File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1996/96-10-29.043, message 108


From: shmage-AT-pipeline.com
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 1996 04:17:47 GMT
Subject: Re: M-TH: Respect for persons


On Sun,Oct 27, 1996 10:58:05 PM, Chris Burford wrote (inter alia): 
 
 
>But would every subscriber from the Trotskyist tradition  
>want to undertake never to use the term "Stalinism" because 
>if others wish to disagree with this, will the latter be under  
>threat of being forced to resign or be silent because they would then be 
>accused of "defending Stalinism". That does not seem to be  
>a reasonable or equitable request to make of those who come 
>from the Trotskyist tradition, that they should for the sake of  
>this list, never mention the word "Stalinism". For them  
>Trotskyism is defined as the counterpole to "Stalinism". That is 
>the way they think. I believe we have to transend these categories. 
>But that does mean first analysing them. 
 
"For them Trotskyism is defined as the counterpole to 'Stalinism'." 
 
Not on your life!  What you call "Trotskyism" is, to all who consider
themselves the spiritual heirs of Trotsky, nothing but the consistent
adherence to classical Marxism as adumbrated in theory by Marx and Engels
and in practice by the October Revolution.  The  "counterpole" of Marxism
can be nothing but the most serious and consistent defense of
capitalism--that of Ayn Rand, perhaps.  You persistently treat the
Stalin-Trotsky struggle as essentially a scholastic dispute over correct
interpretation of Lenin, while denying that this is an apology for
Stalinism.  But rivers of blood have flowed.  Stalinism now stands naked
before the whole world as the most vile betrayal of everything good and
noble in the Marxian tradition. Its nature  may perhaps be sufficiently
characterized by this "Malistalinovsky" post (combining contributions by
Proyect and Mage): 
 
On Wed,Sep 25, 1996 9:32:40 AM, Louis N Proyect wrote:  
  
>Notes from Elwood's pamphlet on the Malinovsky case. Malinovsky was an  
>infamous provocateur in the Bolshevik party.  
>  
>1. Descriptions of Malinovsky refer to his 'disdain for the usual   
>rules of spelling and grammar'.  
>  
>2. Malinovsky's own accounts of his background fluctuated. But in his   
>formal evidence to enquiry he described his poor background and   
>limited education.  
>  
>3. Malinovsky had a record of minor crime before entering politics.   
>This resulted in at least one prison spell, during which the   
>authorities obtained the information with which they controlled him   
>later.  
>  
>4. Malinovsky's political activity begins suddenly and with a high   
>level of intensity. following a prison term. The circumstances of his   
>conversion to the marxist cause have never become clear.  
>  
>5. Following his appearance in political activity he moves rapidly   
>into leading positions, showing an ability to impress and convince   
>large numbers of people.  
>  
>6. A further arrest and short imprisonment, followed by release and   
>(internal) exile.  
>  
>7. An ability to inspire obstinate loyalty on the part of leading   
>revolutionaries (inc. Lenin) even in the face of the facts. This was   
>attributed to 'reverse snobbery' ie exaggerated respect for a working   
>class origin, on the part of his most loyal supporters.  
>  
>8. A manner of discussing that 'made me feel tired immediately'   
>(Voronsky).  
>  
>9. A career episode in publishing and journalism, despite the   
>limitations of his language skills.  
  
  
This fascinating little account, so striking in its similarities to the 
career of a certain famous Bolshevik leader, got me to thinking:  What if 
Malinovsky, or a second Okhranik of his ilk and stature,  had *not* been 
unmasked?  What sort of  political leader would he have turned out to be?  
What sort of things would he have done?  Maybe I let my imagination run 
away with me, but here are a few of the (admittedly improbable) things I 
came up with:  
  
-In March 1917, as one of the top Bolsheviks not in external exile , he 
would (acting sincerely as a Great-Russian chauvinist) have done what he 
could to rally the Bolsheviks to support of Russia in the imperialist war. 

Pursuing  his career in journalism, he would even have attempted to block 
publication of Lenin's         anti-war "Letters from Abroad."  
  
-When Lenin returned in April 1917, he would abjectly abandon his defensist

line and from then on pass himself off as Lenin's most devoted follower. 
But he would hide politically and disappear from open politics. He would 
play no role (except on a letterhead) in the October Revolution.  
  
-During the Civil War he would start building his own powerbase in the 
party apparatus, especially in the army.  He would foment a "Military 
Opposition" against the commander of the Red Army,  going so far as to 
perpetrate direct disobedience of a vital order--resulting in a military 
and political disaster of historic proportions at the gates of Warsaw.  
  
-After the victory, he would use his power to turn the Communist regime 
into a Great-Russian chauvinist one,  even organizing  brutal suppression 
of the  Transcaucasian nationalities.    
  
-He would make a firm alliance with the head of the secret police,  but 
recruit his most important and vital agents from among its devils ("A 
Chekist must be either a saint or a devil"--Feliks Dzherzhinsky).  
  
-When Lenin (for whose personal security and care he had made himself 
primarily responsible) was about to unmask him, he would have the 
incredible luck to see Lenin become incapable of political intervention and

then to see Lenin die suddenly just when the doctors were encouraged enough

about Lenin's recovery for his own most dangerous enemy to leave Moscow on
a 
medically-indicated vacation.  
  
-He would have seized the opportunity of Lenin's death to capture for the 
Russian state and for himself the underlying religious and nationalist 
thought-patterns of the Russian masses.  By violating the most definite 
declarations of the deceased, and over the strenuous protests of the widow,

he would turn Lenin into a mummified Communist god-king,  whose eventual 
"successor" would inherit enough appeal to religio-nationalist credulity to

claim legitimacy as a new Tsar blessed by History (by now his thinking 
would be decisively marked by the vulgar Marxism he had learned to 
parrot--though his values, sentiments, and ambitions would forever remain 
those of an Okhranik).  
  
-He would ruthlessly strive to consolidate his personal power, making and 
breaking unprincipled blocs with opportunistic factions of the party 
leadership, depriving the internal party opposition of all opportunity to 
organize, and making fulsome use of all the techniques of the courtier from

flattery to assassination but with a special preference for slander.  
  
-Having secured total political control for himself, and having exiled his 
greatest enemy, he would have followed policies aimed at the most rapid 
expansion of   
Russian military and industrial power, even at the cost of immeasurable 
suffering to the Soviet peoples and castration of Soviet agriculture.  In 
foreign affairs he would preferentially seek alliance with the most 
nationalist elements in Germany--going so far as to manipulate the 
Comintern and the KPD in order to secure the rise to power of an Adolf 
Hitler.  
  
-He would coldly and patiently (he would call a slow and cold revenge his 
greatest pleasure) bring about the political and physical destruction of 
the entire remaining Bolshevik cadre, sparing neither surrendered opponents

nor his former dupes.  He would create in his own police-informer image a 
whole new nomenklatura cadre of bureaucratic political and industrial 
managers, whose  
"ordeal by fire" would be the demand by the secret police to inform against

and falsely denounce the doomed Bolsheviks.  
  
-Having presided over (much more than a little despite himself) an epochal 
military victory he would give free reign to his truest passions. Having 
been unable (except for intra-party demagogy) to do much direct persecution

of Jews, he would make up for it by  unleashing a cumulative pogrom, 
starting with poets and actors and going on to doctors and 
thenceforward...Having earlier satiated his youthful hatred of the Orthodox

clergy, he would restore the Church    
to its traditional role as spiritual monopolist and sanctifier of 
absolutism...Having become deranged by self-induced flattery he would begin

to see himself as the greatest genius in the history of humanity, a kind of

combination of Jesus Christ, Peter the Great, and Karl Marx,  
  
-He would die a sudden and mysterious death, together with the head of his 
bodyguard, just at the moment his immediate subordinates had become 
terrorized that he would deal with them the way he was preparing to deal 
with Jewish doctors.  
  
-He would, of course, have succeeded so well in destroying all verifiable 
documentary evidence of his role as Okhranik that even the most resolute 
prosecutor before the court of history would, on this alone of his crimes, 

be unable to gain other than a Scottish verdict--not proven.  
  
Regards,  
                   Shane Mage  
          
"Why Lvov?" (Lenin) 


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