Date: Fri, 5 Aug 1994 08:10:56 -0400 (EDT)
From: Philip Goldstein <pgold-AT-strauss.udel.edu>
Subject: marx/stalinism


	The discussion of the German and the Russian workingclasses have 
blamed Stalinism for many difficulties but exonerrated Marx. The 
discussion assumes that oppressive, dictatorial Stalinism blocked the 
development of genuinely revolutionary movements but Marx's thought can 
still guide and direct them. Is this distinction between Marx and 
Stalinism naive? Doesn't Stalinism grow out of Marx's thought, including 
his belief that the workingclass must expropriate the expropriators or 
take control of the means of production? I don't mean that Marx was not 
more sophisticated, liberal, or profound than the Stalinists (or 
Marxist-Leninists); I mean that his views are clearly implicated in or 
complicit with the practices of the Stalinists. To deny this implication 
is to make Marx's ideas timeless, eternally valid and applicable. THat 
assumption strikes me as clearly non-Marxist. 
Philip Goldstein
Associate Professor of English and Philosophy
University of Delaware (Parallel)



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