Date: Wed, 18 Sep 1996 18:50:57 +0200
Subject: Re: Marx - not a Marxist? 


At 10:10 17-09-96 -0400, Gerald Levy wrote:

>Yet, it should be noted, that this uncritical dogmatism is not limited to
>some contemporary and past Marxists. A similar transformation followed the
>deaths of Lenin and Trotsky (among others). Lenin, who never said that he
>was a Leninist, had his life's work and thought transformed into dogma by
>some of the "Leninists" (in this connection, it is interesting to note
>that Lenin's explicit requests that no statues be built with his figure or
>cities named after him was ignored by some of those like Stalin who
>claimed to be "Leninists"). As for Trotsky, he never referred to himself
>as a Leninist or a Trotskyist -- but as a Marxist and a Bolshevik.
>
>Once thy are buried in their graves, some of their followers -- the
>epigones, the dogmatists, and the vulgar Marxists -- transform what they
>have said into a religion of sorts. In  Marx's (unfortunate) case, this
>transformation began already in his own lifetime.

Yes, and Lenin actually in the first chapter of _State and Revolution_ also
points to this (about Marx): Haunted in his lifetime and made an icon of
*and distorted* after his death.

Thank you all for replies. And the point is - or should be :-) - clear to
all of us. However, in a debate it is not worth a lot, of course.

There are two sides of this coin. We are all of course against dogmatism.
We are all for making concrete analysis - and not just rely on the eternal
truths of long gone masters. But the other side is also that non-dogmatism
in relation to marxism was always the slogan of those who wanted to
compromise on fundamental class issues - from Bernstein to Blair.

Which side of the coin to stress is for all of us to decide in the concrete
context.

In the ongoing debate on "the state" I feel for stressing *Marxist*
dogmatism against *bourgeois* dogmatism :-) .

Yours

Jorn



-
Jorn Andersen

Internationale Socialister
Copenhagen, Denmark


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