Date: Sun, 7 Jul 1996 16:19:58 +0100
From: m-14970-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se (Hugh Rodwell)
Subject: re: vanguards


Louis wrote, with his usual provocative psychologizing:

>Individuals and small groups brimming with
>megalomania can not be analyzed through historical materialism but through
>some other means.

Psychological mechanisms (megalomania) are too diffuse and undirected to
have any explanatory power in terms of political programme and action.
Louis's untiring insistence on psychologizing political disagreements
totally misdirects any inquiry into why political conflicts arise and how
the forces involved resolve them.


>I am convinced that the attempts to build "vanguards" has more in common
>with the Unification Church than the Bolshevik Party.

The issue is one of conviction -- it's been raised in an exciting way by
Zeynep in her thread on suicide bombers. Conviction in itself is as
pointless as an explosive without a casing. Conviction in the service of
reactionary codswallop such as religion can be merely irritating. In the
service of reactionary codswallop with a social agenda (fascism, Calvinist
or Islamic theocracy, Serbian chauvinism, Stalinism) it can be extremely
dangerous. In the service of revolutionary socialism it can be the most
liberating force humanity is capable of mustering. The conviction of the
vanguard was one of the most devastating weapons in the arsenal of 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.


Read Isaac Deutscher -- well and good -- buy his explanations and you're a
goner -- it's more of the same sort of psychologizing, empty
personalization of history that we've been surfeited with here by Louis
himself.

Of course, you could always try a couple of books by Trotsky:

        The Revolution Betrayed

and

        Stalin.

Cheers,

Hugh




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