Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 09:09:41 -0500 (EST)
From: Louis N Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: Re: M-I: Enough, please;  ALSO, query on Lenin's practice


On Mon, 3 Mar 1997, Paul Zarembka wrote:

> Thanks, Louis.  I had also heard that Lenin did not engage in threats to 
> kill comrades and I'll be interested if anyone else knows something you
> and I don't know.  It is certainly not consistent with my understanding of
> Lenin's political work.
> 
> Do you support the suspension of Adolfo?  Paul
> 
> 
> P.S. I have deleted the personal attacks at the end of your message--it
> doesn't accomplish anything.
> 

Louis: I apologize for the personal attack. It was completely uncalled
for.

With respect to the question of your "understanding" of Lenin's threats to
kill his opponents, your way of phrasing this is so banal and superficial
that I would be surprised that anybody on this list could find an answer
to satisfy you. If you are looking for ammunition to discredit Lenin, may
I recommend Sam Farber's book. Farber is an editor of Against the Current
who has poured through the classic anticommunist literature and put
together a pastiche of all of the questionable things Lenin ever did.

He then concludes the book by stating something like "We socialists have
to learn from our mistakes and never do bad things like Lenin."

This book would help put arrows in your counterrevolutionary quiver.  The
only question is why you are looking for assistance in this quest on
marxism-international. With a few exceptions, most people here support the
idea that Lenin was a positive figure, given the historical context of the
nearly impossible job of constructing socialism in the USSR. 

Why don't you spend $10 and join Solidarity. They have a mailing list with
kindred spirits to your own. I may join Solidarity for the same reason,
just to get on that list. I have a strong political identification with
people like Paul LeBlanc and Alan Wald, whose ideas are similar to my own.

The reason I exploded at you is that I believe you are not a productive
member of this list. If you were my student, I would give you an F-. You
want to take the discussion in a direction that can only lead to further
explosions from Mark Jones, Adolfo if he ever returns, me, and other
individuals who are pro-Lenin.

Do we really need this?

Your interest in Marxism seens rather one-dimensional. It appears to
revolve around the question of what went wrong in the USSR. Your
all-consuming focus is on individuals: Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky. This of
course is characteristic of our list Trotskyists as well, god bless them.

What I would remind you is that there was a wrenching and virtually
violent split on the Spoons list about a year ago in which those members
whose opposition to to Stalin and Stalin-support was so pure and intense
that they went and created their own list. This list now exists in the
form of thaxis. You will find kindred spirits there who have spent a
lifetime gathering dossiers against Lenin and Stalin. 

It would be very easy for me to go to that list and launch a spirited
defense of Lenin. Louis G. could also do the same thing on behalf of
Stalin. Why don't we? We respect the culture of that list and don't want
to be provocative. 

I could also go on PEN-L and stir up huge fights over market socialism as
I have in the past. Why don't I? It is disrespectful to the wishes of
others who prefer that the list function as a forum for professional
economists on the left to exchange scholarly data. So be it.

I would prevail upon you to think twice before the next time you launch
one of your "When did you stop beating your wife" type questions about
Lenin or Stalin. I myself will probably not explode but somebody else
might. Isn't it preferable to have calm and comradely conversations.

Peace,

Louis



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