Date: 05 Jul 96 03:22:08 EDT
From: "Chris, London" <100423.2040-AT-compuserve.com>
Subject: re vanguards


Louis P, first with quotes:
--------------------------

From: Louis N Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Date: Thu, 4 Jul 1996 09:33:34 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: re: vanguards

On 4 Jul 1996, Chris, London wrote:

>
> Louis P is a segregator in the historical analysis of Lenin,
> wanting to keep him independent of the less desirable
> subsequent features. I am a contaminator: believing that there
> is a complex and tangled continuity.
>

Louis: How can Marxism explain the behavior of the Trotskyists on this
list from the wooden Jim Miller, to the flamboyant Hugh Rodwell, to the
solipsitic Malecki? Individuals and small groups brimming with
megalomania can not be analyzed through historical materialism but through
some other means. These are essentially cults and operate by their own
laws. I am preoccupied with cult formation in the "Marxist-Leninist" left.
I am convinced that the attempts to build "vanguards" has more in common
with the Unification Church than the Bolshevik Party.

You and Michael are trying to understand the phenomenon of Stalin. I
suggest you read Isaac Deutscher, Moshe Lewin, R.H. Davies or E.H. Carr to
get a handle on that.


_________________________________

Chris B:
--------

I accept the validity of the theme. As the weeks and months
go by on this l'st I feel increasingly convinced that it is 
more productive to accept that various political positions and 
organisations occupy, or seek to occupy, certain areas of political
space. It is a sort of ecology of politics. It is consistent
with the marxist proposition that ideas are shaped by the 
economic and social base.
 
What can sustain cult or sect A? What can sustain cult or sect B?
What happens when they meet and collide on this l'st? Which cult
has the greater chance of surviving? 

(My long term prediction is 
that the Gramscian tendency will in out in the end on this l'st
because although the hard cults impact with great apparent force
in the short term, they get bogged down in the network of debate 
and become vulnerable to fragmenting under the pull of the 
different ideas. They will have to get off this l'st in order
to survive, eg MIM's recent remarks about the desirability of leaving.)
 
I noted too in Gary's recent interesting post from Australia about
the relationship of the hard left to the broad left, the imagery
of ecology somehow seemed relevant, - eg the proposition that
the hard left has usually parasitised on the broad left. 

The only criticism I would have with your post is a higher order 
one, to do with the complexity of these subjects in which several
different aspects deserve clarifying in their own right. Your
post itself emphasises this point. However IMO it makes a 
tangential shift. Michael and I in our different ways may
well be interested in Stalin, but the line of demarcation
I was trying to draw, with of course fuzzy boundaries, between
you and me, was that we lean in different directions on the 
historical analysis of *Lenin*.

Andrew Kliman withdrew from this l'st 9 months ago not only 
complaining about the noise signal ratio but about people shifting
the focus of attention in a way that impeded the rigorous 
clarification of any one subject. 

IMO the answer is not to leave this l'st but for everyone
to take responsibility to speak up assertively to ask for attention
to the point they think is the important focus. 

I think we are learning how to do this.

Regards

Chris B




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