File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1996/96-11-03.020, message 39


Date: Wed, 30 Oct 1996 10:08:59 -0500 (EST)
From: Louis N Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: Re: M-I: Re: Centralism in Bolshevik Internationals


On Wed, 30 Oct 1996, Chris Burford wrote:

> 
> Chris now:
> 
> These airy remarks are hard to see as a principled statement.
> Louis has been trying to present Lenin as the soft
> version of Bolshevism in contrast to Zinoviev, Trotsky and Stalin.
> The text I quoted from the 3rd Congress of the International, was virtually 
> identical in tone and even in content to the text Louis quoted from 
> the 5th Congress.  He can't credibly turn round now and 
> imply he knew it all along and Lenin "had the wrong idea " 
> "of course" about these "infamous" rules. 
> 

Louis: "Lenin as the soft version of Bolshevism"? I am not interested in
individuals. I urge a careful study of the Bolshevik Party in Russia, as I
do the Cuban CP or the FSLN. I have written at length about the activiies
of these parties to this list. I am especially interested in the period
leading up to the "What is to be Done" conference. I have found Lenin's
writings from the 1900-1903 period to be especially useful. I have also
found Neil Harding and Paul LeBlanc's studies of Lenin to be extremely
helpful.

I have also stated that the Comintern was a *bad* idea from the very
beginning no matter who endorsed it, including Lenin. As bad an idea as
the Comintern was, the "Bolshevization" model developed by Zinoviev long
after Lenin was dead has zero relationship to the Bolshevik Party. It is
Bolshevik in name only.

I can expect to have an interesting discussion about these matters with
socialist activists like Mick Armstrong and Adam Rose.

You, on the other hand, are trying to ferret out another matter: communist
dictatorship. You and Rosser are in the intellectual tradition of people
like Bertram Wolfe and other ex-communists who are trying to make a
connection between the Gulags and the 21 rules. This is not a Marxist
approach to the crisis of the Soviet Union. You need to familiarize
yourself with historians such as Moshe Lewin, E.H. Carr and Isaac
Deutscher to get a handle on this. You attempted to understand Maoist
China through a close reading of the biography written by his doctor. This
will not do for the USSR, let alone China.


PS.: I've been up to 3 Prozacs a day and I don't get that
rub-your-nose-in-your pillow sense of euphoria I got last year. I am
reluctant to go to 4 pills a day because 3 pills makes me flatulent as it
is. I have tried Wellbutrin but it doesn't do a thing for me, besides it
tastes shitty. Any suggestions?



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