File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/97-03-04.021, message 7


Date: 01 Mar 97 22:59:07 EST
From: jonathan flanders <72763.2240-AT-CompuServe.COM>
Subject: M-I: Bureaucrats and Stalinists


 >> >   In the US, the working class equivalent of a Stalin figure is 
Jimmy  > Hoffa, the Teamster leader, or if you go a little further back,
John L.  Lewis of the miners.<<

An insult to the memory of Hoffa and Lewis!

Hoffa and Lewis were, in part, popularist trade union bureaucrats. Stalin
 was the consumate functionary who was about as capable of making 
 eloquent public speeches as Vito Genovese. << G. Levy

Jon Flanders:


   Admittedly the analogy only goes so far. One wonders though, what 
either Lewis or Hoffa would have done if they had state power. Read 
Alinsky's account of the expulsion of Phil Murray from the UMWA for a 
stomach turning account of "stalinist" behavior.

   The point is that the working class, lacking education, bombarded with
propaganda, intimidated by the specter of poverty, and pounded into 
submission by the bosses, can be expected to be vulnerable to the 
blandishments of "all-powerful" leaders offering a paternalistic kind of 
security.

   Stalin may not have been an eloquent speaker, but he carried the 
reputation of an "Old Bolshevik" man of steel who faithfully served 
Lenin. That served as well as a brilliant speech to impress a lot of 
workers. His being a consummate functionary would have gotten him nowhere
without those "Leninist" credentials.

  Jon Flanders, using OzWin 2.12.1



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