S. Artesian wrote: > Somewhere along the line, real history has to be apprehended, criticized, > captured so we can maybe avoid repeating the same old same old one more same > old time.
Exactly. We all hail Che Guevara as an exemplary revolutionary, but the Bolivian mission was doomed from the start since it was based on a fetishization of the foco. We give enormous credit to Allende for dying with a machine gun in his hand defending the Popular Front but politically he helped create the conditions in which Pinochet came to power. We read and reread Trotsky's writings but understand (at least some of us anyhow) that the Fourth International was a sectarian mistake. Revolutionary politics has to avoid nostalgia at all costs or to put it in the words of Karl Marx, we need the ruthless criticism of everything that exists including our own history. The bourgeoisie has the guns and the money, but we rely on our class analysis which can serve as a scalpel in struggle. But clutching to one outmoded idea or another only serves to thwart our ultimate goal. ________________________________________________ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
