Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 09:10:18 +0200
From: Robert Malecki <malecki-AT-algonet.se>
Subject: Re: M-I: PANIC LEFT-7


At 13:17 1997-04-12 -0400, you wrote:
>In a message dated 97-04-11 09:56:38 EDT, malecki-AT-algonet.se (Robert Malecki)
>writes:
>
><< Are you not doing the exact same think of "overkill" that our Buffalo
> "Marxists" are doing with there "cyber facism"?
> 
> Lenin's "What is to be Done" had to do with a all Russian newspaper and not
> the Moscow trials...
> 
> Linking Stalinism to Lenin as the original crime is both wrong and
> dangerous. And the only *real* goal of "democracy" I am really interested
> in is the Democratic Dictatorship of the Proletariat..

Utica replys;

>  >>
>the specific topic was a newspaper, the context was party building
>(refashioning) and the background was a social democrat party operating in
>conditions of quasi-legality in a country exploited by Western European
>capital and just emerging from feudal conditions of rural tenure. i dont
>think it is overkill to criticize that legacy of lenin which, at least,
>created the preconditions for stalin. the systematic elimination of inner
>party democracy put a noose around trotsky's neck, the destruction of worker
>independent organizations, the treatment of virtually every social activity
>as a proper realm for party domination. all of these can be found in lenin's
>time. 

Well, creating a combat organisation to fight in the interests of the
Proletariat demands both a high degree of democratic centralism and
disipline. However this was not the reason for the degeneration and
destruction of the Bolshevik Party...It was political line connected to a
click put its own interests before the interests of the Russian and
International proletariat I believe. And you have to prove to me where
Lenin or Trotsky are responsible for the twists and turns of the Stalinists.. 

i do not think that stalin was lenin's twin or son. i do think that
>lenin had serious blind-sides, several of which were brilliantly and
>presciently fingered by luxemburg, none of which appear to have been
>understood by any of the bolsheviks. stalin did not just appear. and leninism

Oh really? Could you be more specific about Luxemburg's critisism's?
Because much of the controversy I do support Lenin on.. And this includes
Lenin's polemics against Trotsky on the party question because Trotsky was
a fucking Menshevik on this stuff. At least until 1917...

>is not the sole franchise of the barracks left. while stalinists MUST create
>a chinese wall between social democracy and communism, seems to me that the
>no man's land in between is where the small and gifted band of lost left
>souls of the teens, 20s and 30s all belong such as luxemburg and gramsci.
>that is what has intrigued me about trotsky and the motley crew which come
>after him. an appreciation of the scientific demands of socialism and the
>instinct against the bureaucrats, militarists and other apparatchiks.

This might be because real "Trotskyists" actually want to both fight in the
interests of the proletariat and help create the vanguard of workers needed
to point the way forward.
>
>hal draper had a lot of interesting things to say about the genesis and
>development of the marxist notion of democratic dictatorship. to investigate
>the links between lenin and stalin may be dangerous but since when have
>marxists shrunk from pursuing the truth ? what is heretical about considering
>that lenin found himself backed into a corner because, not surprisingly, he
>had a flawed understanding of the need for and strength of dispersing power
>while empowering the working masses ? i am convinced that most marxists have
>thrown out the baby with the bathwater, that the truths that lenin uncovered
>will have to be relearned due to the lies and deceptions that antistalinists
>understandably want to avoid.


OK I'll bite. Just exactly what truths do you mean concretely? 
>
>isnt there a real similarity, by the way, between the Buffalo group and those
>who formed the lenin list in the need to form a clique, to exclude and to
>turn discussion or even argument into jargon tossing ? 

Well, the difference is that the Stalinists have proven that they are
prepared time and again to repeat not only crimes against their political
opponents but fighting for the same politics which has lead to defeat after
defeat after defeat of the working class. Whereas the Buffalo group appear
to be hardly "marxists" wiithout a history in the workers movement, who
lean towards calling everybody who disagrees with them or even poses a
question as "cyberfascist". 

To be more clear the Stalinists were for example responsible for the
bloodbath in Shang-Hai in the 20ties and just as responsible for helping
Hitler to power in the 3oties. Our Buffalo group at best have appeared on
the scene just a couple of weeks ago and appear not to even understand what
fascism is. They throw it around like it was a piece of bubblegum. So to
compare the two at least for me sounds just a bit ridiculous..
>
>as usual, my own ability to communicate clearly, directly and simply is
>impaired. overkill ? probably. its hard to avoid overreacting when there are
>such clear patterns of left-wing abuses and you see the same mindsets at
>work. sort of like "Adolpho" who can mau-mau the academic flackcatchers and
>count on them carrying his bags on his way out. why spend a lifetime to wind
>up with new bosses who would be no different that the old except less
>tolerant of any deviations.

Well' Malecki certainly is guilty of "over-reacting polemically. But then
again "over-reacting sometimes helps move the discussions in all kinds of
different directions...

One of my latest reactions in a private letter was; 

"The lists here almost make me feel like a black telephone repairman who
lives in Harlem and spends his days repairing telephones on Wall Street!"

Warm regards
Bob Malecki
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