>Similarly, Chomsky seemed to me to think it better if people didn't dwell
>too much on Pol Pot.
Yet others criticize Chomsky for emphasizing Pol Pot's horrors in the context of an analysis of the consequences ofthe US aerial destruction of Cambodia. Are you sure Chomsky was not most interested in determining exactly what was transpiring in Cambodia?
>And this I didn't like. To this I had an allergic reaction.
Forget your senses--your smells and allergies, Brad. Apply your reason to Hitchens' argument.
>But I am prepared to admit that there is a (slight) chance that I might
>occasionally be wrong about *something*.
Your famous argument against convergence seems correct, Brad (for those interested, see Debraraj Ray, Development Economics).
>The book began with a sketch of the history of U.S. foreign relations since
>World War II.
I wonder why Chomsky did not begin with the barbaric destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki--the first acts of the Cold War, as John Dower once put it. Did Stalin make Truman do that too? Uday Mohan has mentioned Gar Alperowitz on this list. What do you think of his work?
Brad, you seem to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of international relations and will have to leave this discussion to those competent to carry it out.
>What I object to is the lack of background, to the lack of context. In
>telling the history of the Cold War as it really happened--even in ten
>pages--there has to be a place for Stalin, an inquiry into the character of
>the regimes that Stalin sponsored, and an assessment of Stalinist plans and
>expectations. But Chomsky ruthlessly suppresses half the story of the Cold
>War--the story of the other side of the Iron Curtain.
Before the Cold War, there are of course all those good neighborly policies in Latin America to explain.
But taking your starting point:
Chomsky leans heavily on Bruce Cummins for the full story of Korea, no? It has been years since I read only Cummins article length reconstructions, but Cummins does present much evidence that the US was responsible for preventing radical land reform in the South and bringing on the War that cost millions of lives. Cummins' work is based on massive archival research; his two volume study is in excess of 1000 pages. Have never read it. But I will rush out and read any substantive criticisms you can recommend of Cummins' work.
At any rate, Chomsky does not consider any of those Stalinist regimes socialist or worthy of defense. He does not consider the only alternatives to be the ones you imagine. He would doubtless emphasize the domestication and destruction of Communist Parties and working class initiative by Stalin as he negotiated a modus vivendi with the West (Greece 1947 may be paradigmatic here). Indeed I am sure Chomsky's critique of Communist foreign policy would go back as far Lenin himself (and would obviously include its role in the Spanish Civil War; and I wouldn't be surprised if Chomsky thought some of the blame for Hitler's ascension was to be put squarely on Stalin's shoulders). I don't know if Chomsky cites Borkenau's World Communism but the criticisms Borkenau makes of Russian Imperialism were welcomed in the anti leninist communist circles out of which the young Chomsky arose.
I would imagine that Chomsky would accept much of Gabriel Kolko's criticisms of the reign of Vietnamese Communist Party after unification as well.
You are not dealing with a Bolshevik or Leninist, Brad. In broad principle Chomsky would probably agree that there has been a need for a Fourth International for some time, though he is not Trotskyist either. Remember the role Trotsky played at Kronstadt--see Paul Avrich of course.
best, rakesh