Date: Fri, 05 Aug 1994 14:12:49 -0500 (EST) From: eugeneh <eugeneh-AT-HUMANITIES1.COHUMS.OHIO-STATE.EDU> Subject: reply to Phil on Stalin Phil Goldstein asks: "Is th(e) 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." One can agree that Stalinism "grew out" of Marxism without going so far as saying that Marx's own views are "implicated" by the disaster of Stalin, much less that they are "complicit with Stalinist practices." "Complicity" really strikes me as linking Stalin far too closely with Marx. "Expropriating the expropriators doesn't directly "imply" gulags; nor does "dictatorship of the proletariat" imply Stalinist-style dictatorship: on the contrary, Marx uses it in parallel/contrast with the actually-existing "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie" which often takes precisely liberal-democratic form. The point is: all kinds of things can have grown out of as spacious and as "radical" (in the biological sense) an oeuvre as Marx's -- which leaves us with the (endless) task of pruning the growths (e.g. the less sophisticated, the less profound, the less democratic ones! etc.) that didn't bear the kind of fruit we like, rather than chopping down the whole tree "by implication". On a completely different note: I'm sorry to learn than Donna Jones will fall silent (here); her postings were great. Best of luck (if you're listening) on your dissertation project! Gene Holland ------------------
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