Date: Wed, 14 Feb 96 0:28:02 EST
From: boddhisatva <kbevans-AT-panix.com>
Subject: Re: Lenin vs Stalin







		To whom....,





	Will someone please tell me what relevance the current discussion of
Stalin has on today's Marxism.  Stalin is dead.  The Soviet Union is dead. 
No banner of Stalin will fly over any house of state.  No successful
candidate will run as "The New Stalin."  Stalin and Khruschov will NEVER iron
out their differences; ditto Lenin.  No major party will look for a Stalin
endorsement, or put a Stalin plank in a platform.  Rightly or wrongly, but
for the foreseeable future, Stalin's reputation is utterly, irretrievably,
irreparably and completely fucked.  


	If anyone thinks that he will rehabilitate Marxism by rehabilitating
Stalin, he is nuts.  Stalin is certainly of interest historically, he may
even be of interest theoretically, but that interest is an academic interest,
with, in my view, an uncertain benefit.  


	I'm prepared to admit that injustices of criminal magnitude may have
been done to Stalin's legacy.  But you know what?  Sometimes people get away
with crimes, and I think the jury of history has rendered a verdict, and the
chances for appeal look very slim.  


	I may have been intemperate to write this, but I think that Marxists
have to state their case in the present tense, and not feel compelled to
spend our lives defending the reputations of anybody who ever raised the red
flag.  Marxism is a philosophy that shapes an intent, not a dogma that
defines affiliation. 

	
	If Stalin defended the bulk of the Slavs from the Nazi horde because
he was a good Marxist, then his heart was in the right place.  If he sent a
lot of Gypsies and Kazaks to the Gulag because he was a good Marxist, then
his heart was still in the right place, but his mind was twisted.  If the
Soviet system was a fascist dictatorship, then it was apparently wise to
choose Marxism as its cover story, because it worked like crazy.  


	The point is that Marxism is not a religion.  If Uncle Joe doesn't
sit at the right carbuncle of Father Karl, heaven doesn't fall from the sky. 
There is no cause for the vehemence in defending Stalin or any other
Stalinists, for that matter.  Stalin's "A", in foreign policy, Castro's "C-"
in home economics, and the fact that Pol Pot and the Shining Path can't play
nicely with others, doesn't go on Shawgi Tell's permanent record....maybe on
Charlotte Kates' record, but not on his (I'm kidding).  However, people's
fears of undemocratic tendencies in certain Marxist formulations are clearly
legitimate, even if the Stalin boogeyman stories are folklore, because
folklore arises from social reality.





	peace,




		boddhisatva






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