Date: Sat, 2 Nov 1996 11:11:47 -0500 (EST)
From: Justin Schwartz <jschwart-AT-freenet.columbus.oh.us>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Levy and Glucksmann (was Pipes)


On Fri, 1 Nov 1996, Ralph Dumain wrote:

> What is solid and useful about Kolakowski?  I thought he was a 
> mush-head like the rest.

K is is a real scholar and knows what ana rgument looks like. His
knowledge of the Marxist literture is deep and broad and he tought
carefullt about almost everything he has read. His conclusions are opposed
yto ours and occasionally he commits and embarassing solecism because of
his anti-socialist animus, but any Marxist will learn a lot by reading
carefulklt through Main Currents, and not just be thinking through where
we disagree. His interpretations are often illuminating and even,
arguably, correct, even where his objexctions are unsound. 

My ols teacher Al Meyer at Michigan, a nonMarxist socialist German refugee
>from the Nazis, used Main Currents as seconadry reading in his Marxism
course in the UM POlisci Dept. I didn't take the course, but I did an
independent study on Lukacs with Meyer. M wrote the first major
"mainstream" study of Leninism in the 1950s, when it was worth your
academic career to do that; ther book is still valuable, by the way. 

--Justin




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