File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1996/96-11-22.061, message 13


From: HISSGB-AT-lure.Latrobe.edu.au
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 12:38:35 +1000
Subject: M-I: Re: Soft on Stalinsim?


Louis writes:

"My interests are in helping to build a left that can draw people together with
a revolutionary consciousness..." and earlier
"What does it mean if Louis Godena or Adolfo Olaechea or anybody else...wants
to continue believing that the Moscow Trials were on the level?"

There is a contradiction between these two statements at two levels. Firstly
how is it possible to unite with people who still think it is fine to murder
(not debate) people who held the same political positions as you?

Secondly and more importantly for the present, I just don't believe it is
possible (at least here in Australia) to attract new people to revolutionary
politics if you are soft on stalinism. One of the first questions people who
are interested in getting involved in socialist politics ask is but didn't
socialism end up in a terrible dictatorship in Russia, China, Cambodia etc. It
is also the question that the reformists consistently raise to discredit
anyone who raises the idea of revolution. So while Louis is right that no one
is running around today  hailing Russia as a workers paradise, the issue
is very much alive among people we want to win to socialist politics.
  
If you are seen to be soft on Stalin etc you repell people. This was classicly
the case at a fairly recent May Day demo where Maoist fuck wits not only
carried pictures of Stalin on the march but tried to lead the march with them.
This served to discredit the whole left. The immediate question of new people
was what are these people doing on the march? What has that mass murderer
(Stalin) got to do with the struggle for a better world.
 The new people (and I am not talking about
members or sympathisers of my own organisation) were much more shocked than
people like myself who had seen it all before. Only by taking a clear and
unequivocal stance can you reassure people like this. The trouble with much of
the left that passes itself of as Trotskyist is that it too is too soft on
stalinism.
Mick 





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