I did *not* misunderstand what you wrote. You just threw ideas without
explaining them. that is why, your post is open to misinterpretation. I
would like to see the quotes to know how Marx "anticipates"
Stalinism...as a person partially trained in economic history, it seems
to me a very "ahistorical" thing to project "ideas" abstractly onto
entirely different circumstances and social forces, and then judge
circumstances based on ideas, while the opposite should be the case. that
was the concern.
merci,
Mine
Jim Devine responds:
>Hal Draper has a lot of quotes in his KARL MARX'S THEORY OF REVOLUTION
>which he interprets as anticipating Stalinism. But I don't want to get
>into
>quote-mongering.
>Bad example! why should we take Hal Draper seriously then if he
>misinterprets Marx? Marx could not have anticipated Stalinism, Stalin
I continued:
>... The argument that Marx anticipated Stalinism is completely a
>historical statement, made out of context, which pays attention to "ideas"
>rather than to circumstances of Stalin's Russia. Projecting Marx onto
>Stalin or vice versa is an idealist reading of
>history. Ideas should be judged vis a vis circumstances, not circumstances
>vis a vis ideas, especially in Marxian praxis (Reread Gramsci)!
>I did NOT blame Marx for Stalin. You misread what I wrote. Rather, I was
>saying that Marx had some understanding of the problem of Stalinism.
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> >>Also needed is proletarian power.
>
>>What a charming invitation! If you really trusted proleterian power, you
>would try to understand, or at least appreciate, the circumstances and
>social forces of Vietnamese revolution instead of saying that it was not a
>revolution in Marxist sense.
>this simply repeats something that Louis and I have already discussed and
>I
>have no intention to repeat that discussion. He and I attach different
>meanings to the word "proletarian."
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>>This way of thinking reminds me of bourgeois Kautsky who did not expect
a
>>revolution in Russia because Russia was economically "backward", or the
>>circumstances were not yet ready. ("so let's postpone "mass democracy"
>>folks! because the "masses" are still "immature" kind of ELITIST way of
>>thinking)
>ditto: Louis and I had a discussion about this. You misunderstand what I
>wrote. I'm in favor of "mass democracy" (except if that's simply a slogan
>which has some other meaning).
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>Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~JDevine
Mine Doyran
Political Science
Phd student
SUNY/Albany
