All right Louis, You can call the Cyril Smith a churl if you like. There is no danger in that for you when the man is two years dead. But let me take the opportunity to say something about the Communist University, which you may not have noticed, or perhaps you have forgotten.
We use original writings. So if we want to understand the political thought of Marx, or of Cyril Smith, we read them in the original. The Communist University posts are always introductions to linked, original texts. You rejected Smith's writings on the grounds that they did not tell you about the man, and then you rejected the obituary I got for you, not written by Smith needless to say but by John Plant, on the grounds that it told you little about Smith's politics. Even though you say you have insufficient knowledge of Smith, you do not hesitate to misrepresent him and then to rubbish him. We do not speculate here about Marx but we read original texts, whether of Marx, Engels, Lenin or any other, and then we have dialogue, which is invariably expressive of our present condition and circumstances. We all owe a lot to the work of the people who created the Marxists Internet Archive (MIA), like Cyril Smith's friend Andy Blunden. I don't know for sure but I get the impression that most of the creators of MIA are survivors of the "warring sects" that you refer to with disdain, and not Communist Party members like myself, yet we rely on that work, the MIA, now. We Party members need to remind ourselves from time to time not to be snooty about scholars who happen to be outside our organised ranks, or of devotees of Trotsky who may be inside our ranks, for that matter. "In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things." VC On 9 August 2010 16:12, Louis Godena <[email protected]> wrote: > Thanks, Dominic; > > This does gives some flavor of who the man was *personally *but doesn't > say very much about his politics, which seems to have been indistinguishable > from those who peopled that galaxy of minute warring sects which comprised > British Marxism. Not a particularly edifying story; the endless succession > of morose, nearly dysfunctional adults and their endless quarrels with each > other, united only in their inability to attract more than an insignificant > fringe of the workers' movement, the very people in whose name they claimed > to speak. > > I bring this up because Cyril Smith was not the first among those > disaffected revolutionaries to devote his life to finding the "Holy Grail" > of Marxism, something I am convinced does not exist. Marx himself once > confessed that he was no Marxist. And the constant evolution of doctrine in > response to changing conditions is itself a canon of Marxism. True, there > are certain principles by which various classes behave (or have behaved up > til now), but it is futile to try and ascertain what the "true Marx" would > have done in conditions which would have seemed alien and all but > incomprehensible a century and a quarter following his death. > > I think Cyril Smith would have been better placed had he sympathetically > (though of course not uncritically) undertaken to study the development of > Communist movements worldwide, and, from that, to discover what a future > Communist society could or should look like. This would have been of far > greater use to those living today than churlish arguments about where > Kautsky or Plekhanov went awry. > > Thanks again for your efforts in bringing Mr Smith to my attention. I find > this area of Marxist historiography often bewildering because of all the > personalities and the often petty insignficance of the issues to which they > devoted such ferocious energy. > > Louis Godena > > On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 5:00 AM, Dominic Tweedie <[email protected] > > wrote: > >> Dear Cde Louis, >> >> Here, attached, is an obituary of the late Cyril Smith written by somebody >> called J Plant. >> >> Andy Blunden asked for it today following your query, and Plant copied it >> to me. >> >> I hope it is of interest to you. >> >> Best wishes, >> >> Dominic >> >> >> >> -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] .
