>Oh man! I am much, much more sectarian than that. In an >earlier post that you missed I described Trotskyism as just >dissident Stalinism. But to answer the main point: it was >inserted by me sticking it in. I mentioned earlier my own conviction that "stalinism" is a bugaboo. There was no consistent set of guiding principles that underwrote the decisions and developments in the Soviet Union while Stalin was at the helm. There were identifiable periods, each being enormously complex, based on changes both externally and internally, and responses to them. Trotskyism, on the other hand, became a vocation--anti-Stalinism. We needn't divert this entire flow into a discussion of its characteristics, unless someone is really up for it on this list. It claimed to be FOR something, but that something was millenarian nonsense, permanent revolution/world revolution--concepts that dissolved when exposed to the harsh light of concrete reality. That's why its always been so popular in the academy and never accomplished a thing with regard to siezing power. > >Lenin >refered to state capitalism as a stage in the construction >of socialism >under specific historical circumstances > >Yes and you're still trying to recycle that one. No. Recycling is something I do with plastic bottles. They re-occur with some regularity in the short term. The conditions that Lenin operated in shall never re-occur. I'm simply trying to put the record straight where you attempted to distort it through oversimplification. >"Construction of socialism" out of state capitalism is one >of those highly plausible notions (at first glance) that >turns out to be utterly wrong. How so? Because it didn't attain the "final solution" as you put it in an earler post. Socialism differs from capitalism in being consciously planned. The development of consciously planned systems is not a one shot affair. We learn in the struggle, and we learn through various trials--and errors. "Wrong" you say. What in the world does that mean? This is again a manifestation of idealism in the substitution of bipolar judgement for dialectical analysis. Are you inferring that there was nothing accomplished by socialist states, just because they suffered a collapse in 1991? Are you really willing to ignore what progress was made? Or how that whole period has shaped our current conditions? > >but the bit about bureaucrats >becoming a class (an indefensible distortion of the marxian >concept of >class) > >How so? Unity of opposites. Bourgeois-Proletarian. Right-Left. Up-Down. The working class existed only in relation to the bourgeoisie, and vice-versa. That definition of class was predicated on relation to means of production and appropriation of surplus value. Bureaucrats neither owned nor appropriated in a directly exploitative relation to the working class. They were part of an adminstrative apparatus. Come on. I don't even have a degree. This is not rocket science. > >CSC has become shorthand for a very >flaky premise upon which an essentially >counter-revolutionary argument is >constructed. > >No SC itself is the counter-revolution and it began with >"Leftwing Communism: an Infantile Disorder" which laid the >first foundation of an essentially nationalistic Russian >state capitalism becoming confused with socialism. Lenin was never confused, and I don't think old Joe was either. This is another gross oversimplification substituting for critical analysis. Let's take 72 years of experience in a vast Eurasian Union, with wildly differetn levels of development and not a single day of peaceful development, and roll them up into a ball called "nationalistic Russian state capitalism." The only >way to ever make good on that is to start over. Who in her or his right mind would talk about replicating something that's past? On the other hand, who would think there is ever any possibility of severing our links to the past through some magic, and "starting over." The first is anti-dialectical. The latter is ahistorical. By the way, >do you know where Lenin learned this "marxism" from? Marx, Engels. He quoted them frequently. Look, I'm not trying to digress into a sectarian quarrel here. But there is a pattern emerging here, which directly impacts on the discussion of what to DO about approaching crises. Distortions of the past, especially the anti-communist kind [and more especially the left anti-communist kind], I have found to be Trojan Horses deployed against revolutionary solutions. That too is another discussion thread. I'm not an academic. I don't care about endless elaborations of theory to prove who's the smartest. I am a retired Special Forces Master Sergeant, who has worked on behalf of US imperialism for almost a quarter of a century, with eight conflict areas thrown in. Push comes to shove, organized force with clear political objectives will decide outcomes. I've seen it. And one of the principles of war is Offensive--which means time matters. Sieze and maintain the intiative. As long as you are reacting in the absence of any unity of command or any strategy, you are losing. I can't make that go away. Neither can you. The ruling class understands it very well. Stan > >Tahir > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >_______________________________________________ >Crashlist resources: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base >To change your options or unsubscribe go to: >http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/crashlist > "If insurrection is an art, its main content is to know how to give the struggle the form appropriate to the political situation." -Vo Nguyen Giap "Rather than seeking comparabilities in statistical terms among what are all too often superficial features of different situations, comparabilities must be sought at the level of determinate mechanisms, at the level of processes that are generally hidden from easy view." -Eleanor Burke Leacock "Every day one has to struggle that this love to a living humanity transform itself into concrete acts, in acts that serve as examples, as motivation." -Ernesto "Che" Guevara "Mask no difficulties." -Amilcar Cabral _______________________________________________ Crashlist resources: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/crashlist
