Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 16:25:08 -0500 (EST)
From: louisgodena-AT-ids.net (Louis R Godena)
Subject: M-I: Re: EH Carr on the Communist Manifesto 



>Did Carr write much on Stalin in the period of the thirties and forties
>(after Socialism in One Country), [and] was there a change in outlook in
>his later years?

Carr actually had a great deal to say about Stalin during and after WWII,
much of which was censored by the London Times (where Carr was assistant
editor during the war).  He wrote lengthy reviews, too, for the *Times
Literary Supplement* on a variety of related topics.  His assessment of
Isaac Deutscher's *Stalin* (June 10, 1949), under the rubric "Stalin
victorious" is still the best brief exposition of what "Stalinist Russia"
was all about.  And his review of the multi-volume publication of Stalin's
*Works* locates "Stalinism" squarely where it belongs, in the logical
traditions of Lenin and the exigencies arising from October, 1917.  Both
these latter essays are available in the same volume from which the
*Communist Manifesto* was derived (*Studies in Revolution*).  You may want
to look at "The Legacy of Stalin", written in 1976 as a review essay of Alec
Nove's *Stalinism and After* and Moshe Lewin's *Political Undercurrents in
Soviet Economic Debates*.  It contains a reflection of his maturing views of
both Stalin and the Soviet Union on the eve of the completion of his *magnum
opus* on the Russian Revolution.

And, yes, Carr is my favorite historian, and one with whom I feel the most
empathy in matters political.  Paradoxically, I am much closer to Richard
Pipes, Martin Malia, and Orlando Figues on the general outlines of the
Bolshevik revolution than I am to the historians of the Left like Stephen
Cohen.  The Russian revolution *was* more of a coup d'etat than a
revolution; The Bolsheviks *did* lack working-class support (which probably
partly accounted for their success); Lenin *was* ruthless and underhanded,
and, above all else, craved power, qualities which were central to the
Communists taking power.  And, of course, Stalinism *was* the logical
successor to Leninism, without which, as Carr points out, Lenin's revolution
would have "run out into the sand".  

Part of my posting of Carr to m-i was in response to that awful piece by
Petras that Proyect (I think) posted a day or two earlier.  There is simply
no left-wing historian writing to-day that, to me, presents a mature,
convincing account of what communism is all about.  If I could persuade
Olaechea to do something,...well.  As for the "left-wing press" (about which
you specifically ask), it is uniformly horrible.  I am finding myself
nowadays unable even to read this goddamned contraption.

I think the lumpenized gangsterism that marks the "leadership" of these
"vanguard groups" (Mencken said it "would be flattery to call them stupid")
is the biggest single stumbling block to build a mass left-wing party.  It
is a culture that has to change, and change it will, even if the total
destruction of the Left is called for.  That would be preferable to
continuing with what we have.

In my humble opinion.

Louis Godena 






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