From: "Harald Beyer-Arnesen" <haraldba-AT-online.no>
Subject: AUT: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: the real movement definition 
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 07:39:46 +0100



-----Original Message-----
From: cwright <cwright-AT-21stcentury.net>
To: aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
<aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Date: 29. november 2001 4:01
Subject: AUT: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: the real movement definition



Chris, just a short note here and now to avoid confusion.
Hopefully I will get back with a reply to you, Commie00
and others on the other questions raised.

"So to critique the idea that it is the actual, concrete
struggles of the working class which constitute communism
by saying that Marx was not right here or there, or that Marx
overemphasized this or that party's place in the 'real
movement' holds no water."

I have _never_ argued that the notion of the "real movement"
carries with itself certain dangers _because_ Marx was
mistaken in his advocacy for a social democratic
parliementarian party model.

There are two seperate threads here. The one is Commie00
denial of concrete history. For that is what it is. This is a point
if I have understood you correctly, were we agree. As such
denials has a history in the service of counter-revolution, I give
it some importance, even if I can agree with Commie00 on
a lot of other things, and find him very genuine. Such denial
happens among anarchists as well, not only among marxists.
My critique on this was not really directed against Marx, but
against Commie00.
        The second is the question if the notion of the "real
movement" is 1) meaningless 2) in effect carries with itself
the danger of opening up the door for vanguardism. I claim
that it does. You and Commie00 hold the opposite view.
I would further claim that history have proven me correct here.
        Which brings me to another point, that I implicitely
argued, that it was all to tempting for Marx to confuse "the
real movement" with his own mistaken political positions
and give them an objective thruth.
        Then at last, I agree that Marx on a theoretical level
did not reduce "the real movement" to this or that party, or
the party alone. We have no disagreement on this.

As for Bakunin, I may get back to that. I am not sure how
much you read of what he has written as opposed to what
is written about him. At times, despite all his real weak-
nesses, which he mostly was very much aware of himself,
just as he in general saw very clearly both Marx' strengths
and weaknesses, what Bakunin actually wrote and what
is written about him, often seem as two different worlds.
Actually, I would think that you with your Hegelian perspective
would like Bakunin's materialism quite a lot. He may in
many respects be closer to Marx than any other political
theoretican that I know about, even if they mostly
covered different fields.

Harald




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