Date: Sun, 9 Mar 1997 13:32:22 -0500 (EST)
From: Louis N Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: M-I: Cyberseminar and list issues


This post is not really directed as much to the recent suspensions as it
is to the overall question of how to re-focus the discussion on the list
on more important matters.

To start with, it is necessary to put recent complaints about
marxism-international into some kind of context. I have been studying and
participating in various left forums on the Internet for several years now
and I can assure you that M-I has no competition. Even the people who
bad-mouth it every chance they get recognize that it is a vital place for
the exchange of ideas among Marxists.

In the short time of its existence, it has organized a first-class
cyberseminar on the revolutionary potential of the working-class, engaged
with the post-Marxist opposition, and has provided a platform for
participants from a variety of nations including Portugal, Australia,
Malaysia, South Africa and elsewhere.

One of the reasons the list has held such a strong attraction to a wide
variety of political opinions is that we tried to create an atmosphere
where nobody has to account for the sins of the past. This means that
Social Democrats would not have to explain why "they" supported WWI and
then killed Rosa Luxemburg. This would also mean that we wouldn't have to
put people on trial who thought that the Moscow trials were legitimate.
Unfortunately we can not prevent "neil" from attacking a self-acknowledged
"Menshevik" like Rob Schaap or the Trotskyists from going after Adolfo. We
know what is counter-productive behavior even if they don't and they are
not likely to change.

Historical views on matters such as these are developed over a lifetime
and will not change under the impact of attacks made against them on an
Internet mailing list. These changes have to come from within. Everybody
on this list at one point or another in their life thought that capitalism
was a good system. Nobody is born a socialist. We become Marxists or
socialists by observing the world and getting new information, such as a
pamphlet by Marx, Lenin, etc. Nobody becomes a socialist because they are
attacked for their capitalist views. By the same token, if a crowd of
people is drawn to a person who is yelling at another for having
"politically incorrect" views, nobody in the crowd is likely to feel much
sympathy with the denouncer. This, by the way, is the key to understanding
the isolation of Trotskyists on this list and in the mass movement in
general.

At one point I had suggested that the charter of a new Spoons list
explicitly identify itself with the political current represented by
publications such as Monthly Review, Socialist Register, Socialismus,
Capitalism, Nature and Socialism, LBO, CounterPunch, etc. The fact is that
a number of people, including myself, have written for these publications
on occasion and identify with the editorial viewpoint. This current is a
growing one in world politics and represents a willingness to move past
the old paradigm of the USSR and towards the socialism of the future that
we need.

Broadly speaking, there are a number of ideas that define this current:

1) Marxism has to be returned to its classical roots. This means that
class has primacy over every other "contradiction".

2) The model of "Marxist-Leninist" parties has to be re-examined. Stubborn
attempts to start revolutionary parties using the same old methods (cadre,
program, newspaper, party line, etc.) have produced little of lasting
value. New initiatives, some of which come out of the world of the
Communist Parties, have to be studied.

3) The forms of socialist societies must arise out of the living class
struggle. Attempts to place halos around the USSR in 1921, in 1935, etc.
are not productive. Neither is it productive to create some kind of Swiss
watch model of a future socialist society.

4) And finally, the purpose of Marxism is to provide an accurate analysis
of capitalist society so as to advance the class struggle. This means that
the "materialism" part of "dialectical materialism" must be mastered. Marx
says "In the social production of their life, men enter into definite
relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations
of production which correspond to a definite stage of their development of
their material productive forces." While G.A. Cohen misinterpreted these
words completely, we know what Marx had in mind. He was urging us to
understand those "definite relations" completely.

An example of what it means to understand these "definite relations" can
be found in the latest copy of Left Business Observer in the article
"Turkey: bankrupt all around" by Zeynep Toufeci, one of our find
moderators.

She says:

"In 1994, Turkey had a crisis a la Mexico. The exchange rate tripled in a
few weeks after attempts to control it collapsed, the economy shrank by
6.1%, at least one million workers lost their jobs, and inflation hit
128%. Since then, things haven't gotten any better as real solutions are
postponed and neoliberal orthodoxy is applied with ever-more fervor.

World Bank/IMF orthodoxy caused the 1994 crisis in two ways. First, the
state has largely stopped taxing capitalists. For years, Matilda Manukyan,
who operates a chain of brothels, was the country's champion taxpayer,
embarrassing government officials who had to present the award. More
prestigious, and more profitable businesses didn't have to bother with
taxes..."

Now this is the sort of thing that Marxists should be undertaking. When
you find people preoccupied with the "lessons" of revolutions from 70 and
80 years ago but who have nothing to say about the class struggle in their
own country and in their own time, you are in the presence of people who
violate the very spirit of Marx and Engels, Lenin and even Trotsky. 

M-I succeeds when it functions more like a classroom for the advanced
study of Marxism  than a parliament where we have to listen to endless
speeches by party members that are long on rhetoric and short on
information. But in order for it to function as a classroom there has to
be a curricula with assigned readings, etc. We do best when we are talking
about problems in the class-struggle such as fascism or the revolutionary
potential of the working-class.

Therefore, I advocate that we start a new cyberseminar on nationalism
without any delay. This is what we need to get the forward momentum going.
I want to spend the rest of this week wrapping up my consideration of AM
and John Roemer, but I suggest that we can start the new cyberseminar on
March 24th. I volunteer to do the first report.

Here is a proposed schedule:

date/reporter/topic

March 24 -- Louis Proyect
Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg on the oppressed nationality question

March 31 -- Louis Godena
Stalin's views; the CPUSA and the "black belt"; DuBois

April 6 -- Scott McLemee
Trotsky and CLR James on black nationalism

April 13 -- Zeynep Toufeci
Kurdish nationalism

April 20 -- Gary McLennan
Irish nationalism

April 27 -- Blunose (Gay Farley)
Quebecois nationalism

Yes, I "volunteered" a number of people. Unless the "volunteers" step
forward, we are going to sink in a miasma. Absolutely no excuses from
Scott who failed to turn in his term paper from last Fall. Particularly no
excuses about an assignment to finish an article for "GEORGE". Let
"GEORGE" wait on line. I'll compensate you for any lost wages.


Louis Proyect

ps: Final word on the Alan Wald matter. In case nobody has noticed, I
function as political "id" most of the time. In Freudian theory, the
division of the psyche that is totally unconscious and serves as the
source of instinctual impulses and demands for immediate satisfaction of
primitive needs. My "id" is connected with a lifetime of political
associations with victories and defeats in the mass movement all of which
I have very primitive feelings about. The same force that can produce the
good stuff I write will also produce on bad mornings some really awful
stuff, like the kind directed against Alan. I have already apologized to
him off-list. The only explanation I have for my outburst is that I am
undergoing severe personal and professional stress right now. In a month
or so I expect things to be a lot less troublesome. Then I will be my
usual jolly self again.




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