File spoon-archives/marxism.archive/marxism_1994/marxism_8Aug.94, message 44


Date: Wed, 10 Aug 1994 13:55:43 +0700
From: djones-AT-uclink.berkeley.edu (donna jones)
Subject: Stalinism


I agree with Philip that I too simply reduced anti-Marxian socialism  to a
petty-bourgeois project.  And no doubt bolshevism and fascism must be
differentiated.  I must admit that my post was polemical. In attempting to
save Marxism from Stalinism, we may only deliver Marxism to some other
non-proletarian project.  If we are to claim that Bolshevism was an
anti-proletarian deviation from Marxism (and I understand that such a claim
is doubted by both the right and bolshevists), then is there anything we
can learn that will be of use in militating against such a deviation in the
imperialist countries?  Mattick Sr's point is simply that bolshevism,
fascism and many other forms of state capitalism (often calling themselves
marxist) can all be especially attractive to a threatened petty bourgeoisie
(especially once we understand how monopoly capital attempts to stave off
the fall in the average rate of profit through a transfer of value via the
circulation process from small capitals--on this see, William J. Blake,
1939, p. 510 and Bennet Harrison's last book for some evidence in a
non-marxian framework, very eclectic framework). 

I was hoping that this intervention would check against our complete
externalization of the bolshevik threat; that is, we could understand
totalitarian forms of state capitalism as not only attractive to, say,
elites in an undercapitalized country but also, more generally, to
non-proletarian classes vying for power when capitalism cannot preserve
itself or develop in laissez-faire form.

One last point: it has been disappointing that in the critiques of
bolshevism that have been posted, no one has made mention of Mao's critique
of Soviet Economics.  Does Maoism present a revolutionary path out of
imperial domination and bolshevik centralization?   


d jones


   

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