Date: 16 Sep 96 09:35:52 EDT
From: Jon Flanders <72763.2240-AT-compuserve.com>
Subject: Reply to: Re: Reply to: Re: Hard core/so


 >> Of course,  he is almost wholly wrong on the Stalin question.    As I will
directly inform him when time permits.

 It will be painful to do so. <<Louis G

 Jon Flanders:

  There we have a difference. I am pretty much a Barnesite on the permanent
revolution question, but I think Trotsky's materialist critique of the
economic basis of Stalinist conservatism(material priviledge) was his
fundamental contribution to marxism. This critique can be applied to Social
Democracy and the trade union officialdom as well.

  Marx and Lenin did not live to see a full fledged caste of administrators
rising from the working class to wield power in the USSR and in capitalist
governments via Labor parties. Trotsky did, and put it under a marxist
microscope.

  I should add that I don't agree with Louis P about Trotsky's "mistake" in
organizing parties in the 1930's. It was necessary at the time, even at the
cost of sectish isolation. Today, however, there is an end to the need for
"trotskyist" parties. What is needed is a civil discussion among marxists
about how to organize a real worker's international for the 21st century.

  This internet discussion could be a small part of that, if enough people
could dismount from their high horses' of sectarian smugness.



  E-mail from: Jonathan E. Flanders, 16-Sep-1996




     --- from list marxism-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---