TAHIR wrote: > > > Mark > > I wonder if I am the only one perplexed by this long and > very interesting post of yours. >You seem to me to be more of > the "gigantic paradox" than Lenin, to whom you applied this > epithet. Where is the Stalinist Mark Jones of so many other > texts that we have seen? I'm not saying anything original, or that I haven't said many times before. You can find similar thoughts on the Crashlist website, for example: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base/sr1.htm where I argue that not only did Bolshevism (and especially its High Stalinist incarnation) served to re-furnish the capitalist division of labour within the space of the Tsarist empire, but that this was historically inevitable, and for good and profound reason connected with the emergence of the Kantian social episteme. In short, Kantian transcendental dualism has a social correlative in the capitalist division of mental and manual labour. Like I say, none of these are my ideas, and everything is referenced there. Why, in view of my repeated characterisation not merely of Stalinism, but of Leninism, in this light, both Stalinists/anti-stalinists hailed/demonised me, I have no idea. Probably it's because I essentially agree with Eric Hobsbawm's judgment about Stalin and WW2 - without Stalinism, Russia would have been destroyed by the Hitlerites. >I am very clear that over the last > year or two that I have rejected the state capitalist, > people's democracy, national democratic, "delinked", etc. > etc. regimes of Leninism and Maoism that were so much part > of my own thinking (but who am I next to some of the > intellects on this list?) in favour of a turn to left > communism. I applaud and admire the honesty of this transition. >I don't believe that state capitalism is a > waystation to socialism anymore and I'm at least clear that > that is what I think today. But are you saying something > different here? The key question of the century that we are > leaving behind seems to me to be What was Bolshevism? I > think it was a (capitalist) strategy for developing backward > countries, a popular but also authoritarian way of > completing the bourgeois revolution and the transition to > capitalism. And this is unquestionably the case (and Lenin understood Bolshevism's tragic fate no later than 1922, IMO. This is the real reason why Lenin + Krupskaya asked the Central Committee for permission to commit suicide; it cannot have been Lenin's ill-health. Since this was habitual and progressive and he had long been inured to its effects and had conditioned himself to combat them, suicide was never either psychologically or politically an option in respect of his chronic illness. No, it was political despair that drove them both to make this request, and this is surely something unprecedented in history: which other great historical leader, still at the highpoint of popularity and power. considered suicide because he came to see a shortfall between reality and dream? It is another of the ways in which Lenin was unique. He shared the angst of his followers and did not disown them - I am sure that John Reed and many, many others felt equally distraught and helpless.). > And having completed this project, it has > nowhere else to go. There is no way from state capitalism in > one country to socialism. Absolutely none. Thus this project > was never relevant to the advanced countries and never will > be. This is where I might have a few caveats. BTW, Goldner is a Bordigist, no? I'll refresh my memory before saying more. But now I think about it, my few caveats are backed up by the colossal sacrifice of the Russian people in WW2, and by the great historical fact of their victory over Nazism. If Bordiga had his way, Hitler would have won. Mark _______________________________________________ Crashlist resources: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/crashlist
