I did not write that that I remember, certainly not today, though I think it's true, or if not a Communist, a fellow traveler. Dan
My latest book, my first novel. trotskyintijuana.com On Sun, Aug 23, 2020 at 8:09 PM Patrick Bond <[email protected]> wrote: > On 8/23/2020 7:50 PM, Dan La Botz wrote: > > communist stalwarts in the West, like Lessing, felt they’d had the carpet > pulled out from under them. > > Was she really a communist? Yes, technically, for awhile via membership in > a Zimbabwe old-style party. But really? More "God that Failed" type, > perhaps? > > I spent a bit of time in a beautiful old mountain farmhouse - which at one > point cost $1/night to rent - that her son owned in the far east of > Zimbabwe, where she spent some extended periods, but I never met her. > Nevertheless, here's how I recall her role, in a 1998 book, Uneven > Zimbabwe, published by Africa World Press. > > Thinly-veiled racist overtones often distinguished liberal attacks on the > socialist project in Africa. In her autobiography, renowned writer Doris > Lessing recounted, from early adulthood (during World War II), membership > in a tiny, lily-white Southern Rhodesian Communist Party which soon > disintegrated, apparently because of the group’s total failure to tap into > the kind of organic radicalism of black workers that generated a general > strike in 1946. Bitter, Lessing (1994, 279) had inexplicably concluded that > “Communism was too abstract and inhuman an idea to satisfy Africans – and > in fact, when later there were Communist or Marxist regimes, they did not > last long.” Lessing (1994, 367) considered post-independence Zimbabwe a > “Communist government, too extreme for the natural temper and style of the > black people.” > > > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#779): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/779 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/76368144/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES<br />#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.<br />#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.<br />#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
