Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 20:05:34 -0400
Subject: Re: M-G: Re: Stages and permanent revolution


Hugh Rodwell wrote:

> And I'm still intending to write about Stalin's bilge in the Foundations of
> Leninism, 

Please, do this, Hugh!  I've read this work for the first time only recently,
and my general and mostly visceral impression is that it lays the foundations for
Stalin's bureaucratic distortion of Lenin's thought.  One most obvious departure
>from Lenin that I have noticed is Stalin's misappropriation of his ideas on 
cooperation.  In fact, it's so blatant - considering it was written in 1924 - that
it can be explained only in the framework of the intensifying inter-party struggle.
The whole section on the peasantry is clearly directed against the Left Opposition.
Actually, the work as a whole can be properly understood only from this perspective.
It has a broader interest as well. Reading it, one feels being present at the final
stage of some enourmous tectonic upheaval when the lava-stream of the revolutionary 
thought solidifies into its dogma. Words remain, their spirit is gone.

Vladimir


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