File spoon-archives/marxism-general.archive/marxism-general_1998/marxism-general.9804, message 6


Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 14:02:11 -0500 (EST)
From: Siddharth Chatterjee <siddhart-AT-mailbox.syr.edu>
Subject: Re: M-G: An Open Letter from S.Chatterjee to President Yeltsin



Vladimir:

I read your 'letter' with some amusement. You seem a very angry person -
you have to descend from the egotistical heights in which you live
before a cool and scientific discussion can be carried on. For the purpose
here is not to denounce, denigrate and condemn but to understand and
analyze. In your 'letter', you took a superficial approach and did not
address any of my points. You have to take off your Trotskyist glasses
and see the world for what it is. There exists a devastating and deep
critique of Trotskyism (ideolology and history). And it is not by Ludo
Martens whose approach is condemnatory instead of analytical and
theoretical.

But this discussion should not degenerate into a abusive contests between
two sides. Nothing will be gained from this by anyone. Instead, we should
focus on some of the fundamental issues. Here are a few of them:

1. What is the meaning of the "bourgeois state without the bourgeoise"
AFTER the party of the proletariat has seized power? This statement by
Lenin is actually a most profound statement.

2. What is the meaninng of the term "class" AFTER seizure of power by
the proletarian party? Does "class" have any meaning after the means of
production is in the hands of the new state?

3. If the answer is 'yes' to the item 2, then what were the contending
classes in Russia after 1917 and in China after 1949?

4. Do 'relations of production' and 'property relations' mean the
same thing?

5. Is the Communist Party a monolitihic party? Or does it have divisions?

6. The Trotskyists reduce the GPCR to a fight among the different factions
of the "bureaucracy". This is a most superficial judgement but for a
moment let us go along with it. Then the questions are:

(a) Does the bureaucracy hang like a balloon over society and has no
class component?

(b) If not what is the origins and class basis of this "bureaucracy"

7. How does the process of capitalist restoration occur and how is it to
be prevented? Does it occur from outside and/or from inside the party?

8. What is the meaning of the Trotskyist term "permanent revolution" and
does it have any connection with the Maoist term "uninterrupted revolution
with stages"?

9. What is the meaning of Cultural Revolution and what happened in China
during 1966-1976?

10. What is the meaning of "democratic centralism"? Does this term solely
apply to the organisation of the party or is it something more? What is
the connection between 'democracy' and 'centralism'?

I do not have all the answers to the above and hope that the list members
will contribute to the discussion. 

Finally, I am not an "unrepentant Stalinist". Nor a Marxist or Maoist
in the true meaning of the terms. To claim these titles, one has to
be a revolutionary (theory AND practice).

S. Chatterjee

  

   




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