Communism, Eastern Europe

Lew Lew at dialogues.demon.co.uk
Wed Jul 22 12:22:54 PDT 1998


In article <3.0.1.32.19980722125317.006b2118 at jhuvms.hcf.jhu.edu>, Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu> writes


>>>Lew argues that the popular discontent in Eastsdrn Europe should be
>construed as proof of unpopularity of communism and the denouncement of
>that system.

That is not what I argued. There was clearly massive class struggles in Eastern Europe in 1989 and after, and many of those protestors may have conceived of the system as communist or socialist (after all, that is what the ruling Communist parties kept telling them). But they, and Wojtek, would be wrong in thinking that those regimes were really socialist or communist, at least not in the way Marx analysed social systems. In fact there is nothing in the work of Marx which could justify such an attribution.

-- Lew



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