Date: Wed, 01 May 1996 21:19:44 +0000 From: David Walters <dwalters-AT-igc.apc.org> Subject: Re: Collecting up links Hmmmm....I am getting these butterflys in my stomach about a J. Stalin web page. I am quesy about this on several levels. I don't know everyones political proclivites on this but here are some "thoughts" on this....and it is not meant to incite polemics but here goes: I strongly feel that Stalin (and Stalinism) represented the worst thing that ever brushed up against Marxism...more so than even Bernstien's revisionism. A "syphilus" of the working class as Trotsky referred to it. To associate Stalin with an on-line Archive (I should correct this to say 'THE on-line...") of Marxism is to soil Marxism and Marx and Engels. Stalinism is the antithesis of Marxism from a philisophical and practical level as far as the working class is concerned. It has done more damage.....etc. etc.etc. I could go on and its not just because I just saw LAND & FREEDOM the other day.... It could also be interpreted as elevating Stalin to the level of Marx and Engels and Lenin and Trotsky. This would be sad. I get the same feeling when I see bourgeois historians associate socialism with Stalinism. Get my drift. However..... ....I've had to read some of Stalins work to better understand Stalinism...the real enemy of Marxism, not the person the ideas are named after. I've found it necessary to to read him as I have with Mao. But I know what I'm reading is terrible anti-working class jiberish. I've spent almost my whole political life trying to convince people that Stalinism does not equal Marxism. Ugh. Anyway, this is all very consternating. I will go along with what ever is decided but we should think seriously about placing J. Stalin on the Web site. The same is true for links to any or all "socialist-communist-trotskyist-stalinist-maoist- anarchist" groups. At least the way around this particular problem is to clearly state in the introduction to such a page of links that the Archive itself in no way endorses or affiliates to any of the groups whos links show up. Another way is for us to have a "volunteers" page where each of us whos done some work could have a "personal-political" page with links to our favorite sites (including tendencies, etc). Yeah, I like this idea the best. What's ya'll think? David Walters
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