From: zatavu-AT-excite.com
Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000 17:43:40 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: PLC: Marxist Propaganda



On Thu, 6 Jul 2000 13:32:46 -0400 (EDT),
phillitcrit-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu wrote:

>  On Wed, 5 Jul 2000 zatavu-AT-excite.com wrote:
>  
>  > >  Why should this be "a great irony" rather than evidence of diversity
in
>  > >  marxist approaches to literature?  
>  > 
>  > I am making a distinction here between ideological and foundational
Marxism
>  > (a Marxist government, like that set up in the USSR). 
>  
>  Could you elaborate a little bit?  what is the difference between
>  "ideological" and "foundational" Marxism?  I have not run across this
>  distinction in marxist literature.  "Foundational Marxism" is "a Marxist
>  government"?

I doubt you will find that distinction, but I think there clearly is one.
Marxist governments rarely allowed such pro-Marxists avant-garde artists
like Breton, Eluard, or Picasso into their countries. The considered the
movements they represented as being bourgeois at its worst.

As for ideological Marxism, I find several thinkers who fall into that
category - including Sartre, Breton, and Gramsci. These are writers Marxists
themselves have attacked with sometimes far more venom than opponents of
Marxism. I would consider foundational Marxism to be the Marxism that has
deviated little from Marx's writings and that led to the Marxist countries
of the USSR, the Eastern Bloc, etc.
>  
>    Many of the
>  > ideological Marxists were avant-gardes, whereas when Marxism was
actually
>  > set up anywhere, the first things suppressed were the avant-gardes,
which
>  > were seen as overly bourgeois.
>  
>  So if someone were to say that in, say, 1923, 6 years after the october
>  revolution, there were many diverse and competing literary and artistic
>  tendencies within the Soviet Union--including avante gardist movements--
>  then that would be false?  

No, those movements did exist, though almost inevitably underground, and
more and more underground as time went on...
>  
>  > They do, as ideological Marxists. Too bad Marxist governments tend to
kill
>  > their intellectuals... (remember Trotski?)
>  
>  I do remember reading something about a Trotski. I believe that he wrote
>  an interesting critique of Russian formalism. He also organized the Red
>  Army logistics during the civil war.  I am trying to figure out
>  whether he would be an ideological or a foundational marxist.  I am aware
>  that he was killed but I did not realize it was because marxist
>  governments kill their intellectuals.  I had assumed that he was killed
>  because he posed a threat to an existing government.  

In Cambodia, Pol Pot killed all the intellectuals - including anyone who
wore glasses, for fear that they could be an intellectual (if you wear
glasses, it's possibly because you read a lot, and if you read a lot, then
you could come across ideas that differ from the government's). This is a
known historical fact. Most of the Eastern Bloc simply refused their
intellectuals jobs so they would starve to death, or ran them out of the
country. Trotski did not pose any threat to the Soviet government. He was
killed with an ice pick in Mexico City, thousands of miles away from the
USSR. He wasn't much of a threat there. Besides, he was a philosopher and a
writer, so his only threatening aspect was his pen.
>  
>  > >  Because they were using simple images to communicate ideas to
>  > >  mostly illiterate people much in the same way that medieval art was
used
>  > >  to tell Bible stories and surrealism did not lend itself to that?   

>  > 
>  > So that is why Marxist governments put their surrealists in jail or
outright
>  > killed them?
>  
>  You are really talking about one "government" here aren't you? One which,
>  diverging quite radically from the internationalism of Marx and
>  Lenin, sought to suppress all forms of dissent in building socialism in
>  one land.

I'm talking about several. The Eastern Bloc, for one. THe USSR, for another.

>  
>  > no, the USSR just set up "Socialist Realism" as the only way the
"novel"
>  > could be written. As such they killed the novel as an artform. There is
a
>  > difference between a (fictional) book and the novel. Not all fictional
books
>  > are true novels in the literary sense. One thing the novel does is
present
>  > existential questions that have not been asked before. WHen the novel
ceases
>  > to do that, we will see the true end  of the literary novel. What
replaces
>  > it? Just look at "socialist realism" to find out.
>  
>  If I understand you correctly, you are saying that the Soviets killed
>  the novel by insisting that true novels had to be written as socialist
>  realism.   WHereas in fact, the only way to write a true novel (in the
>  literary sense) is to  present existential questions that have not been
>  asked before. Doing anything other than that kills the novel (in the
>  literary sense, at least). 

Correct.
>  
>  Let us grant for the moment that your only way is the correct one
(correct
>  in the literary sense) and the Soviet only way was the false one.  How
>  would you account for this error on their part?  Did their definition
make
>  sense given their worldview and political and historical situation?  Or
is
>  Marxism intrinsically reductive and intolerant of other views?

It made perfect sense. They have to be right. If they are not right, there
is no justification for many of their actions. That is why they are
intolerant of being questioned. Socialist Realism does not quesiton, but
justifies. It shows everyone exactly the way the powers that be want you to
see things. Everything is great and wonderful all the time. True happiness
can be found only on the collective farm or in the collective factories.
Every story is a happy ending. There is no questioning in these books, only
reaffirmation of already present beliefs.
>    
>  > I have read a great deal of Marx, Marxism, and Marxist literary theory,
>  > ranging from Marx himself to Gramsci to Andre Breton to Sartre to
Benjamin
>  > and Franz Fanon, just to name a few. So you might beware of who you are
>  > accusing of what. I am likely far well read than you in most fields,
not
>  > just Marxism. Just because I disagree with Marxism doesn't mean I
haven't
>  > read more than my fair share of it.
>  
>  Of course you have read a great deal of Marx, and are likely far more
well
>  read than I.  No one doubts that.  It is just that what you have written
>  so far could have been written by anyone affirming a traditional idealist
>  aesthetic in the context of cold-war representations of Soviet
>  totalitarianism.  It does not reveal the depth of your knowledge of
>  Marxism or Marxist literary theory, or 20th century history, or the
>  complex interelation of culture and politics.   

That's funny. I'm neither a traditionalist (I was just attacking the USSR's
insistence on tradition) nor an idealist (I attack that too in Marxism). As
for the rest, I was not trying to do any of those things. I was answering
specific questions or statements made. 
>  
>  And there is a further way in which you hurt your credibility. As one
>  knowledgeable in Marxist literary theory, you know  that marxists view
>  the novel as a literary form which emerges with the rise of the European
>  middle classes, and that it reflects, expresses, and secures the
>  conceptions of individuality and the preoccupation with interiority which

>  are characteristic of that class.  The valuation of intellectual
>  production on the grounds that it is new and original and evidence of
>  independent, politically unfettered thought also emerges with this middle
>  class and contrasts its politics and literature with that of feudal class
>  it has vanquished and that of the emerging working class which is still
>  learning what "politically unfettered" thought means in societies
>  controlled by capitalists. 
>  
>  So you know that when you offer a definition of the novel which rests
upon
>  the aforementioned values, and you offer it as if other definitions are
>  politicized but yours is not, you are placing your views rather securely
>  within that general "bourgeois" tendency. You are not arguing from
>  within either a feudal or a proletarian orientation to politics and
>  literature.  ANd you are not arguing from within an orientation which is
>  free of politics.  YOu know all this because you have read and understood
>  Marxism.

I never said I was arguing from unpolitical thinking. So far I have found no
thinking unfettered by politics. Mine is hardly to be considered that, and I
am the first to acknowledge it.
>  
>  But when you express puzzlement as to why anyone would apply the label
>  "bourgeois" to your arguments, you give people a false impression of your
>  knowledge.  You create an impression that you have actually had little
>  real engagement with marxism, beyond passing your eyes over a few texts
to
>  confirm what every American already knows via our free and unbiased
>  schools and press.  You create the appearance that you do not see what
>  the term "bourgeois" marks in your statements, have no sense of their
>  historical and political character, and no understanding of your
>  opponents' frame of reference--beyond the fact that they use terms like
>  "bourgeois."   THus you inadvertently make people wonder if you really
>  have read what you say you have read.

I reject the very delineation of people into bourgeois and proletariat. Of
course, Marxists will say that is just me being bourgeois, and that goes
back to my point that you can't argue with them. Why do I have to agree with
what I have read in order for people to believe I read it? That's nonsense.
>  
>  I know you are tired of people who make assertions they
>  refuse to support with arguments, and you have little patience with
people
>  who subsitute intoleration for knowledge. Fortunately, on a list
>  like this, there is every oppurtunity to set the record straight if you,
>  in contrast to your opponents, proceed by supporting your arguments with
>  some demonstration that you understand others' positions, the texts
>  refered to, etc.  When you feel comfortable bringing that knowledge forth
>  you will quickly find your opponents either grant the validity of your
>  arguments or simply leave the field, sometimes silently, sometimes
>  excusing themselves on the ground that it is you who cannot be argued
>  with.  Of course, few are fooled by that on this list. 

Well, when it comes to Marxists (and other "true believers", not just
Marxists) I have discovered that they inevitably do fall back on what you
suggest above.
>  
>  So we really needn't worry about who has read what. We only need stick to
>  the issues and support our arguments

I was merely answering the contention that I didn't know what I was talking
about, because I obviously hadn't read any Marxism. That's all.

Troy Camplin





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