File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/97-02-25.170, message 95


Date: Tue, 25 Feb 1997 08:14:13 +0000
From: Mark Jones <majones-AT-netcomuk.co.uk>
Subject: M-I: Re: Zarembka's politics


I do not explain away Stalin's state terrorism. I do not apologise for
it either.
As for moving on, I think Zarembka could try a little parallel activity
once in a while. Such a giant of theory ought not to hobble himself with
one question when there are so many others to addresss, just on my
account. I almost feel reproached. Is it my fault that just because I
won't admit whatever it is Zarembka wants me to admit this morning, he
in some freudian way has become completely blocked and unable to do
anything at all except automatic writing about the purges, thus denying
us the benefit of his views on anythign else?

How about, Paul, we have a parallel debate about the fate of native
Americans, and you tell us all about your political activity in that
spehere back home, and I will tell you about my views on the Purges?

Mark.

PS by political activity, I do not mean salaried work but some sacrifice
appropriate to the dimensions of the evil.Or stop writing this
sanctimonious gibberish at once. 



Paul Zarembka wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 24 Feb 1997, Mark Jones wrote:
> 
> > Paul Zarembka wrote:
> > > Mark Jones cannot "explain away" all the death and imprisonment.
> > >
> > > As to Jones ascribing to me that anti-Stalin=anti-Lenin=anti-Marx> > > pro-capitalism, well,
> >
> >
> > The fact that I am not even going to get into the numbers game does not
> > mean that I am in denial or seek to 'explain away' what happened.
> 
> Your posts, Mark Jones, are filled with "explaining away".  For example,
> on Feb. 20, you write:  "State terrorism? Yes, no doubt about that. This
> is where we can agree. There was state terror in Stalin's time. Nothing
> quite like that will happen again in the wake of any socialist revolution
> because socialism cannot be consolidated in any single country, even the
> largest. We now know that for sure. Socialism can only happen on a world
> scale, or not at all. Stalin's terror was the result of encirclement, a
> reflex conditioned by the repeated attempts by the west to destroy the
> Soviet Union and to plunge its people into a human nightmare, attempts
> which have now succeeded."
> 
> In your statement here, Stalin has NO RESPONSIBILITY.  The Soviet
> state has NO RESPONSIBLITY.  The Soviet class structure has NO
> RESPONSIBILITY.  In fact, no one inside as any responsibility which you
> identify.  Responsibility is outside.
> 
> Stalin has no responsibility even for permiting twelve-year old children
> to be criminally liable, up to the possibility of execution, even though
> he signed the law and even though that law did not exist in either
> your leading imperialist country Great Britain or my leading imperialist
> country of the United States of America.
> 
> "The Leader showed particular concern for the children of his comrades in
> arms.  He arrested Mikoyan's sons, Sergo and Vano.  At the request of
> Ashkhen Lazarevna, the mother of the arrested boys, Nikolai Bukharin
> called up Koba [Stalin]:
> 
>    "'What were the boys jailed for?'
> 
>    "'For being a pair of freethinkers, that's what,' the Gensek snapped.
> 
> "A forerunner of Joseph Stalin, Joseph Volotsky, burned freethinkers
> alive.  But that was in the fourteenth century, under Tsar Ivan III.  No
> one would venture to charge Stalin with the burning of heretics.  He
> simply sent them to the camps--grown-ups and children alike.  And it
> wasn't his fault if not all of them knew how to survive".  (Anton
> Antonov-Ovseyenko, THE TIME OF STALIN: PORTRAIT OF A TYRANNY, p. 176.)
> 
> As to your not wanting to play a "numbers game", can I take it you are
> prepared to accept the numbers I offered from the sources I listed (or
> perhaps Chris Burford's numbers from the sources he cites), so we can move
> on?
> 
> Paul Zarembka
> 
>      --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

-- 
Regards,
Mark Jones
website: http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~majones/index.htm
email: mailto:majones-AT-netcomuk.co.uk



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