File spoon-archives/marxism.archive/marxism_1994/marxism_1Aug.94, message 69


Date: Sun, 7 Aug 1994 10:33:16 -0400 (EDT)
From: Philip Goldstein <pgold-AT-strauss.udel.edu>
Subject: Re: marxism-leninism/stalinism


	Many thanks to everyone for their interesting and insightful 
comments on the Marx/Stalin issue and for the chance to discuss this 
issue with knowledgeable people. I want to clarify my position, which is 
that to establish a close connection between Marx and Stalinism is a 
right-wing view. By right-wing I mean that this view, which identifies 
Marx with the Enlightenment tradition, means to argue that Stalinism 
discredits not only Marx and communism but also all forms of liberal 
politics as well. The error of this view is that it ignores the Tzarist 
roots of Stalinism, which shared the Tzar's faith in revolution from 
above, censorship, bureaucratic governance, etc. 
        Several respondents assume that the Frankfurt School escapes the 
errors of Soviet Marxism and preserves a genuine Marxist tradition; 
however, the Frankfurt School does not simply disavow reductive views of 
material determination of cultural or intellectual processes; the 
Frankfurt School adopts the right-wing view of Marx and Stalinism. THe 
Frankfurt School, which blames totalitarian practices on the instrumental 
domination deriving from Enlightenment, condemns scientific Marxism and 
ignores the Tzarist roots of Stalism, just like the right-wingers. In The 
Dialectic of Enlightenment, Adorno and Horkheimer condemn the 
Enlightenment tradition and the culture industry in order to preserve the 
autonomy of artistic forms. In COmmunicative Action Habermas complains 
that a scientific Marxism lacks the normative grounds necessary to resist 
totalitarian thought. 
	Radicals who grew up during the Cold War find the Frankfurt 
School attractive. Indeed the School is the most successful American 
version of Marxist thought, yet the School clearly echoes the right-wing 
view. Anyone who thinks that scientific Marxism alone does not explain 
Stalinism or that Soviet communism was not simply an evil empire is at 
odds with the Frankfurt School. 
Philip Goldstein

   

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