Reimagining Soviet Georgia

During the 1950s and 1960s, the Soviet Union began a new era of political engagement with the global south. One feature was development assistance. The Soviet Union embodied, offered and inspired an alternative approach to development, industrialization and modernization across the global south. Countries such as Ghana, Guinea and Mali in the 1950s-60s were governed by nationalists, not Marxists or Communists, and were newly independent from European imperial-colonial control.Soviet specialists assessed the difficult conditions of these post-colonial countries as opening a path for “non-capitalist” development: state led modernization. As opposed to a Western promoted primacy of markets and individuals, “non-capitalist” development would ensure sovereignty and economic growth by shielding against French or British neo-colonial exploitation, improving living standards, empowering the state and strengthening political ties with the socialist world.To discuss all this and more, we welcome historian Alessandro Iandolo, author of the book Arrested Development: The Soviet Union in Ghana, Guinea and Mali 1955-1968Book description:In Arrested Development, Alessandro Iandolo examines the USSR’s role in West Africa during the 1950s and 1960s as an aid donor, trade partner, and political model for newly independent Ghana, Guinea, and Mali.With a strong economy in the 1950s, the USSR expanded its global outreach, supporting economic development in post-colonial Africa and Asia. Many nations saw the Soviet model as a path to political and economic independence. Drawing on extensive Russian and West African archival research, Iandolo explores Soviet ideas, sponsored projects, and their lasting impact.Soviet specialists worked alongside West African colleagues to design ambitious development plans, build infrastructure, establish collective farms, survey mineral resources, and manage banking and trade. These collaborations—and the tensions they created—shed light on how Soviet and West African visions of development intersected. Arrested Development positions the USSR as a key player in twentieth-century economic history, reshaping global approaches to modernization.Alessandro Iandolo is Lecturer in Soviet and Post-Soviet History at University College London.The episode art is a 1960 poster from the Georgian SSR by Giorgi Pirtskhalava that reads: კოლონიზატორებო გაეთრიეთ! - Colonizers, get out!

We sit down with Adela Hîncu, historian and editor of the volume Texts and Contexts from the History of Feminism and Women’s Rights East Central Europe, Second Half of the Twentieth Century (2024) to discuss feminist thought in post World War 2 socialist East Central Europe.Book description:A compendium of one hundred sources, preceded by a short author’s bio and an introduction, this volume offers an English language selection of the most representative texts on feminism and women’s rights from East Central Europe between the end of the Second World War and the early 1990s. While communist era is the primary focus, the interwar years and the post-1989 transition period also receive attention. All texts are new translations from the original.The book is organised around themes instead of countries; the similarities and differences between nations are nevertheless pointed out. The editors consider women not only in their local context, but also in conjunction with other systems of thought—including shared agendas with socialism, liberalism, nationalism, and even eugenics.The choice of texts seeks to demonstrate how feminism as political thought was shaped and organised in the region. They vary in type and format from political treatises, philosophy to literary works, even films and the visual arts, with the necessary inclusion of the personal and the private. Women’s political rights, right to education, their role in nation-building, women, and war (and especially women and peace) are part of the anthology, alongside the gendered division of labour, violence against women, the body, and reproduction.https://www.aup.nl/en/book/9789633864548/texts-and-contexts-from-the-history-of-feminism-and-womens-rightsopen access pdf: https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/98220/9789633864548.pdfAdela Hîncu is an intellectual historian who focuses on the history of social sciences, Marxist social theory, and women’s political thought in Romania and East Central Europe after the Second World War. Currently a Marie Curie fellow at the Institute of Contemporary History in Ljubljana, she researches the transnational history of social expertize from Eastern Europe from the 1970s to the early 2000s.

What is the relationship between "human rights" and neoliberalism? How deeply are contemporary ideas, ideals, and visions of "human rights" influenced by neoliberalism? What can early theorists and ideologues of neoliberalism tell us about Cold War and post-Cold War uses of human rights discourse in international organizations and governance? And what are the implications of it all for a country like Georgia which experienced radical neoliberal reforms and state-economy building in the post-Soviet period? On today's episode we sit down with Jessica Whyte to discuss her 2019 book, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights and the Rise of Neoliberalism. Book description here:Drawing on detailed archival research on the parallel histories of human rights and neoliberalism, Jessica Whyte uncovers the place of human rights in neoliberal attempts to develop a moral framework for a market society. In the wake of the Second World War, neoliberals saw demands for new rights to social welfare and self-determination as threats to “civilisation”. Yet, rather than rejecting rights, they developed a distinctive account of human rights as tools to depoliticise civil society, protect private investments and shape liberal subjects.https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/500-the-morals-of-the-marketJessica Whyte is a Scientia Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of New South Wales, Australia, with a cross-appointment in the Faculty of Law. https://www.unsw.edu.au/staff/jessica-whyte

On today's episode we explore the ins and outs of the 1936 Soviet Constitution - also known as the "Stalin Constitution" - how it was written, what it guaranteed, what led to its drafting, how it affected life in the USSR as well as the social, political and economic contexts surrounding its drafting. We pay particular attention to how the tensions between central authority in Moscow, regional actors and popular sovereignty created a unique context for the practice and development of Soviet democracy, federalism and constitutionalism, complicating black and white narratives of Soviet political centralization. Our guest is Samantha Lomb - author of Stalin’s ConstitutionSoviet Participatory Politics and the Discussion of the 1936 Draft Constitution - here is a description of the book:"Upon its adoption in December 1936, Soviet leaders hailed the new so-called Stalin Constitution as the most democratic in the world. Scholars have long scoffed at this claim, noting that the mass repression of 1937–1938 that followed rendered it a hollow document. This study does not address these competing claims, but rather focuses on the six-month long popular discussion of the draft Constitution, which preceded its formal adoption in December 1936. Drawing on rich archival sources, this book uses the discussion of the draft 1936 Constitution to examine discourse between the central state leadership and citizens about the new Soviet social contract, which delineated the roles the state and citizens should play in developing socialism. For the central leadership, mobilizing its citizenry in a variety of state building campaigns was the main goal of the discussion of the draft Constitution. However, the goals of the central leadership at times stood in stark contrast with the people’s expressed interpretation of that social contract. Citizens of the USSR focused on securing rights and privileges, often related to improving their daily lives, from the central government."Dr. Lomb works at Vyatka State University in Kirov, Russia. She received her PhD in history from the University of Pittsburgh in 2014. Her first book, Stalin’s Constitution: Soviet Participatory Politics and the Discussion of the 1936 Draft Constitution, was published in 2017. Currently she is working on a book manuscript about collective farm life in the 1930s and a research project on repression. On the topic of collectivization, she has published an article "Moscow is Far Away: Peasant Communal Traditions in the Expulsion of Collective Farm Members in the Vyatka–Kirov Region 1932–1939" in Europe Asia Studies in 2022 and a book chapter called “Nashi/ne Nashi, Individual Smallholders, Social Control, and the State in Ziuzdinskii District, Kirov Region, 1932–9” in Social Control under Stalin and Khrushchev: The Phantom of a Well-Ordered State, edited by Immo Rebitschek and Aaron B. Retish (University of Toronto Press: August 2023). She was also the editor of Win or Else: Soviet Football in Moscow and Beyond, 1921–1985, written by Larry Holmes, published in 2024.

On today's episode we examine how broader shifts in the global order, globalization and geopolitical trends since the end of the Cold War led to the current European security crisis and political context for the Russo-Ukraine War. We also explore how this context shapes Georgia's geopolitical and security environment, and is sowing the seeds for more open discussions about what geopolitical neutrality and explicit multi-vectorism could mean for Georgia. With guest co-host Beka Natsvlishvili, we welcome Richard Sakwa on to Reimagining Soviet Georgia. Richard Sakwa is Emeritus Professor of Politics at the University of Kent, U.K. His research interests include: political developments in Russia, international politics and the Second Cold War, multipolarity and global realignments, prospects for socialism, problems of European and global order, the English School and international systems. A description of Sakwa's recent book The Lost Peace: How the West Failed to Prevent a Second Cold War (2023, Yale University Press) below:The end of the Cold War was an opportunity—our inability to seize it has led to today’s renewed era of great power competition The year 1989 heralded a unique prospect for an enduring global peace as harsh ideological divisions and conflicts began to be resolved. Now, three decades on, that peace has been lost. With war in Ukraine and increasing tensions between China, Russia, and the West, great power politics once again dominates the world stage. But could it have been different? Richard Sakwa shows how the years before the first mass invasion of Ukraine represented a hiatus in conflict rather than a lasting accord—and how, since then, we have been in a “Second Cold War.” Tracing the mistakes on both sides that led to the current crisis, Sakwa considers the resurgence of China and Russia and the disruptions and ambitions of the liberal order that opened up catastrophic new lines of conflict. This is a vital, strongly argued account of how the world lost its chance at peace, and instead saw the return of war in Europe, global rivalries, and nuclear brinksmanship.

On today's episode we discuss the book Blue Collar Empire: The Untold Story of US Labor's Global Anticommunist Crusade with author Jeff Schuhrke. Blue-Collar Empire explores how the CIA used American unions to undermine workers at home and subvert democracy abroad through the shocking story of the AFL-CIO’s global anticommunist crusade—and its devastating consequences for workers around the world.Unions have the power not only to secure pay raises and employee benefits but to bring economies to a screeching halt and overthrow governments. Recognizing this, in the late twentieth century, the US government sought to control labor movements abroad as part of the Cold War contest for worldwide supremacy. In this work, Washington found an enthusiastic partner in the AFL-CIO’s anticommunist officials, who, in a shocking betrayal, for decades expended their energies to block revolutionary ideologies and militant class consciousness from taking hold in the workers’ movements of Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia.Jeff Schuhrke is a labor historian, journalist, union activist, and assistant professor at the Harry Van Arsdale Jr. School of Labor Studies, SUNY Empire State University in New York City. He is a frequent contributor to In These Times and Jacobin, and his scholarship has been published at Diplomatic History and Labor: Studies in Working-Class History.Episode image: President Richard Nixon gestures toward labor leader George Meany during a speech at the 1971 AFL-CIO convention. (Wally McNamee / Corbis via Getty Images)

After World War 2, during the period of developed socialism, a rich ecosystem of Marxist intellectuals and academics emerged in the Georgian SSR. Universities and scientific institutes in Tbilisi, Kutaisi, Telavi, and Batumi were home to sociologists, philosophers, anthropologists, historians and other academics who took part in Soviet wide and international discussions and debates on different aspects of Marxist theory or Marxist inspired academic research. Since the collapse of the USSR in 1991, this "lost pantheon" of Georgian Marxism has been politically undermined, intellectually marginalized and socially forgotten. But who were these Soviet Georgian Marxists? What were their ideas? What were they writing about and researching in the period of developed socialism, the late USSR? And how did Soviet Georgian Marxists fit into Soviet-wide and broader international academic networks and debates? And why is reclaiming and reengaging with Soviet Georgian Marxists important today? On today's episode we welcome Bakar Berekashvili to begin this discussion on Marxism in Soviet Georgia, what it tells us about Georgia's Soviet experience and how it relates to academia, politics and more in Georgia since 1991. In the coming weeks we will be releasing a series of shorter episodes on individual Soviet Georgian Marxists....stay tuned! Bakar Berekashvili is Professor of Political Science and Sociology at the Georgian American University in Tbilisi. He has been a Visiting Scholar at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik, at the Institute of Contemporary History in Ljubljana, at the Masaryk University in Brno and at the Spanish National Research Council in Madrid. His research and teaching interests include qualitative research, critical sociology, Marxist thought in Soviet Union, Soviet Union (life and social order), post-socialist politics and society, ruling class, problems of democracy, social & political theory, political sociology, power and ideology.