******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. *****************************************************************
Years of conflicting practices overlay differences on the USSR. In the US, at least, it seems to me that if there had never been a USSR, you would still have what American Trotskyists have called "Stalinism." It seems to be in the nature of things that you would have currents that would see some benefit in accommodating themselves to the capitalist system and coupling it to Marxist terminology. That would have happened if the Soviet Union never existed, or it CP had never formed and early gone through "Stalnization." Indeed, "Stalinist" politics have survived the fall of the USSR and shows little sign of fading. As to the "Trotskyist" tradition, the old man has been dead now over 70 years. Calling oneself a Trotskyist in the present context is as informative as if someone would have described themselves in the 1960s as Bellamyist or something. But, most importantly, the very nature of Trotskyism involves defining itself in relation to Stalinism rather than to the wider class struggle. This insight flickers on and off through the history of American Trotskyism without having provided enough enlightenment to have influenced the current situation. ML _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
