File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/97-01-31.063, message 32


Date: Thu, 30 Jan 1997 15:21:17 +1000 (EST)
From: Gary MacLennan <g.maclennan-AT-qut.edu.au>
Subject: Re: M-I: Foucault on USSR


At 05:13 PM 1/29/97 -0500, you wrote:
>In one of the mid-70s interviews collected in Power/Knowledge (p. 73),
>Foucault says:
>
>"In Soviet society one has the example of a State apparatus which has
>changed hands, yet leaves social hierarchies, family life, sexuality and
>the body more or less as they were in capitalist society. Do you imagine
>the mechanisms of power that operate between technicians, foremen and
>workers are that much different here and in the Soviet Union?"
>
>Is this true?


Doug,

I have read the replies to this and I agree with most of what is said and I
am no expert on the USSR, but this little take from Foucault irritates me in
a similar way to the quote that Anthony posted from his Government textbook.
And so here goes...

1. the body

I know it is fashionable to go on about the body, but what precisely does
"leave the body more or less as they were" mean or could mean?  Presumably
it means that Russia shares with the West the panopticon or
everywhere-everywhen surveillance rather than the barbarous physical
tortures of pre-capitalism(? )

Was the KGB any worse than the FBI/CIA/M15/ASIO/ETC?  I doubt it, but
presumably Foucault's point is that it was no better.  I have no objections
to this.  

2.Progressivism - women

>From 1928 onward the Soviet Union abandoned the moment of progressivism that
you can see in the writings of Alexandra Kolontay esp "Communism and the Family"

This is a very utopian text which attempts to prefigure a life for working
class women free from the "four last duties" :- cleaning, washing, cooking
and child rearing.  Good on Alexandra I say.  But by 1936 legal abortion was
abolished, Motherhood was back in vogue and pink faced babies were everywhere.

3. Progressivism - education

It is also instructive to take a look at Krupskaya and Lunacharsky's
proposals for education.  Until the Thermidor of 1928 Krupskaya was able to
argue

"Do we want to reproduce the old division of labour, do we want to make the
workers narrow specialists who only know their own special job and are
therefore permanently bound to it, or do we want to train specialists in the
sense meant by Marx & Lenin?"

And

"The worker is not just somebody who carries  out orders here.  Today he
carries out orders, tomorrow he can be an inventor, and the day after
tomorrow and important organizer in a factory."

4. progressivism - sexuality

As for the politics of sexuality, I have written about this before in the
time of  the Flame Wars, a long time ago, on a list far away, and am
extremely reluctant to visit the topic  again.  But I will emphasis e that
prior to 1928 the Soviet Union was attempting to articulate an extremely
progressive position on homosexuality. Here the significant work was done by
Grigorii Baktis, the director of the Moscow Institute of Social Hygiene.
Baktis argued for tolerance but still regarded homosexuality as in some
sense "wrong".  

Now no self respecting gay or queer activist of today would be grateful for
Baktis. And neither should they be. But time and tide has made me a bit like
Jon Flanders' preacher.  In other words defeat after defeat and about 20
arrests have pushed me to the accommodation pole of the
revolution-accommodation duality.  In other words I know there are worse
types out there than the Baktis's of this world, and I would not be
surprised if we gays did not meet a few of them again.

Whatever we think on this score after 1928 a different line came through and
Soviet experts sniffed the wind and began talking about "social perils".
Then in 1934 they started rounding up the faggots in Moscow, Leningrad,
Kharkov and Odessa - to make the revolution safe of course.  They were also
arresting them at precisely the same time in Berlin - to make the revolution
safe of course.

In March 1934 homosexual acts were punished with terms of up to 8 years.
The revolution was safe.  Very safe.


5. What irritates me then, as I seem to agree with Foucault?



A. Well it is that Foucault like most anarchists and dreamers of the
absolute cannot see that these events took place as a response to the
isolation of and attacks on the revolution by the west. It is part of the
syndrome of "socialism failed" rather than "Socialism was defeated".  Also
for better or worse when the Bolsheviks seized power it was  one of the
great moments in human history.  The dreams and hopes of thousands of
progressivists looked like they could come to fruition.  

And I believe  they would have if the German revolution had succeeded.  But
Foucault can never acknowledge pre-Thermidor Russia for that would mean
endorsing Bolshevism.  So anarchists and liberals and reactionaries  and
defenders of the post 28 Russian regime all share a common interest.  They
must deny the link between Bolshevism and progressivism.

B.   I am most annoyed about the power thing.  Foucault is positively
harmful here in his refusal to discriminate between that power which gets
things done i.e. the process of human agency and the power which subjugates
and oppresses and dominates.  We can never abolish human agency.  It truly
is internal to us.  But we can externalize oppression and subjugation and we
can storm it from outside and we can abolish it. 

Why does Foucault insist that we cannot?  Why does he drivel on about the
micro structures of  power?  Well the answer lies in what happens to the
Beautiful Souls in retreat from the defeats of the glorious moment of 68.
They begin to articulate something which is a cross between scepticism -
reality does not exist (i.e. we cannot change the world) and stoicism -
there is nothing I can do about reality, might as well take care of the
self. This often means asceticism, but in Foucault's case his predilections
took a somewhat different form.



regards

Gary


Sources for some of the above assertions:-

Castles, S. & Wustenberg, The education of the future, London: Pluto Press, 1979

A. Kolontay, Communism and The Family, Sydney: CPA Publication, 1971

Lauritsen, J. & Thorstad, D., The Early Homosexual Rights Movement (1864-1935)



     --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---


   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005