On Fri, 19 Sep 1997, Doug Henwood wrote:
> Alex wrote:
>
> >Have you ever heard of Stalin's purges? It's not that difficult to put him
> >at the same table with Hitler.
> >
> >Just something to think about.
>
> Jesus H. Christ, since when did Stalin become synonymous with Marxism? We
> can play lots of these sorts of games - since the U.S. was founded on
> genocide and slavery, can we say these are synonymous with "liberalism"?
>
> Oh, and just what was specifically racist about Stalin's purges? And when
> Trotsky criticized Stalinism, was he doing so out of anti-Marxism?
>
> Doug
>
When did he stop being synonymous with Marxism? Do you seriously mean to
assert that you detect no serious tendencies toward exclusionary
tactics and logic in the history of Marxist thought and practice?
I mean, really, at a certain point it just doesn't work to say, "Hey man,
Stalin was just one guy working in unfavorable conditions! He distorted
the original truth of Marxism! Oh, sure they had a Gulag, a tightly
controlled press, purge trials that made Kafka's castle look like a
friendly and accessible theme park, suppression of all opposition views,
campaigns to eliminate whole classes, a population that spied on each
other at the behest of the secret police, fabrication of an anti-Jewish
'doctors' plot,' and on and on but that doesn't say anything about
Marxism!" Against all that, what are we going to do? Mention Rosa
Luxembourg? Karl Korsch? And then we can just carry on as before?
What, after all, is Marxism's primary contribution to social theory? Lenin
thought it was the following:
Between capitalist and communist society lies the period of the
revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. There
corresponds to this also a political transition period in which
the state can be nothing but *the revolutionary dictatorship of
the proletariat*. (Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme)
In his letter to Weydemeyer of March 5, 1852 Marx underlines this point:
What I did that was new was to prove: 1) that the *existence of
classes* is only bound up with *particular historical phases
in the development of production*, 2) that the class struggle
necessarily leads to the *dictatorship of the proletariat*,
3) that this dictatorship itself only constitutes the
transition to the *abolition of all classes* and to *a classless
society*.
The task of this dictatorship is to eliminate the bourgeoisie--not
necessarily through violence, of course, but through suspension of rights,
education, and, most important, development of an economic system that
killed their social roots. But it is not at all some incredibly unrelated
leap for Lenin (and then Stalin and Mao and every other big Marxist I can
think of right now) to say that the bourgeoisie installs itself in our
habits, can even infect party members and leaders, gives rebirth to itself
constantly in the massive, lower regions of the economy, and thus requires
the kind of puritanical "Law of Suspects" approach that characterized
every self-respecting socialist state this century!
Best wishes,
--John
> Alex wrote:
>
> >Have you ever heard of Stalin's purges? It's not that difficult to put him
> >at the same table with Hitler.
> >
> >Just something to think about.
>
> Jesus H. Christ, since when did Stalin become synonymous with Marxism? We
> can play lots of these sorts of games - since the U.S. was founded on
> genocide and slavery, can we say these are synonymous with "liberalism"?
>
> Oh, and just what was specifically racist about Stalin's purges? And when
> Trotsky criticized Stalinism, was he doing so out of anti-Marxism?
>
> Doug
>
When did he stop being synonymous with Marxism? Do you seriously mean to
assert that you detect no serious tendencies toward exclusionary
tactics and logic in the history of Marxist thought and practice?
I mean, really, at a certain point it just doesn't work to say, "Hey man,
Stalin was just one guy working in unfavorable conditions! He distorted
the original truth of Marxism! Oh, sure they had a Gulag, a tightly
controlled press, purge trials that made Kafka's castle look like a
friendly and accessible theme park, suppression of all opposition views,
campaigns to eliminate whole classes, a population that spied on each
other at the behest of the secret police, fabrication of an anti-Jewish
'doctors' plot,' and on and on but that doesn't say anything about
Marxism!" Against all that, what are we going to do? Mention Rosa
Luxembourg? Karl Korsch? And then we can just carry on as before?
What, after all, is Marxism's primary contribution to social theory? Lenin
thought it was the following:
Between capitalist and communist society lies the period of the
revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. There
corresponds to this also a political transition period in which
the state can be nothing but *the revolutionary dictatorship of
the proletariat*. (Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme)
In his letter to Weydemeyer of March 5, 1852 Marx underlines this point:
What I did that was new was to prove: 1) that the *existence of
classes* is only bound up with *particular historical phases
in the development of production*, 2) that the class struggle
necessarily leads to the *dictatorship of the proletariat*,
3) that this dictatorship itself only constitutes the
transition to the *abolition of all classes* and to *a classless
society*.
The task of this dictatorship is to eliminate the bourgeoisie--not
necessarily through violence, of course, but through suspension of rights,
education, and, most important, development of an economic system that
killed their social roots. But it is not at all some incredibly unrelated
leap for Lenin (and then Stalin and Mao and every other big Marxist I can
think of right now) to say that the bourgeoisie installs itself in our
habits, can even infect party members and leaders, gives rebirth to itself
constantly in the massive, lower regions of the economy, and thus requires
the kind of puritanical "Law of Suspects" approach that characterized
every self-respecting socialist state this century!
Best wishes,
--John