populism vs. Marxism (was RE: Frank Sinatra)

[Louis Proyect]

>Surely to kill 20,000,000 or more in territories that *you* *rule* (an
>achievement managed by Hitler, Mao, Stalin, and no one else in world
>history) requires not just "opportunity" but a certain "enthusiasm" for the
>task... Or are you saying that *anyone*--Franklin Roosevelt, Jerry Brown,
>Nikolai Bukharin--who had been seated in the Kremlin as General Secretary
>in the 1930s would have wound up with a similar butcher's bill?
>
>
>Brad DeLong

Democracy, tolerance, bill of rights, etc. are not a function of ideology,
they are a function of the relative affluence of a given society. The Jerry
Browns ran Germany during the Weimar Republic, but when Germany went broke
and social tensions grew, the capitalist class threw its support behind
their version of Mark from Montana.

Louis Proyect

(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)