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Episode 143: The Gerry Healy Scandal and “Democratic Centralism” (interview with Aidan Beatty)
Co-hosts Andrew Kliman and Gabriel Donnelly welcome Aidan Beatty, a lecturer in the Department of History at Carnegie Mellon University, to discuss his book The Party is Always Right: The Untold Story of Gerry Healy and British Trotskyism. In the first part of the discussion, we discuss the Gerry Healy scandal and the fallout from Healy’s abuse as well as how Aidan researched the book.
The interview then moves into a more general discussion of “democratic centralism.” Aidan attributes the abusiveness of Healyism not just to Healy and his particular organization, but also to the “democratic centralist” form of organization in general. Gabriel and Andrew question this thesis, arguing that so-called decentralized movements, and “centers” and projects without a formal organizational structure, can be just as abusive and undemocratic as centralized parties.
Plus current-events segment: Epsteingate! Trump keeps hoping that the scandal will go away, but his conspiratorial followers won’t let it go.
Radio Free Humanity is co-hosted by Gabriel Donnelly and Andrew Kliman, and sponsored by
Marxist-Humanist Initiative (https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/ ). [...]
WHAT IS RADIO FREE HUMANITY?
Radio Free Humanity is a podcast covering news, politics and philosophy from a Marxist-Humanist perspective. It is hosted by Gabriel Donnelly & Andrew Kliman. We intend to release new episodes every two weeks. Radio Free Humanity is sponsored by MHI, but the views expressed by the co-hosts and guests of Radio Free Humanity are their own. They do not necessarily reflect the views and positions of MHI.
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All Episodes of Radio Free Humanity
- Episode 143: The Gerry Healy Scandal and “Democratic Centralism” (interview with Aidan Beatty) (9/27/2025)
- Episode 142: Ukraine’s Resistance to Putin’s Invasion in 2025 (9/12/2025)
- Episode 141: Rallo’s “Negative Marginal Utility” (8/15/2025)
- Episode 140: Reading Dunayevskaya’s “Form and Plan” in 2025 (Part II) (7/11/2025)
- Episode 139: The Israel-Hamas War and National Self-Determination (6/6/2025)
- Episode 138: Confronting the Paranormal Fringe (with Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling) (5/23/2025)
- Episode 137: Reading Dunayevskaya’s “Form and Plan” in 2025 (Part I) (5/10/2025)
- Episode 136: Fighting for Humanity in the Digital Space (with guest Gavin Mueller) (4/25/2025)
- Episode 135: Grossmanism and the Specter of Physical Quantities (4/11/2025)
- Episode 134: Conversation with a Concerned Austrian Communist about the Far Right (3/28/2025)
- Episode 133: Marx’s “Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte” … and the Trump Regime (3/14/2025)
- Episode 132: American Trade Unionism in the Face of Trumpism (2/28/2025)
- Episode 131: Reading Capital Belatedly: Gabriel Cracks the Spine (2/14/2025)
- Episode 130: Marx’s Conception of Socialist Society: Responses to Raekstad’s Reading (1/31/2025)
- Episode 129: Update on the Ukrainian Resistance to Putin’s Invasion (with Ralph Keller) (1/18/2025)
- Episode 128: The New Stage of Struggle Against Trumpism (Discussion of MHI Editorial) (1/3/2025)
- Episode 127: The Pro-Truth Pledge and Building a Movement for Truth (with Tim Ward) (12/13/2024)
- Episode 126: Anti-Rallo: Spanish Libertarian Tries—but Fails—to Destroy Marx’s Capital (with Carlos Ezquerra and Sebastian Hernandez) (11/29/2024)
- Episode 125: ChatRFH 2.0—Special 125th-Episode Zoom Chat! (11/17/2024)
- Episode 124: Heinrich’s Failed De(con)struction of Marx’s Falling-Rate-of-Profit-Theory (with Christos Balomenos) (10/25/2024)
- Episode 123: White Rural Rage (with Jane Michaels) (10/4/2024)
- Episode 122: New English Translation of Capital, volume 1 (interview with Paul Reitter and Paul North) (9/21/2024)
- Episode 121: The US Labor Movement: Reflections of Aaron Williams, Veteran Union Staffer and Marxist-Humanist (9/6/2024)
- Episode 120: Marx’s Conceptions of Freedom and Domination—Interview with Paul Raekstad (8/2/2024)
- Episode 119: Marx’s Falling Rate of Profit—Ralph Keller Calls Out Seth Ackerman’s “Dead Dog Treatment,” Refutes Error (7/5/2024)
- Episode 118: The Ethics of Interpretation, or “What Suresh Naidu & Jacobin Really Meant” (6/7/2024)
- Episode 117: The Politics of Marx’s Capital—Interview with William Clare Roberts (5/17/2024)
- Episode 116 Is There Life After Tankieism?: BadMouse Recants, BadMouths Stalinism (5/3/2024)
- Episode 115: Stranger than Truth—Spurious Correlations Between “Values” and “Prices” (4/19/2024)
- Episode 114: Canadian Politics: The White-Nationalist Right & Indigenous Nations (with Theresa Henry) (4/5/2024)
- Episode 113: Marx’s Critique of Darimon in the Grundrisse, Part 2 (3/22/2024)
- Episode 112: Marx’s Critique of Darimon in the Grundrisse, Part 1 (3/9/2024)
- Episode 111: Accounting for Capitalism’s Economic Crises—Interview with Rob Bryer (2/23/2024)
- Episode 110: Value and Labor Relations in Capitalism and Socialism, Part 2 (2/9/2024)
- Episode 109: Value and Labor Relations in Capitalism and Socialism, Part 1 (1/26/2024)
- Episode 108: Seth Weiss’s “IMHO Tail-ends Hamas, Abandons Marxist-Humanist Philosophy” (1/12/2024)
- Episode 107: “Witness Underground” Filmmakers on the Jehovah’s Witnesses (and other cults, religious & political) (12/31/2023)
- Episode 106: “With Friends Like These …”: Israeli Leftist Yuval Idan Responds to “Western Leftist Friends” (12/15/2023)
- Episode 105: “What can stop Trumpism?” (12/1/2023)
- Episode 104: “From Each According to Their Ability, to Each According to Their Needs”—Part 2 (11/17/2023)
- Episode 103: “From Each According to Their Ability, to Each According to Their Needs”—Part 1 (11/6/2023)
- Episode 102: Our Political-Epistemological Crisis (interview with Steven Nadler & Lawrence Shapiro) (10/21/2023)
- Episode 101: Anti-Trans Politics (interview with Ettingermentum) (10/6/2023)
- Episode 100: ChatRFH—Special 100th-Episode Zoom Chat! (9/14/2023)
- Episode 99: Right-wing Environmentalism—Interview with Peter Staudenmaier (8/18/2023)
- Episode 98: Breaking Free from the Trumpist Bubble—Interview with Jane Michaels (7/28/2023)
- Episode 97: Great Caesar’s Ghost! Jacobin Becomes Communications Strategist for Democratic Party (7/14/2023)
- Episode 96: Philosophy and the Transformation of Reality: Marx vs. Hegel and Feuerbach (6/30/2023)
- Episode 95: Trump (and Trump-Accommodationists) vs. the Rule of Law—interview with Seth Morris (6/9/2023)
- Episode 94: Dangers of Artificial Intelligence (5/26/2023)
- Episode 93: The Ongoing Crisis and Protests in Israel (interview with Avishai Green) (5/12/2023)
- Episode 92: “Wokeness” Criticized from the Left (interview with Susan Neiman) (4/28/2023)
- Episode 91: Economics of Socialism (with Nick Rogers) (4/14/2023)
- Episode 90: The Quack Attack on Americans’ Healthcare (interview with Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling) (3/31/2023)
- Episode 89: Four Open-Letter Authors Speak Truth to Historical Materialism (3/17/2023)
- Episode 88: Pseudo-Anti-Imperialism Defends the Indefensible—interview with Rohini Hensman (3/3/2023)
- Episode 87: The New Independent Union Organizing (interview with Felix Allen of Lowe’s Workers United) (2/17/2023)
- Episode 86: Deepening Revolt Against Iran’s Theocratic Regime (with Theresa Henry) (2/3/2023)
- Episode 85: Value, Price & Prattle: A Response to Lopes, Byron, and Historical Materialism (1/20/2023)
- Episode 84: Resurgent Union Organizing in the US (with Gabriel Donnelly) (1/6/2023)
- Episode 83: Causes of the Climate Crisis: Consumers and Politicians, or Capitalist Production? (12/23/2022)
- Episode 82: Ukrainian National Self-Determination: Answering Today’s “Imperialist Economism” and Campism (12/3/2022)
- Episode 81: Tankie Denialism, Holocaust Denialism – Interview with Sergey Romanov & Nicholas Terry (11/18/2022)
- Episode 80: Interview with Ukrainian Socialist Maksym Shumakov (11/4/2022)
- Episode 79: Dunayevskaya’s 1953 Letters: Transcending Vanguardism & Spontaneism (10/21/2022)
- Episode 78: The U.S. and the Holocaust (10/7/2022)
- Episode 77: Capitalist Exploitation – G. A. Cohen & Ben Burgis vs. Karl Marx (9/23/2022)
- Episode 76: “Sociological Marxism” and Capitalist Crises––Interview with Gavin Rae (9/9/2022)
- Episode 75: The “Dobbs” Decision & the Ongoing Fight for Abortion Rights (with Anne Jaclard) (8/26/2022)
- Episode 74: Marx on the Transformation of Capitalism into Communism (8/5/2022)
- Episode 73: Furedi’s Long Journey from Revolution to Reaction (interview with Ravi Bali) (7/22/2022)
- Episode 72: Chomsky’s Linguistics & Politics—Interview with David Golumbia (7/8/2022)
- Episode 71: The Cybercurrency Crash—Interview with David Golumbia (6/24/2022)
- Episode 70: The Gun Violence / White Power Connection (interview with John Stoehr) (6/10/2022)
- Episode 69: Henryk Grossman and “The End of Capitalism” (interview with Ted Reese) (5/27/2022)
- Episode 68: Chomsky on Ukraine, and the Universal Grammar of Whataboutism (with Bill Weinberg) (5/13/2022)
- Episode 67: A Metabolic Mess: On Foster & Clark’s “The Robbery of Nature” (4/29/2022)
- Episode 66: How Not to Evaluate the Relevance of “Capital” (4/15/2022)
- Episode 65: Rohini Hensman on Ukraine’s Protracted Struggle for National Liberation (3/25/2022)
- Episode 64: Ukraine Fights for National Self-Determination Against Russian Imperialism (3/13/2022)
- Episode 63: Bitcoin and Cyber-libertarianism—Interview with David Golumbia (3/4/2022)
- Episode 62: Participatory Economics (Parecon)––Interview with Michael Albert (2/18/2022)
- Episode 61: Defending Liberal Democracy: On What Grounds? (2/4/2022)
- Episode 60: The Jan. 6 Fascist Insurrectionists: Enemy of Jacobin’s Enemy (1/21/2022)
- Episode 59: Capitalism and the Ecological Crisis (1/7/2022)
- Episode 58: Preparing for Constant Struggle Against Rising Authoritarianism and Continuing Chaos (12/24/2021)
- Episode 57: Rittenhouse Goes Unpunished; Arbery’s Murderers and Charlottesville Organizers Do Not (12/10/2021)
- Episode 56: Jacobin’s “Autopsy Report”: We Could Have Told Them So (and We Did) (11/26/2021)
- Episode 55: “Both Sides” Now: What’s Happened to the Alt-Right? (11/12/2021)
- Episode 54: Dunayevskaya on the Nature of the Stalinist Russian Economy (10/29/2021)
- Episode 53: Henryk Grossmann’s Breakdown Model (10/16/2021)
- Episode 52: The TSSI in Latin America: Breaking the Blockade (9/24/2021)
- Episode 51: Marx’s Reproduction Schemes: Unbalanced Growth and Critique of Trickle-Down Economics (9/11/2021)
- Episode 50: Marxism vs. Resurgent Tankieism (interview with László Molnárfi, university student in Ireland) (8/24/2021)
- Episode 49: Populist Rhetoric as Bullshit (interview with Avishai Green) (8/6/2021)
- Episode 48: Keith Kahn-Harris on Denialism––and Post-Denialism (7/23/2021)
- Episode 47: Ravi Bali on Conducting Arguments in an Honest, Revolutionary Manner (7/9/2021)
- Episode 46: Argumentation and Exploitation—Interview with Ben Burgis (Part 2) (6/25/2021)
- Episode 45: Argumentation and Exploitation – Interview with Ben Burgis (Part 1) (6/11/2021)
- Episode 44: “The State and Revolution” Reconsidered (5/28/2021)
- Episode 43: The Struggle for Black Lives After the Minneapolis Verdict (5/15/2021)
- Episode 42: A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear (5/1/2021)
- Episode 41: Is There a Non-Capitalist Way Forward for the Global South? (4/17/2021)
- Episode 40: COVID-19 Containment and the “Freedom-Loving” Backlash (4/2/2021)
- Episode 39: Michael Heinrich and F. H. Pitts’ Attempt to Eliminate Marx’s Crisis Theory (3/20/2021)
- Episode 38: Trump’s Base––Interview with David Norman Smith (Part 2) (3/6/2021)
- Episode 37: AOC’s Well-Being vs. Greenwald’s Sexist, Red-Brown Politics (2/20/2021)
- Episode 36: Trump’s Base––Interview with David Norman Smith (Part 1) (2/6/2021)
- Episode 35: Dunayevskaya on the Independence of the Black Struggle from the “General Class Struggle” (1/23/2021)
- Episode 34: Dunayevskaya on the “Vulgarization of Marxism” and Russian State-Capitalism (1/9/2021)
- Episode 33: Alternatives to Capitalism: What Happens After the Revolution? (12/18/2020)
- Episode 32: Making Marx Make Sense: The Early Years (12/5/2020)
- Episode 31: Marx’s Crisis Theory: New Spanish Defense (11/20/2020)
- Episode 30: Use-Value and Exchange-Value … and Value (11/7/2020)
- Episode 29: Kenya’s Response to COVID-19 (contrasted to that of Trumpist USA) (10/24/2020)
- Episode 28: Lebanon’s Protest Movement Since the Beirut Explosion (10/10/2020)
- Episode 27: Reading “American Civilization on Trial” in Costa Rica (9/26/2020)
- Episode 26: Dialogue with Patrick Murray on the Value-Form Paradigm, Part 2 (9/13/2020)
- Episode 25: Dialogue with Patrick Murray on the Value-Form Paradigm, Part 1 (8/29/2020)
- Episode 24: Combating Tankie Denialism: Specialist in Soviet History Rebuts Grover Furr (8/14/2020)
- Episode 23: The Rise of the Extreme Right in Europe (7/31/2020)
- Episode 22: A Post-Capitalist Future––Not by Politics Alone (7/17/2020)
- Episode 21: Consigned to the Jaco-dustbin of History (7/3/2020)
- Episode 20: Cockshott versus Marx––Interview with “RV” (6/19/2020)
- Episode 19: Spanish Edition of “Reclaiming Marx’s ‘Capital’”––Interview with Translator (6/5/2020)
- Episode 18: The Value-Form Paradigm vs. Marx’s “Capital,” Part 2 (5/22/2020)
- Episode 17: The Value-Form Paradigm vs. Marx’s “Capital,” Part 1 (5/8/2020)
- Episode 16: Dunayevskaya’s Life and & Legacy––Interview with Anne Jaclard (4/24/2020)
- Episode 15: Dunayevskaya’s Revolutionary Interpretation of Hegel’s Dialectical Philosophy (4/12/2020)
- Episode 14: The New Game-Changing Inequality Database (3/28/2020)
- Episode 13: The Tankie Craze, Part 2—Disillusioned Radical Youth Fighting Stalinism (3/13/2020)
- Episode 12: Inequality of Wealth in the U.S. (2/28/2020)
- Episode 11: Defending, and Transcending, Liberal Democracy (2/14/2020)
- Episode 10: Marx’s “Critique of the Gotha Program” (2/1/2020)
- Episode 9: The Tankie Craze––Resurgent Stalinism among Youth (1/17/2020)
- Episode 8: A Long Journey From Marxists to Marx, Part 2 (1/3/2020)
- Episode 7: Implications of the UK Elections (12/20/2019)
- Episode 6: The Uprising in Lebanon (12/6/2019)
- Episode 5: A Long Journey From Marxists to Marx, Part 1 (11/22/2019)
- Episode 4: Green New Deal–Interview with Brendan Cooney (11/8/2019)
- Episode 3: Brexit-Interview with Chris Gilligan (10/25/2019)
- Episode 2: Fighting White Nationalism (10/11/2019)
- Episode 1: Obama-Trump Voters (9/26/2019)
September 24, 2019