Date: Wed, 30 Oct 1996 12:54:16 -0500 (EST)
From: Louis Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: Re: M-I: Re: Centralism in Bolshevik Internationals


Lenin and the gulags? Of course. But you have to drag Marx into the picture
because what's Lenin without Marx.

And as long as you got Marx in the docket, I suggest the "totalizing" Hegel
be indicted as well.

But of course, where would Hegel be without Kant. And Kant without
Descartes. And Descartes without Aquinas, Aristotle and Plato before him.

The problem, as Karl Popper and other anti-Marxists have pointed out, is the
entire idealistic and utopian tradition in Western Philosophy. Some
postmodernists influenced by this trend have been urging more of a
"back-to-the-earth" pantheist approach to rid humanity of Plato-inspired
gulags. Why not? I like to roll around in the mud as much as the next person.

By the way, Barkley. I have enough self-confidence to poke fun at myself.
When I do, you usually take this as an invitation to join in the fun. You
realize of course that I find you so frightening an individual that I would
even dream of returning tit-for-tat. I was honestly afraid that when you
tried to look me up in NY the last time you were here that you would
physically assault me. You are some funny guy. Ha-ha. Just like Robert
DeNiro in "Taxi Driver". Ha-ha.



At 12:38 PM 10/30/96 -0500, you wrote:
>     Shucks, Louis P., I thought that you had given up 
>"trainspotting."  Now, now, tsk, tsk.  Of course, while 
>you're at it, I know of this sealed train paid for by the 
>Germans that left Zurich in 1917 you might want to 
>spot...., :-).
>     BTW, hope you can keep that flatulence under control.
>Barkley Rosser, still think that Lenin might have something 
>to do with the gulags.
>On Wed, 30 Oct 1996 10:08:59 -0500 (EST) Louis N Proyect 
><lnp3-AT-columbia.edu> wrote:
>
>
>> 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?
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>      --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>
>-- 
>Rosser Jr, John Barkley
>rosserjb-AT-jmu.edu
>
>
>
>
>     --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>
>



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