Anarchism / Marxism debates

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Wed Aug 18 10:07:49 PDT 1999


Carrol Cox wrote:


>My
>question was seriously intended. I assume your question was
>also. I answered your question seriously: I fucking don't know
>what a revolution would be like in the U.S. Now why can't
>you try to answer my question seriously.
>
>I will add one observation. If your route does work -- the leaders
>on that route will be revolutionaries. This is what I gained about
>a quarter of a century ago from my initial reading of Lenin: Revolutionaries
>make the best reformists.

That was exactly the point of what I was saying - our old friend non-reformist reforms. And I thought I said exactly how it'd work - parties, unions, and other organizations in relentless struggle, with a friendly media chronicling, criticizing, and promoting their work. I don't think there's any great mystery to it. What I find utterly mysterious are the calls for revolution that seem to treat all the difficulties of this path as resulting mainly from a failure of nerve, and seem to treat all the (fundamentally conservative) psychological and institutional complexities of today as obstacles that will simply disappear in some magic transformation.

Doug



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