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Dear Louis: You wrote: > No, it is not a Trotskyist list but most of the subscribers have little > use for the kind of hard-core Stalinism you support. Well, how to reply to such a false statement? Let me try: I don't concede that there IS such a thing as "Stalinism." No doubt there was, 50+ years ago. And no doubt somewhere there are some people who have the same kind of "cult" of Stalin as present-day Trotskyists have of Trotsky, and present-day Maoists have of Mao. But if there is, I don't participate it in, or in any "cult." "Cults" of great leaders are reactionary, period. So I do not support "Stalinism" of any kind, hard-core or otherwise. I have no loyalty towards Stalin, Trotsky, Mao, or anybody else. Where did you get that idea, anyway? Well, not from me. Stalin and the Bolsheviks did some things are were arguably right, and a lot of things that, in hindsight, I'd say were errors. Of course this was largely inevitable and unavoidable, since the Bolsheviks were the first, "blazing the path", so to speak. They were bound to make lots of errors -- from which we can now learn, if we try hard enough. I support an attempt to discover the truth about the history of the communist movement. That's the only way we can learn what the Bolsheviks, Stalin, Mao and others, did that was right, and what they did that was wrong. There's a lot of lies, and a lot of denial, going around. All the anticommunists lie, and pretty much all the time. Most people on the Left are into "belief" -- they "believe" some things, and some people, and "disbelieve" other things, other people. Problem is: "belief" and "disbelief" never helped establish what's true and what's false. So people who "believe" and "disbelieve" are a roadblock for themselves, and for others who take them seriously. Case in point: I concluded that Trotsky really did collaborate with the Germans and Japanese because began with an hypothesis: Look for the evidence. See if there is any. It turns out that there is a very great deal, and it could not possibly all have been "faked." From what I wrote above, you can see that I fully expect that many people will not "believe" that. But I am not interested at all in people who decide serious questions of truth and falsehood on the basis of "belief", "disbelief", "denial", and so on. Marx' favorite slogan was: "Doubt everything!" That means: Doubt Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, the statements of anticommunists, -- everything. Look for evidence! Have the courage to decide what is true and false based upon the evidence! Most of all: Doubt -- question -- YOUR OWN preconceived ideas and deeply-cherished biases! Otherwise, you're not trying to find the truth. Is it disillusioning to find that your "hero", whoever he (or she) was, did not tell the truth all the time? That he (or she) did things that you "do not want him to have done"? Time, then, to grow up. Time to get real. PAST time! If you want to call a determination to find the truth, as supported by the best evidence, "Stalinism" -- then I will be happy to be called a "Stalinist". The overt anticommunists normally call me that already. But I don't think that is what you mean by "Stalinist." In which case, I am not a "Stalinist", Louis! I am trying to find the truth. What are you doing? Sincerely, Grover Furr ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
