File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/97-04-21.135, message 74


Date: Mon, 21 Apr 1997 08:33:16 -0400 (EDT)
From: Louis Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: M-I: Brutishness


David Bedggood:

If you want to treat this list as your baby, OK. I'm not against 
surrogate children. But this kiddie has to grow up on the nasty 
brutish and short-tempered world of the net, not to mention the 
bigger jungle out there. This baby needs some immunity from the 
nasties that inhabit that world.  Don't be overprotective, let baby 
grow up and leave home, uncle Proyect and uncle Cox. Better still 
you grow up and leave home. Visit your cousies on the M-G list 
occasionally. Check it out to see if some nefarious shit is not 
pinching your intellectual property,  mispelling your name, and 
taking monstrous liberties with you babies private particulars.

Louis Proyect:

"Marxist-Leninist" organizations have a double standard when it comes to
discussion. In their own internal discussions, such as the kind that occurs
prior to a convention, they strive for an ideal of calm, rational and
comradely political and intellectual collaboration. This ideal, of course,
is often betrayed by the sort of factional atmosphere which overtakes
discussions of hotly contested issues. But even in this type of situation, I
have never heard the sort of abusive language that comes from
"Marxist-Leninists" on a daily basis here. For example, the use of the term
"Menshevik" is so polarizing and so belligerent that it is only used when a
split has become a fait accompli. During the most intense faction fights of
the SWP and the Ernest Mandel wing of the Fourth International, I never once
heard Mandel and his opponents refer to each other as "Mensheviks", let
alone describe each other's literature as something they were going to wipe
their behinds with.

Of course, 90 years ago the term "Menshevik" was not a stigma, it only
described one of the major divisions of the Russian Social Democracy. Lenin
did not view the Mensheviks as traitors and even considered reuniting with
them in 1910. He also considered making a bloc with them against the
ultraleft Bolshevik Bogdanov, the only member of his faction who was ever
expelled.

Today it simply functions as a curse word in Marxist lexicon. It is a way of
calling somebody a representative of the class enemy. It is part of the
grab-bag of phrases that are used to demonize political adversaries without
taking the trouble to analyze their politics. Trotskyists are fond of this
curse word, while Maoists prefer to stigmatize their opponents as
"revisionist". In either case, it is a way of saying that somebody is on the
other side of the barricades. My attitude toward Rodwell, Bedggood and other
Trotskyists is that they are revolutionary Marxists, no matter what they
think of me.

The reason that there is continual tension on these Spoons lists with
Maoists and Trotskyists is that they see them as a public arena in which
they can slay their enemies. The rest of us who are not committed to any
particular party strive for the sort of calm, rational and comradely
political and intellectual collaboration that they reserve for their own
internal discussions. We are operating at cross-purposes. They would not
allow me into their party headquarters during one of their private meetings
to hurl curse words at them, but when their internal meeting has concluded
they roll up their sleeves, put chewing tobacco in their mouths and come
here to brand everybody they disagree with as Menshevik.

Of course, this whole approach to politics has nothing to do with the manner
in which the Russian Social Democracy functioned. Their sharp exchanges took
place within the context of mutual respect. There was room for sharp
disagreement without trying to demonize those you disagree with as traitors.
For example, I have tons of respect for Doug Henwood, but I think his ideas
on black nationalism are wrong. The same was true for Bukharin and Lenin,
who had major public disagreements on nationalism as well.

One of the big tasks for the Marxist left as we approach the 21st century is
to finally break with the harmful and self-destructive models of the past.
We no longer have to carry around the dead weight of the Soviet Union. We
can simply say that this was part of history and that it is not the sort of
socialism we seek. The same thing is true of the "vanguardist" model of the
early Comintern. This model gave birth to Stalinist monolithism. It also
gave birth to its twin brother, Trotskyist sectarianism. Since the collapse
of the Soviet Union, these two party-building models and the
self-destructive political culture they gave birth to are fading fast.

We can see faint shadows of them on the Internet, where every individual
with a computer can take on the dimensions of a mass party given the proper
amount of stage lighting and sound effects. In real space, there simply is
not much evidence of them. In New York City there is very little evidence of
Maoism or Trotskyism on the march. There is plenty of discussion about what
type of organization that we need, but not a single human being I have run
into thinks that these relics of the 1920s, 30s and 40s can do much good.






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