File spoon-archives/marx-engels.archive/marx-engels_1996/96-09-11.063, message 54


Date: Fri, 3 May 1996 21:21:33 -0600 (MDT)
From: kcampbel-AT-csf.colorado.edu (CyberMarx)
Subject: Re: Collecting up links


Mike Lepore writes:

>Ken, it appears that you have a vision about the mission of the archive,
>and that is driving you more than something pragmatic like availability of
>disk space.

I am not talking about spending days doing anything. Nor is the "vision
thing" predominant, because my real vision is putting Marx and Engels
online, but people continually ask me to put "other Marxists" online. Once I
started down that road, I either have to start drawing qualitative lines, or
leave it open for an extremely loose interpretation.

1. When someone comes forward with a few _pre-set texts_ -- one of which is
Stalin's "Dialectical Materialism" (or whatever it is specifically called, I
don't want to open it and check) -- then I have to ask what reason I have
not to put it on there. "Sorry. I don't like Stalin." With that very
statement, I have to begin engaging in a dialogue I don't want to start. I
have a hundred other things that need doing more.

2. This Stalin work I was sent -- by a fellow who also ask he not be
associated with it and was apologetic in even asking if I wanted it -- this
work influenced millions of people for a long period of time. It was, I
believe, "the line." I know that if I were a student of Marxism, I would
appreciate having it at hand to see for myself what people like Trotsky were
specifically responding to. 

3. We aren't talking about me chiselling the man's bust in bits and bytes,
just a simple page with a link to the work. And since I would have to create
the little blurb, I ain't gonna write "Evil man! Bad man! Hiss!" all over it
like some fool in a newsgroup. It would be short and sharp and factual --
and the facts ain't pretty.

>It's not clear to me what "historical" means -- does that mean
>"dead for forty years" or something like that?  Does it mean proven to
>be influential in national events?  Does it mean that one has added axioms
>to the body of theory?  What do the people in the archive have that 
>some organization founded last week doesn't have? 

They have to have been dead long enough that I won't get charged with
copyright infringement, first off. So I hope that answers your last question.

Influential? Yes, that helps. Stalin was accepted by thousands and thousands
of people who called themselves marxists. You want to rewrite history on
that point? Or should we change the name here to the "Marx/Engels
One-True-Faith Site"?

It sickens me to look at the bullshit photos the Stalinists doctored to
remove images of Trotsky, to deny his existence and influence in history.
You want to do the same thing? Should I put this as a statement of policy in
the other section? "Don't send Stalin stuff. Nor Mao..." What about those
who hate DeLeon? If they complain, is he out, too?

I do not fear that by putting a Stalin document online I will suddenly
convince all these young minds: "Oh! Look! A Stalin document! I am now a
Stalinist!" In fact, I firmly believe the opposite, that the more you line
up Stalin against his theoretical opponents, the more he withers, he less
influence he would have. 

I have written quite a few news articles about a fellow here in Canada,
named Ken McVay, who has started the largest Holocaust documentation site in
the world. He isn't Jewish, he has no relatives who died in the Holocaust,
he wasn't paid. He just ran a gas station in BC and liked to argue with
Holocaust deniers in the newsgroups. He quickly discovered there was no need
to "censor" Holocaust deniers, and their neo-Nazi kin, because when you
simply lined up in equal presentation the documentation of the Holocaust
against the pamphlets of the Holocaust deniers -- there was no contest. 

Now he is always trying to get Ernst Zundel to link equally between his own
site and the Nizkor Holocaust site. McVay INVITES comparison of theory and data.

He knows people coming to that question either have 1) an open mind or 2)
their minds made up. In the latter case, there is nothing you can do about
it, no matter what, either side. In the former case, the facts and arguments
will speak for themselves.

I don't think we are remotely near this being a major issue yet...

But... I see this as being the same. You three who have responded all have
your minds made up, and you bristle at the very thought of your "chosen
intellectual mentors" (Trotsky and DeLeon) being beside such a vile being.
But there will be many others who come here without having read anything,
and just having an interest. So be it. They can get the information.

Stalin's advantage was the power of a superpower to attract and justify. Now
his works don't have that. What are you worried about?

As for my own "chosen intellectual mentor," Karl... well, I have no problem
putting Proudhon or Bakunin or any of them on line right beside Karl. They
were integral parts of his life, and having access to their works enriches
my own understanding of him, and the environment in which he moved.

Ken.



   

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