Vulgar Marxism: Disha Karnad Jani Interviews Edward Baring

In this interview with Disha Karnad Jani for the In Theory podcast, Edward Baring returns to the JHI Blog to offer another discussion of his most recent work, Vulgar Marxism: Revolutionary Politics and the Dilemmas of Worker Education, 1891–1931 (2025). Their conversation covers the book’s main focus on “vulgar Marxism” and how this idea serves as a unique entry point into understanding the relationship between Marxist theory and the practice of worker education throughout the early-to-mid twentieth century. This conversation also provides a new perspective on, and further texture to, the numerous questions and critical insights raised by the book (from whether this story might serve as a pre-history of the Cold War to what bearing this history of worker education has on thinking about mass politics today).