There are many traditions or tendencies among the left. In fact, sometimes just trying to wrap our heads around all of the rich theoretical frameworks and various anti-capitalist thinkers can be dizzying. But it's also exciting — the richness of leftist history and theory is vital to learn and to build our work from.

In this episode we’ve brought on someone who knows a thing or two about leftist theory — in fact, he's got multiple podcasts that go into depth on historical figures, theory, and philosophy from a post-capitalist perspective. 

Breht O’Shea is the host of Revolutionary Left Radio, Red Menace, and Guerrilla History. He’s also an activist and organizer based out of Omaha, Nebraska. 

Although his breadth of knowledge spans an incredibly wide range, we brought Breht on today to focus on the Leninist tradition. We’ll explore the fundamentals of Marxism–Leninism, as well as the related theoretical framework of Maoism. We talk about the importance of theory in informing our organizing, why it's important to learn about both the good and bad parts of historical figures and revolutionary movements – even when it comes to figures as controversial as Mao or Stalin. We also have a conversation about fascism in the United States, where we can go from here, and why it's important to center love and humanity in all we do.

Thank you to Parsley Sound for the intermission music. 
Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond.

Support for this episode was provided by the Guerrilla Foundation, Resist Foundation, and by listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support

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In Conversation

Revolutionary Leftism with Breht O'Shea (In Conversation)

NOTE: We are no longer uploading new episodes here. You can find new episodes of Upstream at our website or on most podcast apps (Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, etc.)
Upstream is a quarterly documentary and bi-weekly conversation series that invites you to unlearn everything you thought you knew about economics. Blurring the line between economic analysis and storytelling, we look beyond the numbers to explore a wide variety of themes pertaining to our tumultuous 21st century economy.