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. --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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