File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/97-03-31.182, message 68


From: m-14970-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 1997 10:17:29 +0200
Subject: M-I: A major Stalinist defeat & social pressures -- Gary M & Rahul


In the exchange between Rahul M and Gary M I quote as a PS, we can see a
clear example of social pressures at work.

Gary M tells us he's leaving the list. (Threats like this have been two a
penny recently, but let's assume Gary means it.) But the politics of sex
and to a lesser extent the politics of culture have been remarkably
prominent recently, which is just up Gary's street. So why should he leave?

Perhaps the level of personal abuse has increased? But how about this from
Rahul to BodySack back on 1 June last year?

>... you must be
>a loathesome, fucked-up, nasty, subhuman, disgusting piece of shit crawling
>with lice and maggots.

And this was semi-rational in its context -- there had been and were later
much worse examples from the usual crowd round Louis >< P and Adolf-O (of
blessed memory). So I wouldn't say the level of abuse has increased. So why
should Gary leave?

He claims that sanity has left the list when he writes: "Should sanity ever
return to it I might". I think he would be hard pressed to show how
*sanity* has departed from this list with the departure of Adolf-O and his
hangers-on. We have seen the departure of articulate and reasonable
subscribers in the past, but these were mainly academic Marxists revulsed
at the gang-fighting tactics of the Stalinists -- no bike chains, razors or
armoured boots in the drawing room, please (or uzis if you're American).

It's clear that what's happened is that Gary is playing coy -- "I do not
defend Adolfo's current attacks on Zeynep" -- in order to retire with his
"honour" intact, while the substance of Rahul's charge of "cravenly sucking
up to Olaechea for the past year" is ignored.

Gary has a thinner hide than the leaders of our particular bunch of
neo-Stalinists (Doug H and notably Louis P, who's nothing but hide), so he
shows  the world how exposed he feels. And he does feel exposed now the
social pressure constituted by the Stalinists on the list has gone. The
Stalinists provided Gary's "firm ground" and hinterland. He has been
posting more and more about how attracted to the dogma and fetishist
certainty of the Stalinist position he has become over the past few months.

What's happened is that Gary has opted for the Stalinist movement now that
the real Stalinist regimes have deserted him and his fellow-travelling
comrades. He's gone where he feels at home.

Doug and Louis P on the other hand have their own little metropolitan
community of empiricist lefts, they are less exposed than Gary in Brisbane,
and freer to attach themselves to the most promising social force that pops
up to the surface of events (and also of course to drop any social force
that loses its potency or becomes just too embarrassing).

The list has just witnessed a *major defeat for Stalinism*. They scooted
with their tails between their legs. They gave up on making an impression
in an open Marxist forum and retreated to utopian ideological autarky.
They're so pure that not even Rolf Martens is welcome. It would be fun to
subscribe to their list just to watch it self-destruct, the way Left-Unity
self-destructed.

Gary is no longer able to pretend that he is unaffected by this defeat for
Stalinism. It'll be interesting to see if he tries to join Adolf-O's list
and what happens to him there -- if anything ever gets out of that
ideological black hole...

As for social pressures, Bob M's proposal to substitute Yoshie F for Louis
G as a moderator is interesting. Since the list is no democracy, any change
of this kind would represent a clear shift in empiricist perceptions of the
centre of gravity of list membership. If the Stalinist constituency for
which Louis G is a fellow-thinking guarantor evaporates, there is no need
for any guarantees, and Louis can return to simply putting his own personal
views to the list. Further to this, it's interesting that the Trotskyists
feel no apparent need of any guarantors etc -- they feel secure enough in
their political positions!

All these internal list developments are taking place at the same time as
there is an obvious upsurge in revolutionary activity around the world. The
Albanian people arms itself and immediately imperialist Europe feels the
blood clotting in its veins. A petty-bourgeois left nationalist movement
rises towards power in one of the richest and most strategic of African
countries months rather than years after the removal of the apartheid
regime in South Africa. The dead end of sensationalist coup politics is
painfully obvious in Peru. Internationally coordinated strikes hit Europe
(Renault), and the permanent seething of social and class discontent in
Russia is spreading and hotting up. There are riots everywhere (eg
Palestine and Indonesia).

This upsurge will push centrists to the left. It should encourage
revolutionaries to get long-term in their commitment to building an
international party capable of intervening to channel the revolutionary
energy towards replacing the current state dictatorships of the bourgeoisie
with dictatorships of the proletariat.


Cheers,

Hugh




>At 07:09 AM 3/29/97 -0800, Rahul wrote:
>>I write a post clearly stating that it is not Stalinism that is the problem
>(and
>>not the Stalinists, with whom we can cooperate as long as they are on the
>>ground fighting), but vile behaviour such as Olaechea's (calling for the
>>killing of political opponents) which should be condemned no matter who
>>in the
>>"left" originates it. And Gary Maclennan and Louis Proyect come back with a
>>long post educating me on the necessity of working with Stalinists, and
>>concentrating on current issues!
>>
>
>Mahajan,
>
>Like most stuff on this list this is starting to give me the shits.  You're
>coming in on the end of a dispute and yet assume you know it all.  I do not
>defend Adolfo's current attacks on Zeynep.  They are truly shocking and if
>the moderators were up to the mark they would stop posting them.  I wrote
>originally in response to Zaremka's baiting of Mark Jones.  My intervention
>then was to designed to prevent what has since happened.  I wrote because I
>cared about the list.
>
>My thanks has been to have idiots like you accuse me of being a goon and
>then saying no I was not a goon only a craven ass kisser.  Well friend that
>is an insult in my language.  Like in the case of that other little cowardly
>shit Levy I will give you I hope some day the opportunity to repeat it to my
>face. But again like him you would be very ill advised to do so.  For what
>it is worth yes I will try and rip your fucking head off.
>
>And by the way the moderators can spare themselves the trouble of writing to
>me.  I am leaving this list.  Should sanity ever return to it I might.
>
>G.MacLennan
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>>Also, Lou Proyect accuses me of not spending enough time posting to the list
>>*and* of being obsessed with the computer. At the same time. I guess this is
>>one of those marxist contradictions. My apologies if I had other things to do
>>than posting to this list, but I'm hard-pressed to understand how that
>>amounts
>>to being obsessed with the computer and netiquette.
>>
>>Apparently I didn't write my first sentence very clearly. I did not intend to
>>accuse Henwood, Maclennan, Proyect, and Cox of being goons nor of
>>constituting
>>a gang -- those who are actually Olaechea's goons are not worth discussing. I
>>accused them merely of cravenly sucking up to Olaechea, a charge which I am
>>amazed they can deny with a straight face.
>>
>>I give Henwood and Cox some credit for admitting that this thug is a thug,
>>although they seem to think that writing admiring things in public about
>>a thug
>>is perfectly all right. Although none of these four is a goon, what they have
>>been doing is also unforgivable. They have the intelligence and the ethical
>>sense to know what Olaechea is, but for unprincipled reasons which I still
>>cannot fathom, they have ignored this until, now, the best they can do is to
>>sit in uncomfortable silence.
>>
>>That's the issue. No, you're not goons, just damnable hypocrites. Without the
>>likes of Proyect and Maclennan around, the internecine violence on the left
>>could never have gone on so long. It's not like there are lots of evil people
>>who diabolically mastermind such things -- it needs a large number of people
>>who just go along to get along.
>>
>>And, Gary, if you're so impressed by anger, why don't you show that admirable
>>quality against people who call for killing political opponents? As far
>>as I'm
>>concerned, your pitiful apologetics are no better than your calling for the
>>breaking of Zeynep's bones yourself.
>>
>>Rahul
>>
>>P.S. For purposes of clarity, I'm reposting what I wrote about Stalinism,
>>which
>>Proyect and Maclennan managed to "misunderstand" with such facility.
>>
>>>The point that I have raised, of course, as Proyect well knows, is >not
>>>Stalin
>>admiration. In the third world, it is a very >understandable and excusable
>>phenomenon, often not really affecting >the realities of struggle against
>>capitalist oppression. In the first >world, it is more of a fitting
>>subject for
>>abnormal psychology and >remedial education than for serious political
>>contention. There is a >big difference, though, between thinking Stalin was a
>>good guy or the >Soviet Union was a great place because you think the
>>camps and
>>all >the rest are just imperialist propaganda, because you want so
>>>desperately
>>to believe there can be something better than the sordid >muck you see around
>>>you, or even thinking that the monstrous tragedy that was the Soviet >Union
>>was inevitable, that the rulers did the best they could with >what they
>>had, on
>>the one hand, and, on the other hand, being >buddy-buddy with someone who has
>>just called for the torture and >murder of a person because she applied the
>>rules of a mailing list to >him. His attempt to shift the issue and evade his
>>palpable and >evident culpability in this regard just exposes the fact of his
>>>unprincipled opportunism more clearly. It has nothing to do with a
>>>>political
>>orientation. He's not kidding anybody.
>>
>>>There are people here in Turkey who think the Soviet Union was a >wonderful
>>place and defend things like the crushing of Hungary and >Czechoslovakia
>>because of the need to "defend the workers' state" who >are, even so, the
>>finest people I hope to know. They would be as >disgusted by Olaechea's
>>thuggishness and Proyect's hypocritical >apologetics as I am. (Substitute
>>"Proyect and Maclennan" for >"Proyect".)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
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