Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 10:55:52 -0400
From: Louis Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Considerations on the Frankfurt School


Ralph Dumain:

> By Lou's own admission the various currents of socialist
>and Marxist thought were not very sophisticated, so is it a major shock that
>the repository of intellectual sophistication fell to the Franks, being the
>cultured intellectuals who could begin to analyze social subjectivity in a
>more sophisticated manner (though simultaneously limited by their own role
>as highly "cultured" intellectuals) than the rest of the competition, with
>the partial exception of Wilhelm Reich?  
>

Ralph is not on m-i, so he is not aware of my exhaustive discussion of
German Marxism in the early 1920s. In a nutshell, the Comintern--including
Trotsky--did everything it could to squelch independent Marxist thought in
the German Communist Party. Paul Levi was directed to carry out a madly
sectarian line in 1921 and told Lenin, Zinoviev and Trotsky that they were
nuts. He got expelled for advocating a united front which eventually became
the Comintern line. Levi's replacement was canned for protesting Comintern
interference with CP trade union work. All this took place before Stalin
took over. The idea of a halcyon period of the Comintern is a myth. Trotsky
instructed the head of the German Communist Party in 1923 what day of the
month it should launch an insurrection. It should coincide with the
anniversery of the Russian Revolution. This is Marxist wisdom? No, it is
foolishness. What destroyed German Marxism was the stupidity and dogmatism
of the Comintern.

Louis Proyect



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