On the anniversary of the Paris Commune of 1871, we invited Professor Ken Hammond to reflect on its significance to the history of the workers’ movement, how it changed Marx and Engels’s thinking, what legacy it has left for struggles for socialism, what it tells us about the nature of the state and the potential for revolutionising it and what its relevance is for the left and revolutionary movements today the world over.
Hammond was joined by discussants Keith Bennett and Carlos Garrido, along with moderator Radhika Desai.
The panel took place on Sunday 19 March 2023. You can watch the entire discussion here.
This webinar was co-sponsored by Midwestern Marx. The Midwestern Marx Institute is a Marxist educational project centered in the U.S. It is the host of the Midwestern Marx Publishing Press and of the Journal of American Socialist Studies. Through broad means such as short videos, long interviews, articles, and books, the Midwestern Marx Institute provides theoretical, historical, and political education on national and international topics from a Marxist and anti-imperialist perspective.
Featured Speaker
Ken Hammond is Professor of East Asian and Global History, New Mexico State University, USA, and a member of Pivot to Peace and the Party for Socialism and Liberation. You can watch his presentation here.
Discussants
Keith Bennett is an active member of the International Manifesto Group and a consultant specialising in Chinese and Korean affairs. He has been a close observer and student of socialist development in Asia for half a century and is currently a Co-Editor of Friends of Socialist China and the Deputy Chair of the Kim Il Sung Kim Jong Il Foundation (KKF). You can watch his presentation here.
Carlos L. Garrido is a Cuban American PhD student and instructor in philosophy at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale (with an MA in philosophy from the same institution). He is an editor at the Midwestern Marx Institute and the Journal of American Socialist Studies. Carlos is the author of the forthcoming book, The Purity Fetish and the Crisis of Western Marxism (2023) and edited and introduced Marxism and the Dialectical Materialist Worldview: An Anthology of Classical Marxist Texts on Dialectical Materialism (2022). His popular and scholarly writings are usually on topics relating to Marxist theory, U.S. socialist history, and global struggles against imperialism. You can watch his presentation here.
Moderator – Radhika Desai is a Professor at the Department of Political Studies, and Director, Geopolitical Economy Research Group, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada. She is the author of Capitalism, Coronavirus and War: A Geopolitical Economy (2023), Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire (2013), Slouching Towards Ayodhya: From Congress to Hindutva in Indian Politics (2nd rev ed, 2004) and Intellectuals and Socialism: ‘Social Democrats’ and the Labour Party (1994), a New Statesman and Society Book of the Month, and editor or co-editor of Russia, Ukraine and Contemporary Imperialism, a special issue of International Critical Thought (2016), Theoretical Engagements in Geopolitical Economy (2015), Analytical Gains from Geopolitical Economy (2015), Revitalizing Marxist Theory for Today’s Capitalism (2010) and Developmental and Cultural Nationalisms (2009). You can watch her presentation here.
This article was updated on March 19, 2023 to include links to video clips.
