From: Carrol Cox <cbcox-AT-rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu>
Subject: M-TH: On the Longevity of Marxism
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 1998 20:23:33 -0600 (CST)


Doug writes, ". . .or Marxism will die as an intellectual tradition and a
political movement. It's near death already, thanks in no small part to a
boneheaded dogmatism and an almost limitless capacity for self-deception."

The evidence Doug summarizes here in the phrases "boneheaded dogmatism"
and "capacity for self-deception," while quite correct, does not support
his suggested conclusion. Marxism has in a sense "died"  several times
already, and undoubtedly faces future deaths as well, but as long as
capitalism last, marxism will always rise again. Also I think the causal
relationships are not so clearcut as Doug suggests here. 

When the world's working classes are in retreat, marxism tends to turn
boneheaded and self-deceiving, and then it is too easy to mistake the
effect for the cause, as I think Doug does in this post. During such
periods those who consider themselves marxists struggle primarily (to
wrench a sentence by T. S. Eliot from its context) not in the hope of
triumphing but merely to keep certain hopes and possibilities alive. When
conditions do change (and there is little we can do to bring that
necessary change about), I think you will find that a very few marxists
will go a long ways.

When over 90 years ago Trotsky argued that there would be no more Father
Gapons (have I got that name correct), and Lenin accused Trotsky of being
a blowhard, claiming that there must in fact be many more Father Gapons, I
think he was making the point I try to make here in claiming that there is
little we can do to bring about the changes which will provide for a
"rebirth" of marxism: for that we must depend on the potential Father
Gapons scattered through the working class.

One other word on something Justin said in one of his posts, about being
red-baited out of the anti-Gulf War movement. Something like that may have
happened to me a few weeks ago. I read in the local paper that there had
been a peace demonstration at the Normal City Hall, led by some students,
the spokesperson for the demonstration saying they had held it there
rather than on campus because they wished to reach out to "the community." 
I looked up his e-mail address and posted him, mentioning the various
community groups (unions, central-america solidarity people, the black
community) that I could link him to, and forwarded to him some of the
posts on the Gulf situation that appeared on the marxism lists. I never
got a response of any sort. I don't know why, but if it was on the basis
of some sort of anti-communism, he would have gotten a surprise had the
situation not cooled off in the Gulf and activity had continued, he would
have found that every time he turned a corner he would have met either me
or my wife or someone we had worked with closely in the last 20 years --
even in all the churches that include any anti-war sentiment (Mennonite,
Unitarian, some local Catholics). I doubt that the situation in
Bloomington/Normal is all that unique: I think it is the case all over the
nation that there remain scattered men and women who have ties to marxism,
and who would unite local struggles regionally and nationally were
politics to "heat up."

What the Spoons marxism lists clearly do, despite the high proportion of
bullshit on them, is generate a web of acquaintanceship which could be a
very powerful force some day.

Carrol



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