecologist and social theorist Andreas Malm joins us to discuss one possible response - a crisis communism modelled on the War Communism of early Soviet rule, as discussed in his new book ‘Corona, Climate Chronic Emergency: War Communism in the Twenty First Century.’ We discuss the nature of our contemporary crises, and how far the left needs its own distinctive form of emergency politics.

Readings:

• “To Halt Climate Change, We Need an Ecological Leninism”, Jacobin interview with Andreas Malm
• Corona, Climate, Chronic Emergency: War Communism in the Twenty-First Century, Andreas Malm, Verso
• Nature Defends Itself, Dayton Martindale, Boston Review