>But on the whole, and taking the long view, the left worldwide has been far
>less interested in the pleasurably emotional aspects of political
>involvement than has the right.
>
>In a study of French and German mass movements in the nineteenth and
>twentieth centuries, historian George Mosse notes the left's persistent
>neglect of "excitement, enthusiasm, and passion," as compared to "reason,"
>with the result that leftwing events were far more likely to be didactic
>than ecstatic. The problem probably goes back to the French Revolution,
>whose bourgeois leaders sought to stamp out popular festivities-with all
>their drunkenness, gluttony, and supposedly lewd behaviorand replace them
>with carefully orchestrated ceremonies in honor of "Reason" or "the Supreme
>Being." It was in that revolution, with men like Robespierre, that the
>Leninist ideal of the unsmiling "professional revolutionary" was born - a
>type every bit as hostile to spontaneity and self-indulgence as the
>grimmest of the old Calvinist merchant class.
Necessary caveats: I am pro-fun, pro-pleasure, I like commdities, I like Ehrenreich, I like this magazine (and hell, The Nation too). I think activist activty and organization does indeed need to be as fun as possible.
I also think that pleasure or "fun" is a political issue, and in ways more complicated than this article. I dont disagree with the overall point, except for the by now mandatory "bashing" of Lenin/Leninism. How, precisely, does she know this? Is it okay to make sloppy generalizations about "the world-wide left"? How do we know, to take a different example, that Mao was the equivalent of Stalin, whom was the equivalent of Hitler, etc etc.? I submit that it has everything to do with reproducing the mainstream media's discourse about Lenin, Mao, boslhevism, classic socialism, etc etc. Which is to say, reproducing liberal cold war bullshit. (Part of my own research is about Mao and postMao PRC, and how these are represented over here; so I could go off about all this, but am sparing everyone all this, at least right now)
This is not a defense of Lenin, Mao, etc.; it is a tired frustration and bemusement at our (her's, in this case) collective ignorance about these histories. Contemporary accounts of Lenin (and to a lesser extent of Trotsky) depict him as a warm, humane, and inspiring fellow (c.f. Lunacharsky, Gorky, Mayakovsky -- all of whom suffered under Stalinism). I think her account of the cold, rationalist, semi-cruel face of Lenin/Leninists has more to do with what these became under Stalinism...
Moreover, should one read John Reed's book (Ten Days...), or read Deutscher, or read Carr's histories, one simply *cannot* think the bolshevik revolution(s) were somehow *not* "fun" -- i.e., exciting, of huge existential import and intensity to *all* invloved, etc. Of course, the context of the great Russian rev. years, as well as those of China and all the other rev. moments, are rather different from E's good old days of the counter-culture.... I wish I had been at Woodstock, sure, but I think I would have preferred those Petrograd days....not least b/c of the "fun" factor. The Cultural Revolution was both a tragic civil war, and -- a/c to all the memoirs -- a long rock&roll show (as R Gao put it). It was nothing if not orgiastic..... orgies of violence, yes, but also of pleasure, and all kinds of stuff. Don't take my word for it (I say to E.), take theirs....or take the old bolsheviks' and soviets', too. I should note, too, that the Wei Jingsheng and Tian'anmen era actvists also do not fit into any of E's categories, and yet I think these people are a bit more important, and a better lesson for us all, than E's bad leninists or good fun-junkies of the 60s.
I am *not* saying that Leninism is the ideal model today, or even of yesterday (though its clear that w/out it, the Rev would never have happened); moreover, I think the importation of that model (and even moreso, of stalinist ideology) in some quarters, had a bad effect on the labor/radical movements over here. I confess: I am a Menshevik in re the West, b/c structure wills it so. Of course, lots of the Mensheviks were not only committed socialists, in my view, but also had real organizations and power...
Part of our task today -- if I may say so -- is to help enable the dissociation of marx/marxism, from the history of communism (by which I esp. mean stalinism, and now Dengism). This entails both actually knowing some of Marx/marxism, and knowing some of the history of actually existing communism. Ducking these relations will simply not do. But, on the other hand, submitting to cold war liberal accounts of all this, will not do either. PS I find the revisting of these histories and texts to be quite fun, to boot. In some senses, and as Baudrillard might say vis a vis the West, the end of the cold war never happened.
--Dan
---------------------------------------------------- Daniel Vukovich English; Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory University of Illinois Urbana, IL 61801 vukovich at uiuc.edu ph. 217-344-7843 ----------------------------------------------------