Date: Sat, 15 Feb 1997 19:59:36 -0500 (EST)
From: Justin Schwartz <jschwart-AT-freenet.columbus.oh.us>
Subject: Re: M-G: To Rolf: Ellen Meiksins Wood



York University is in Ontario, Canada. Does that make a difference?

I know some professors at American universities who are members of the
Maoist Progressive Labor Party. Is that left wing enough from you? I'm
thinking of Richard Boyd at Cornell, among others.

I used to be a professor myself, but I suspect you would think that I'm
not a real Marxist. I have comrades who are professors at American
universities who are much more left wing in your sense than I am, though.

--jks

On Sun, 16 Feb 1997, Rolf Martens wrote:

> Doug wrote, on 15.02:
> 
> >At 6:48 AM +0100 2/15/97, Rolf Martens wrote:
> >
> >>Now that I hear from you that she's a Professor of Politics,
> >>I suspect she's not that much of a real Marxist
> >
> >And what is a "real" Marxist?
> >
> >
> >Doug
> 
> As I see it, there are a couple of criteria:
> 
> 1) One who, to the best of his or her ability, fights for
> the interests of the great majority of all people.
> 
> That's one crucial criterion, necessary at least but not
> sufficient. The second one involves knowledge.
> 
> 2) One who knows the theory of Marxism, Leninism and
> Mao Zedong Thought well enough basically to understand the
> situation in the world, so that he or she can give real
> guidance to the proletariat.
> 
> Those two would just about cover it, I think.
> 
> I would expect that someone who is accepted by a university
> in a state like the USA could not really qualify on both
> those counts. A genuine Marxist would be thought of as "much 
> too dangerous". 
> 
> This isn't intended on my part to be a criticism of the moral
> stamina of Ellen Woods, the person concretely discussed, or of
> anyone else in the same position. But if she had really seen
> through the present society completely, that's my contention,
> she wouldn't be holding such a post.
> 
> For comparison, perhaps Noam Chomsky in the USA (whom both
> Ang and Richard Pithouse mentioned as important) and Jan
> Myrdal here in Sweden could be mentioned. I know that the
> latter has done some important things that have favoured
> the proletariat, and the former most probably has done so
> too. But on some crucial points where the proletariat needs
> leadership, they're quite insufficient. They after all are
> "only" bourgeois left-wingers.
> 
> Without knowing more about Ellen Woods than what Sally and
> Justin recently told me, I'd guess that she is in the same
> cathegory as those two.
> 
> Since there isn't any Marxist-Leninist party in the USA or
> in Sweden, for instance, and hasn't been any for many decades,
> people such as those mentioned may have played certain not
> unimportant positive roles, as parts of a substitute for such,
> so to speak. But such persons cannot be more than very
> insufficient substitutes either.
> 
> As a general rule - experience shows - persons of this kind
> have tend to be hopelessly weak on two important points
> (which I mentioned in a reply to Sally too): 1) the character
> of Soviet social-imperialism (today no longer with us - Jan
> Myrdal, btw, was comparatively good on this), and 2) the
> present massive "green" warfare against he peoples of the
> world - aka "environmentalism", so close to the heart of
> ultra-reaction.
> 
> Those are the points too where you, for instance, always
> have been SCREAMING OUT LOUDLY, Doug Left Biz Obs, when
> I've been telling people some important truths. That
> hate comes from the bourgeoisie, with which you obviuosly
> have not made a real break but still are connected, with
> a very strong navle string.
> 
> On point 2), there's one bourgeois guy who's not so bad,
> and that's Lyndon LaRouche. He makes no pretence of being
> a Marxist, of course. And on the question of the present
> reactionary regimes both in Russia and in China, he on the
> contrary is quite bad, wanting both of them to team up with
> the ruling circles of the USA, firstly, for growth - the
> thing that the Marxists want too - but secondly and most
> importantly, for the preservation of bourgeois-imperialist
> rule in the world, which is precisely the thing the
> Marxists are fighting.
> 
> What more precisely is Ellen Woods advocating? I don't know
> that yet. Probably there are certain points where I would
> agree with her, but also others on which I'd say she should
> be opposed. The same is the case with, for instance, my
> ex-comrades in Germany Dr Sendepause & the Klasberries.
> 
> Real Marxists? No. As far as Ellen Woods is concerned, I
> should reserve my opinion, of course, until I've seen her
> standpoint on those matters I mentioned, for instance.
> But experience has taught me not to expect much in such a case.
> 
> Rolf M.
> 
> 
> 
> 
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