Date: Mon, 27 Jan 1997 19:23:00 +0100 (MET)
Subject: Re: M-I: RE: Re: Defining through practice


Ali writes;
>
>How can you characterize Stalinism? One way of doing it is the word
>"Control" (this is for instance the core of the Swedish marxist Lars
>Bergquist's analysis of Stalinism). The fierce control was ment to
>guarantee the correct development of the revolution. Of course, you
>don't have control just for its own sake, you have control to be able to
>correct, in one way or another. This is, as I see it, not something
>invented by Stalin, but present as a very important part of Lenin's
>concept of democracy and the role of the state. He write in State and
>Revolution: "Registration and Control, that is what ABOVE ALL, is needed
>to get the _first_phase_ of the Communist society 'straight on the right
>track'" (This is not an authorized translation, but my own from the
>Swedish text). The state will then successively turn this function to
>"the armed people". When the marjoity of the people "autonomousely and
>everywhere" starts conducting such registration and control "of the
>Capitalist (who have now become civil servants) and of those
>intellectuals who have preserved capitalist habits", he writes, then it
>this control will be "truly universal and will comprise all people" and
>thus it will be "impossible to withdraw from it".

Bergquist is and apoligist for Stalinism Ali and not a "Marxist". All this 
"control" bullshit is nonsense. But coming from those who want to clean up 
Stalinism it just points out how horrible the Stalinist position is today to 
defend! And the defense is just garbage that has nothing to do with theory. 
But some sort of top down defense of bureaucratic control of the workers 
movement.  Berquist is replacing the dictatorship of the Proletariat with 
the dictatorship of the Stalinist bureaucracy. The excuse being that some 
day in the future this control will be turned over to the people. Sure and 
pigs fly. Stalin gutted the Bolshevik party and the Red Army of most of its 
Bolshevik Cadre in the purges. Is that what Bergquist means by "control". Do 
you know Bergquist. Tell him to get is ass on line here and there are a 
number of people who will eat him and his "control" theory alive. and then 
spit him out for breakfast. In fact even Louis Godena our own list apoligist 
for Stalinism would probably critise him from the left.

>Hugh says that Stalin tuned the "authority of the DOP *against* the
>working class". Well, yes. But to make a clear  distinction, it's not
>enough to simply say "In the whole of Lenin's revolutionary practice,
>the majority was not opressed. In Stalin's it was". First point: who
>says 'the marjority' was not opressed by Lenin's revolutionary practice?
>Second point, and much more important: What says that this was because
>of the differences between the two in understanding the role of the
>opressive appartus and not because the latter simply continued a
>development already started? I think the latter explanation is much more
>in accordance with reality.

Very fucking nice Ali! You are just a liberal bullshit artist!  I mean 
blaming Lenin because Stalin used the DOP to get the old Bolsheviks and 
anyone who opposed him. Red terror was certainly neccessary to combat the 
white terror and counter-revolutionaries then and most likely in the future. 
Or do you think that the class enemy is going to give it up without a fight. 
That Stalin turned it into a personal instrument against the party and the 
revolution is another thing entirely. So don.t try and drag down Lenin and 
the Bolsheviks along with Stalin. Stalin  and Stalinism is dead. But 
Leninist practice lives..

>So, finally Louis Proyect thinks I was "trying to take" the discussion
>somewhere just to "blow this list sky-high". He also thinks that this
>sort of discussion would lead to pro-This and pro-That debates, ending
>up in Moscow Trials. This is not the reason I raised the subject. I'm
>not very interested in discussing the Moscow Trials. I'm interested in
>an understanding of what went wrong, based on something else than
>ideological clashes were people are unwilling to see realities if they
>disturb their circles. I'm engaged in an every-day struggle againt
>capitalism and for Socialism. I don't want this struggle to end up in
>something completely different than what I'm fighting for dreaming of.

Proyect always thinks somebody is going to disturb his gigantic ego trip so 
don.t worry about it. You got much more to worry about! Like presenting us 
with some sort of picture of what you really think and where things should 
be going for example in Iran. Or if you don,t wana talk about Iran try 
Sweden or anything. But shit or get off the pot Ali! Nobody gets a free 
ticket here..

And if you are really interested in finding out what went wrong there are 
numerous books by Trotsky available in Sweden for reading. Try any USec 
bookstore! If not Trotsky try Carr or deutcher which are also available..

Bob Malecki

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