Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 01:25:16 -0500 (EST) From: Louis N Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu> Subject: M-I: Background on Spoons Marxism Lists I would like to elaborate on my idea of what the purpose of a new list should be. Before doing that I would like to provide some background on the various Spoons Marxism lists from their inception. In the beginning there was a Marxism list that was started by graduate students and others who were organized as the Spoons Collective and whose primary interest was cultural studies. They saw Marx as just one more thinker in the tradition of Baudrillard, Foucault, etc., except that he came before them and had some kind of reputation as a communist. Before too long, many people began to treat the Marxism list as a place to emphasize the communist side of Marx rather than his influence on cultural studies. The list became a place where two clashing cultures operated at cross-purposes. I used to urge the creator of the Marxism list, Jon Beasley-Murray, who never posts nowadays, to split the list between theoretical/academics and activist/socialists but he had the notion that this would be harmful. He believed that there were too many artificial separations in Marxist thought already. He was very idealistic. There was tension in the list between the two groupings and things sort of staggered along for months and months. Then last year about this time, a number of comrades showed up around who were zealous supporters of the Communist Party of Peru. Their leader was Adolfo Olaechea. A terrible flame war then broke out. This precipitated a split in the Marxism list. Most of the academics and cultural studies folks joined forces with hardened Stalinophobes into in a new list called "Marxism-2". This was a list moderated by the late Lisa Rogers, an anthropology student at the University of Utah. Those who did not leave the original list were content to co-exist with the Maoist and "Stalinist" comrades and focus their energy on activist and socialist issues. This list became known as "Marxism-1". After a few months, Marxism-1 went into a new crisis. After the academics left, the list became a battleground between different Maoist factions over who had the real authority to represent the Peruvian revolutionary movement. Most of this fighting was very difficult for anybody outside of the Maoist movement to make heads or tails out of. In addition, the list became burdened by the interventions of hard-core Trotskyist sects and individuals. It was demoralizing to open one's email in the morning and discover 100 worthless posts. 50 might be devoted to the question of which Maoist faction was working with Fujimori, while the other 50 were calls to build the Fourth International. This was junk mail with a vengeance. After what seemed an eternity, the Spoons Collective met in NY and decided to kill M-1. They also decided to kill M-2. In actuality, M-1 became Marxism-international with a 3 post per day limit while Marxism-2 became Marxism-thaxis (thaxis is a neologism that combines "theory" and "practice.") A third list called marxism-general was set up as an unmoderated list without any rules. Marxism-thaxis had problems from the beginning that stemmed from the dependence of the list on the strong personality and charisma of Lisa Rogers. After her untimely death of a heart attack, m-2 seemed to have lost a lot of its momentum and focus. When it was transformed into marxism-thaxis, it seems to have lost whatever steam it once had. I am not exactly sure why this is so. I suspect that our visitation from Jerry Levy has something to do with the fact that marxism-thaxis, his favorite haunt, is defunct. If that list had maintained some kind of vitality and energy, we wouldn't be burdened by his antics now. Marxism-general also had a fitful start. Mostly it is declarations of one sort or another by Rolf Martens, a German Maoist living in Sweden and Bob Malecki, an American Trotskyist living in Sweden. Martens posted a call for people to rally in defense of a breeder reactor recently. Malecki writes the sort of sad, unanswered, and reclusive posts that only mental-health professionals could begin to understand the motivation for. Marxism-international was a big success story from the start. Mostly all of us were grateful for the fact that the boring and annoying people could send mail out only 3 times a day rather than 30. There was also a lot of pent-up energy for some good discussion as soon as the list started. We had an interesting discussion of the Sokal affair, a cyberseminar on the working-class, and lots of good exchanges from a variety of new subscribers. About a month ago things started to turn sour. What caused things to turn sour is that people have been making a determined effort to turn the clock back to last March when the Shining Path wars destroyed the old list. Basically you have a group of people who are determined to SMASH STALINISM and around the same number of people who are determined to SMASH TROTSKYISM. They view the list as being somewhat analogous to trench warfare. One side pushes forward for a week or two, while the other side retreats to replenish ammunition and bring in fresh troops. Then they push back and re-gain 20 or 30 feet new territory, place their flag in the ground, and crow victory. Meanwhile the rest of us are in a daze trying to struggle for a calm atmosphere where discussion of current events and Marxist theory may take place. All about us we hear gunfire, cursing and screams about the "great betrayal of 1924" and "the need to defend the working-class". This is the sort of stuff that can drive one crazy. The worst part of it is that it will drive away new people who are sane and who have something to offer. About two months ago I discovered that Teresa Ebert was on the M-I list. She is one of the most interesting Marxist feminist thinkers in the United States today. I am sure that she took one look at the quality-to-quantity ratio on the list and dropped out. The problem is that anybody who has a busy life teaching, working and writing has little patience going through a hundred posts a day trying to find something worthwhile. The plain truth is that all we have done is taken m-1 and reduced the number of posts. We have the same sectarian speech-makers as before. We have the same contingent of people who are determined to re-fight the battles of 1924 (or 1934 or 1944) until they finally come out on top. Coming out "on top" in cyberspace is a dubious proposition to say the least. I don't expect things to get any better either. We have a number of people who are hardened Stalinophobes from academia like Jerry Levy and Paul Zarembka. They are joined by the Trotskyists who see everybody in the world as their enemy. Then we have a number of Stalin-supporters who are now completely embittered, including Mark Jones who has descended into homophobia. The atmosphere has become completely poisoned as it was on m-1. In my next post I will try to describe a moderated list that will move us beyond this impasse. Louis Proyect (www.columbia.edu/~lnp3) --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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