Date: Fri, 18 Sep 1998 09:53:53 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: AUT: RE:


On Fri, 18 Sep 1998, Profit Margin wrote:

<snip> 
> 
> I don't have the book to hand, Harry, but it wouldn't surprise me if the
> phrase "the tradition of Russian sovietism" is actually meant here to evoke
> the politics of the Russian workers councils rather than the "Soviet"
> state. 

Steve: It's possible, we'd have to look at the text, but then the
interpretation is totally misleading.

> In fact Negri wrote in the 60s, 70s (when he criticised the left
> communists, in his Lenin book) and again in the 80s about Lenin and the
> soviet movement, although as far as I can tell Katsiaficas is not aware of
> this, and none of these essays have appeared in English. 

Steve: Yeah, I have the book and I've never seen ANY translations, in any
languages.

> Anyway, if this is
> what Katsiaficas is getting at, there is some unintended irony in his
> comments, given that Negri used to criticise the Roman autonomists for
> *their* "soviettismo" i.e. for being too much like council communists . . .
> 
> Steve

Steve: And I guess the most amusing aspect of this is that probably most
of us have thought of Toni as the most "leninist" of autonomia (leaving
the BR & PL et al out of the picture) because of his tendency to speak in
terms of the "party" even when he meant it the way Marx did in his early
writings --generically as the working class organized for-itself-- and
because of his role in "autonomia organizata" with an emphasis on the
"organizata".

Harry


............................................................................
Harry Cleaver
Department of Economics
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas 78712-1173  USA
Phone Numbers: (hm)  (512) 478-8427
               (off) (512) 475-8535   Fax:(512) 471-3510
E-mail: hmcleave-AT-eco.utexas.edu
Cleaver homepage: 
http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/index.html
Chiapas95 homepage:
http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/chiapas95.html
Accion Zapatista homepage:
http://www.utexas.edu/students/nave/
............................................................................



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