Jim Devine wrote: [clip]
Every point Jim makes is of great importance. Let me just add a way of conceptualizing what a socialist revolution in an isoalted nation in a capitalist world is. It is a _liberated zone_ -- probably a _temporary_ liberated zone. One does not "build socialism" (with or without a blueprint) in such a zone. Primarily it reists cunter-revoluton from abroad. Secondarily it tries to give the bulk of the population (from those sectors from which it drew its revolutionary strength) a somewhat improved life. The two goals are partly complemetary, partly contrdcitory. And those rulingt such a liberated zone are of course going to make blunders -- many blunders. (In tennis these are called "forced errors.") And it the struggle and presure has, as it is apt to have done, in various degrees distorted the perceptions of the leadership, the results are apt to be somewhat nasty. We don't know what would have developed in the USSR under a different leadership -- but frankly I doubt it would have been much different. Industrialization has ALWAYS been an exceedingly bloody process. How many million Africans, Chinese migrants, Native Americans, etc. did U.S. industrialization destroy. How many people in India and China as well as in England itself had their lives destroyed from 1775 to 1850? I would guess the percentages were about the same as in the USSR or contemporary China. There is no royal road to the future. And in the future, as in the preceding 100,000 years of human history, contingency will probably be one of the most important factors. Think of the asteroid that destroyed the dinosaurs and made room for mammals and eventually humans. That is not a bad image of how history operates, and how unpredictable it is. Carrol _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
