Date: Mon, 8 Aug 1994 07:20:04 -0400 (EDT) From: Philip Goldstein <pgold-AT-strauss.udel.edu> Subject: Re: marxism-leninism/stalinism Chris Nagle asks me " I wonder what Phil Goldstein's point is in attempting to draw close, meaningful(?) connections between Marx and Stalin...can you explain your motivation, Phil? Your concerns sound much more reminiscent of _Masters of Deceit_ than _Hegemony and Socialist Strategy." I don't know _Masters of Deceit_, but I have read a number of texts, especially those by theorists of totalitarianism, which draw this connection. As I said in my last note, I consider the relationship right wing, but I think that LaClau and Mouffe restate this right-wing argument in order to defend their Gramscian Marxism or postMarxism. In general, I think that the reception of a theorist tells us something about what his theory means. Therefore Marx does not stand above his "vulgar" interpreters and represent the timeless truths of an untested philosophy. I also think that, As Althusser says, Marxism is a scientific field which evolves. We can, therefore, ask what the lessons of the communist experience are for Marxist theory because we assume that it is implicated in that experience. Philip Goldstein
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