Date: 18 Mar 96 02:07:40 EST
From: "Chris, London" <100423.2040-AT-compuserve.com>
To: marxismlist a <marxism-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu>
Subject: Re: Critique of Trotskyism


Kevin has now concluded that his request was hopeless. I had
stepped in quickly under this thread title because I thought
it was a fair, if naive, question, and everything depended 
on how people responded.

In the event IMO people responded a lot better than they might.
Given everyone's position, I thought those coming from a 
Trotskyist background were thoughtful and open to re-examination
*among themselves*. 

I take the comments of course that for some
there is no paradox in the possibility of a resurgence of marxist
thinking after the fall of the eastern european state socialist
regimes. The most thoughtful contribution from a Trotskyist perspective
IMO was the one that put the development of ideas very much in a 
historical perspective and asked as a thought experiment, what
place we would give Trotsky in the range of marxist thinkers
if Stalin had never existed.

Adolfo on the other hand, despite his wide range of reading,
clearly is using a Maoist concept of "two line struggle"
actually to draw much more heavily on the most contemptuous
[contemptuous, not contemptible please note] aspects of 
*Lenin's* polemical style and believes he can demolish 
opponents in a single blow. He forgets that Lenin also 
said that in polemic it is wise to meet your opponents 
on their argument at its best.

So the call from Rahul and Louis Proyect for quarantine
remains a powerful one, because they clearly were not 
speaking just for themselves, as it was preceded by a 
number of similar opinions, and received a strong
and (massively silent) echo. Although I am not sure
what Rahul is now doing, the essence of the 
argument is clear: boycott the politics of abuse,
whether the obscenities are colloquial or 
ideological.

What cannot be boycotted, because someone will every so often 
ask the arkward questions, however sincerely like Kevin,
 
but which perhaps should be slowed down,

is the clarification of some of the biggest contradictions
in the international communist/marxist movement on which
impassioned views have been held by different sides, and 
which at times involve real tragedies in which millions
have died.


Chris


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