File spoon-archives/marxism-general.archive/marxism-general_1997/97-03-17.093, message 38


From: dr.bedggood-AT-auckland.ac.nz
Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 14:13:03 +0000
Subject: M-G: Re: M-I: Betrayals?


> Date:          Sat, 15 Mar 1997 17:15:19 -0500 (EST)
> From:          Louis N Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
> To:            marx-int <marxism-international-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU>
> Cc:            Scott McClemee <mclemee-AT-igc.apc.org>
> Subject:       M-I: Betrayals?
> Reply-to:      marxism-international-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU


OK Proyect why dont we forget that Russia ever happened, that it 
no longer exists with the legacy of a 1917 and 1933 and 1989 locked into 
its bowels. Why dont we just sit around in a library surrounded by NLR, MR, 
et al all of which date their founding fathers back to the evolutionary marxism 
of the second international [what Alan Freeman calls "the psychopathology of 
Walrasian Marxism"] while Albania blows up out of earshot. 
I mean the hallowed editors of MR doctored marxism in the 1940's with 
Sweezy's Keynesian theory of `surplus'. Keynes was a 20th century 
maverick marginalist.  NLR promotes the mangled Western Marxism of 
British neo-ricardianism and centrist trotskyism. I can't speak of 
Solidarity since Im not familiar with its contents. But Meiksins 
Wood, your own Justin Schwartz and others reputed to belong, are like 
you all running away from drawing a marxist  balance sheet of the 
former SU.  If you want a list where you can  grovel after the latest
academic marxists fashions what's stopping you?  Your not a moderator 
of this list, do what you like.  Stop whinging, ACT. Just don't call it 
Leninlist two. Call it Louislist.ego

Dave
For Permanent Revolution (and that means you).


Proyect wrote:

> On Sat, 15 Mar 1997, Paul Zarembka wrote:
> 
> > But mistakes did become eventual betrayals: If you wish more back-up on
> > the degeneration and the 4th CI congress about Versailles, the Ruhr
> > occupation by French imperialism and the "nationalist' deviations of
> > western CP parties, please read (re-read??) "A History of Soviet Russia'
> > by EH Carr, Vols 1 & 2, Bolshevik Revolution 1917-23 & The Interregnum
> > 1923-24, Mc Millan Press. 1950, 1954.
> > 
> > 	I'll welcome any reactions.  Paul Z.
> > 
> 
> Louis: Here is my reaction. You are driving this mailing list into the
> ground by going over the same old Lenin-Stalin-Trotsky questions. I just
> got mail from Scott McLemee stating that there was "too much aggression"
> on m-i and that it was starting to look too much like m-1. There goes the
> reporter on CLR James and black nationalism, and there goes the
> cyberseminar. It also very likely spells the beginning of the long
> degrading descent of m-i.
> 
> We had a split last year between people whose hatred of Stalin ran so deep
> that they couldn't abide being on a mailing list with such people. Thus
> m-2 was formed. M-1 was the next go go, dragged down to the bottom of the
> ocean by spam from Sweden.
> 
> M-I was formed with an unclear focus. We should have insisted that sterile
> rehashing of the Stalin-Lenin-Trotsky question led to nothing but flame
> wars. I was right. Part of the problem is that the original concept of m-i
> was somewhat mechanical. We would attract more international subscribers
> because they had fewer messages to download. This was not a basis to form
> a mailing list on. Of course we were against people posting 25 times a
> day, but didn't articulate what the list was for except global 
> communication.
> 
> I thought and still think that the Lenin-Stalin-Trotsky question can be
> discussed but not by people who have a vested interest in the subject. In
> other words people who are building parties that trace their pedigree from
> their current guru to Stalin (or Trotsky) back to Lenin, and then back to
> Marx and Engels. The result is plain for all to see. Flame wars.
> 
> I am kicking around the idea of forming a new Spoons Marxism list with the
> sort of political focus a number of us share. This list roughly speaking
> would identify with the current represented by the Monthly Review,
> Socialist Register, Socialismus, Capitalism, Socialism and Nature. 
> Stalinophobia would be prohibited, so would Trotsky-phobia. As a matter of
> fucking fact, I am getting to the point where I would like to bar anybody
> the minute who drags these dead Russians one more time out of their grave.
> 
> At any rate, I have been corresponding with lots of people on this list
> over the last two years or so and we seem to know what we want. We want
> Marxist analysis of current events. We want to work towards a Marxism
> without dogma. We want to relate to each other in a thinking, respectful
> and comradely manner.
> 
> But these fucking "Russian" questions are like an anchor dragging us down.
> Justin Schwartz's group Solidarity includes in its founding document a
> call to put this question into the background. This makes excellent sense.
> Some day when we are wiser and better socialists, we will be able to
> discuss these things. In the meantime, it is draining all the energy out
> of this mailing list and forcing good people to split.
> 
> 
> Louis Proyect
> (www.columbia.edu/~lnp3)
> 
> 
> 
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> 



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