File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1998/marxism-thaxis.9802, message 607


Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 13:29:02 -0500 (EST)
From: Justin Schwartz <jschwart-AT-freenet.columbus.oh.us>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Re: ethics and intentions


On Wed, 25 Feb 1998, Carrol Cox wrote:

>  Whatever we get at the end of any social transformation won't
> > be socialism, by definition, if involves, e.g., racism. You disguise this
> > essentially idealist approach under a materialist cloack by invoking a
> > process of change, which you say will result in the exteripation of
> > racism.
> 
> Then you explain to me how socialism can be won by a working class that
> refuses to stand up to racism?

This is perverse. Of course the working class has to stand up to racism,
etc. to get socialism. But thsi will not necessarily transform them into
wonderful people who have no bad attitudes. Solidarities created in the
heat of the struggle may not last. They may not carry over in different
circumstances. They may be partial and temporary and confused, or based on
narrow compromise that collapses when the need for it is gone rather than
on principle. Learn from Lenin, old chap! Read what he had to say about
the cultural condition of the postrevolutionary Russian working class and
peasantry. But I learned this from my own experience and other history as
well.

Here's a case in point. To win the Civil War Lincoln had to emancipate the
slaves in the unoccupied South and admit them into the Union Army. That
revolution, because it was one, America's incomplete bourgepis revolution,
involved profoundly atiracist policies. Did it eradicate racism in the
North or even the ARmy? Hardly. Examples could be multipled. 

> 
> The Weathermen were a bit more honest. They came out flat and declared
> that the only way socialism could come to the U.S. was by being imposed
> through occupation by a foreign army.

And you attribute this view to _me_?

In any case, we were talking about the need for morality. Supose that you
are right that the struggle for revolution has wiped out all kinds of
racism, sexism, and chauvinism. We area s solidasristic as you please. Now
will you complete the dialog I started about where to site the power plant
without reference to any moral principles?

--jks




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