populism vs. Marxism (was RE: Frank Sinatra)

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Mon May 18 07:35:58 PDT 1998


At 03:42 PM 5/15/98 -0400, Max Sawicky wrote:
>You speak of the rewriting of Marxism, not least
>by erstwhile followers of Marx, or, in other words,
>by Marxists. This is the only 'marxism' that has
>mattered politically. As far as history goes,
>marxism is Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, and all the other
>swine, not merely whatever set of noble moments
>you would care to attribute to Lenin, Trotsky,
>Luxembourg, etc. Future history is another thing
>altogether. The true science that is gestating in
>the minds of this list has yet to take political
>shape, to put it kindly.

"The errors of great men are venerable because they are more fruitful than the truths of little men." - Friedrich Nietsche

The significance of 'great men and women' comes not from inspiring any politically correct interpretation of what passes for acceptable knowledge at any given time. It comes from their ability to inspire people to embark on a quest for society that, using that hackneyed Aristotelian phrase that marx also subscribed to, will actualize the full human potential. In that respect, Marx's success is difficult to match.

As far as Stalins, Maos, Polt Pots and Co. are concerned, I think the only criterion that matters in evaluating them is the 'whose thug?' -- for every national leader's closet hides plenty of skeletons. I do not think these figures are any more or less reprehensible than Rosevelets, Trumans, Nixons, or Reagans. I do not thaink that the Russian or Chinese empire is any more or less reprehesnible than the US or the British empire. If we are to judge nations and their leaders by the standards of universalist morality, let us make sure that such morality is _truly_ univeralistic - rather than imperial or class interests disguised as such. On that account, I thnik that formal democracy is a scam of the same sort as the vanguard party - both are political rituals to legitimize the ruling oligarchy.

As far as political expediency is concerned, I think that US liberals owe more to Stalin or Khruschev than, say, Adlai Stevenson. It is only when the class interests and imperial ambitions of the US oligarchy are threatened - the rulng class is making concessions and opening up some space for timid dissent. Slavery in this country ended only when the hegemony of the government in Washington was seriously threatened. Jim Crow and crypto-fascism has come to an end only when the ruling oligarchy started feeling heat from the East. Without Stalins, Maos and Pol Pots US would resemble South Africa.


>
>As for whom the in-crowd hates more, sometimes the
>system elevates toy revolutionaries the better to obscure
>or censor real reformers.

I agree.

regards,

WS



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