Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 18:09:27 GMT
From: hariette-AT-easynet.co.uk (hariette spierings)
Subject: Re: Stalin and the bourgeois method in relation to the role of the individual in history



A few reflections on the question of Stalin and the bourgeois method in
relation to the role of the individual in history.


>this man tells us that one day a man came running up in excitement and said
>"The man from heaven has just excreted".
>
>Everyone flocked to see what the man from heaven had done.  they stood and
>looked at it and then one of them said. "Their skin may be white but their
>shit smells just like ours".
>
>Now I always tell my students that when they meet the powerful, those whom
>they are supposed to fear, worship or grovel before, that they should say to
>thmselves "their shit smells just like mine".
>
>So comrades, when I read stuff from the cult of personality, that comrades
>like Shawgi and Charlotte have just penned,  I say to myself...
>
>regards
>
>Gary
>g.maclennan
>school of media & journalism
>qut
>
>
>
>
>     --- from list marxism-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>


Taking Gary's "earthshaking discovery" at face value - tantamout to averring
in a profound philosofical tone no more than the old tautology that "we are
all human beings" -  we may ask, is this really how things stand in relation
to the role of the individual in history?  

Would this "common factor of humanity" entitle any "canvass splasher" or
"two penny busking accidental flute blower" - even if he were to be a mere
simian (their excreta possibly does not smell so very different either) - to
claim the same importance in the history of art as Michelangelo, Mozart,
Bethoven, Leonardo, etc?. Maybe from a totally alien and non-human
perspective, such as that which may be obtained by a superficial visitor
from Alpha Centaurii a painting such as Monalisa would appear no different
than a painting from one of our chimp cousins.  However, if we are to talk
in terms of our own understanding of our own human affairs, would this
"community of scatological smells" upon which Gary places so much
educational value have any major - or even minor - significance? 

Obviously not.  So why in politics, and moreover in class politics, should
we apply this "levelling" scatology in order to vulgarise the historical
achievements of those whose role embodies the hopes, aspirations,
sacrifices, struggles and achievements of the classes whose interests they
represent?  Would not this "wiseacres" philosophy then turn into the most
absurd philistinism? Obviously yes.

However, it must be affirmed - and this is the proletarian point of view -
that "masses make history", and that the role of individuals - and Partys -
is in fact constrained by the degree of development of the concrete movement
of the masses at any particular time and place.  This is also an evident
truth that applies likewise to the role of outstanding individuals in
history, not only to the proletarian leaders, but to leaders of all classes.

Moreover, it is the method of the bourgeoisie to place the individual as the
centre of historical development.  They interpret Marx's observation "men
make history" not as it should be - the masses, and no individuals or
divinities as protagonists - but as the old system of placing historical
development in terms of Kings, Emperors, generals, and "great men", as the
"deux ex machina" of history.  

This is the way the bourgeois perceives history. They pick on this or that
individual, whether to praise his or her role to the high heavens, making
all sorts of "manna" flow from the "godhead" - or equally to blame every
disaster, every shortcoming - and their own bruised petty bourgeois
dissapointments - upon a single individual.

Therein the identity between "Stalinism" and "Trotskysm" as bourgeois
currents - and I include here the phoney "Maoism" of individuals like
Lin-piao who practice individualism -or more to the point, the phoney US
Maoists grouped around the modern revisionism of that self-promoting hero
Robert Avakian.  

In that sense, Stalin himself, never made any claim to "infallibility" nor
to have his "thoughts" enshrined in tablets of stone.  In fact he said: "the
Party makes no claim to infallibility".  Stalin was an extremely modest and
concientous Party worker, who by his own dedication to the cause of the
proletariat, became a great Marxist-Leninist and a dialectical materialist.
As such, Stalin himself - unlike many of those who merely pay lip service to
his personal qualities and present him as the "ultimate" in Marxist theory,
knew pretty well that:

"Marxism is the science of the laws governing the development of nature and
society, the science of the revolution of the oppressed and exploited
masses, the science of the victory of socialism in all countries, the
science of building communist society.  As a science, Marxism cannot stand
still, it develops and is perfected.  In its development, Marxism cannot but
be enriched by new experience, new knowledge - consequently some of its
formulas and conclusions cannot but change in the course of time, cannot but
be replaced by new formulas and conclusions, corresponding to the new
historical tasks.  Marxism does not recognise invariable conclusions and
formulas, obligatory for all epochs and periods.  Marxism is the enemy of
all dogmatism". (J.V. Stalin, Marxism and Problems of Linguistics, Pravda,
July 28, 1950).

And, moreover:

"The textualists and Talmudists regard Marxism and separate conclusions and
formulas of Marxism as a collection of dogmas, which <<never>> change,
notwithstanding changes in the conditions of the development of society.
They believe that if they learn these conclusions and formulas by heart and
start citing them at random, they will be able to solve any problem,
reckoning that the memorised conclusions and formulas will serve them for
all times and countries, for all occasions of life.  But this can be the
conviction only of people who see the letter of Marxism but not its essence,
who learn by rote the texts and conclusions of Marxism, but do not
understand their meaning" (ibid, op. cit)

Therefore, from this great disciple of Marx and Engels, and faithful
Leninist, there were never claims to any kind of "Stalinism", nor does the
proletariat recognise such a current of thought as distinct from
Marxism-Leninism.  

Only the petty bourgeois ideologists - who center their bitter attacks upon
the proletariat and its works upon the historical role of one individual,
can make such a ridiculous claim in synchrony with the reactionaries of all
countries and the enemies of the people everywhere.  

As bourgeois "historians", they resolve the problem of their own impotence
in playing a positive role in the class struggle in their own turf, by
blaming every defeat of the class, be it in China, Spain, or Timbuctu, on
the "King of Hell", their bogeyman, J.V. Stalin.  However, in aiming their
spears against Stalin, they are aiming them against the class that sustained
his leadership.

In class society - living as we are under bourgeois conditions - it is
inevitable that classes will have leaders, and that the prestige, ability,
wisdom and leadership qualities of such leaders be of substantive interest
to the class they lead.  Therefore, the upholding, defense and application
of the ideas of such leaders is not unrelated to the question of their
personal leadership qualities.  

In class struggle, leaders are banners of struggle.  In the same way that
the bourgeoisie promotes, protects and defends their "leaders", the
proletariat must do likewise.  The purpose of the proletariat is to rally
around itself the trust, confidence and strenght of ALL exploited classes of
society, and many of these - the peasantry, the petty bourgeois, etc. tend
to relate to leadership in such a maner as it reflects their own "bourgeois"
class nature, and this is true even if we are talking about the middle and
backward sections of the proletariat itself. All communists regard each
other as comrades, and Stalin is no exception and neither would Chairman Mao
or Chairman Gonzalo expect otherwise.  But this does not preclude the
following:  

"Everyone knows that the masses are divided into classes.....; that usually,
and in the majority of cases...... classes are led by political parties;
that political parties, as a general rule, are directed by more or less
stable groups composed of the MOST AUTHORITATIVE, INFLUENTIAL AND
EXPERIENCED MEMBERS, who are elected to the most responsible positions and
are called leaders.  To go so far..... as to counterpose .... dictatorship
of the masses to dictatorship of the leaders is ridiculously absurd and
stupid".     

The problem with the "Stalin haters" - as well as those who uncritically
love even the smells he actually made calling them "perfumed breath" - is
that they are in no way related to the proletarian ideology, nor do they
understand its cause or struggles.  They never stop and think that the fact
that Stalin led the Party after Lenin was not completely unrelated to the
fact that he was then the MOST AUTHORITATIVE, INFLUENCIAL AND EXPERIENCED
leader of the Party, while Trotsky who had only shortly before 1917 gone
over to the Bolsheviks, had no INFLUENCE, AUTHORITY or EXPERIENCE within the
Bolshevik Party.  

This factor can be seen clearly from the very results of the inner party
struggles that pitted the opposisionists against Stalin for the leadership
of the Party of Lenin. When it came down to votes in a Party Congress,
724,000 Party members voted for the policy of the Central Committee at the
Fifteen Congress, while only 4,000 voted for the Trostky-Zinoviev bloc.

The Trotskysts - steeped as most are in Labourist ideology and practice -
see nothing unnatural in someone "switching parties" one good day, and a few
years later, after the "appropiate alliances" with other minor figures to
lend prestige and pedigree to his piratical enterprise, becoming the leader
of his new party "thanks to his gift of the gab".  Unfortunately, that is
not how proletarian parties function.  

There, leaders are rooted in the mass organisations, in the Party's
organisms and apparatus.  Fly by night operators - especially those, like
Trotsky, who - when rebuffed, flew in fact to push a pen scribbling
anti-bolshevik propaganda for the Rothermere press (Daily Express) in
Imperialist Britain, are not looked at all kindly!.

Therefore, from the stand point of the proletariat, the defense and
promotion of its leaders is a political act in the course of the class
struggle.  It is no accident that the bourgeoisie centers its fire upon such
leaders as Stalin and Chairman Mao, and Chairman Gonzalo today.  The war
they carry out against the class is today predicated in convincing the class
that their cause is worthless, a history of unmitigated failures, a
bloodthirsty plot led by criminals, and, moreover, doomed to fail.  Do not
the historical bourgeois trend of "anti-Stalinism" fits this strategy like a
glove?

Adolfo Olaechea







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