File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/97-01-25.033, message 35


Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 15:54:53 -0500 (EST)
From: louisgodena-AT-ids.net (Louis R Godena)
Subject: Re: M-I: Making Sense of Lenin,  Stalin & Ourselves


        
Louis (P) writes:

>Pipes, however, is not a Marxist. He is an anticommunist. I think that the
>prospects of finding out anything new about the former Soviet Union by
>taking on the Adam Ulams, Edward Luttwaks, Richard Pipes, etc. of this world
>on this list are dim. This is where Ali the Iranian from Sweden wanted to
>take us. This is also where Tim Wolforth, Justin Schwartz and Barkley Rosser
>have tried to lead us from time to time. It didn't get very far, thank
>goodness. It would blow this list sky-high.

Surely,  Lou,  you're not arguing for deliberate ignorance when it comes to
major works on the Soviet Union or socialism,  regardless from what quarter
they issue.    When I heard *The Unknown Lenin* was about to be published,
I immediately ordered a copy,  and not because I agree with Richard Pipes;
rather,  I was eager to learn about the *historiographical* dimensions of
this volume.     Pipe's editorial effort has thrown much light on the
political configurations surrounding the newly opened Lenin Archive,  which
in turn will influence Russian/American scholarship (and much else) in the
coming period.     And,  on a personal note,  I was among the first to
realize that Pipe's recently unearthed "revelations" -- granting a few
exceptions -- were indeed old wine in new bottles.      

Much that is forthcoming from the newly opened archives in the Soviet Union
and eastern Europe can hardly be of much comfort to the anti-Communists you
mention (see the August - September *Foreign Affairs* in this regard, as
well as Robert Conquest's lament in the same journal last month).    In any
event,  may I enter a rare disagreement when you seem to argue for a wilfull
ignorance when it comes to new works of serious scholarship that are written
>from a perspective other than that which we would necessarily approve.
Much of what I have learned over the past year has been laboriously gleaned
>from the bibliographies and reviews by Ulam,  Abraham Brumberg,  Martin
Malia,  Orlando Figues,  Archie Brown,  Robert Conquest,  and others whom
you would doubtlessly include as better left unread.

I won't try to guess at the motives of Wolforth,  Rosser and Schwartz.
There are others on this list whom I find far more offensive than that
hapless trio -- I include here those individuals whose infrequent
contributions are marked by self-conscious attempts to make the most facile
and commonplace observations appear profound.    
And as for the use of the word "shyster" in regards to aspiring lawyers,  I
meant nothing untoward (as was suggested by two or three private posts).
Rather,  I evoked the term as used by G.G. Foster in his ancient (1849) *New
York in Slices*:  "He must...wait next day for the visits of the 'shyster'
lawyers -- a set of turkey buzzards whose touch is pollution and whose
breath is pestilence."  

Louis Godena



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