<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" http-equiv=Content-Type> <META content="MSHTML 5.00.2314.1000" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV> </DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px"> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV> <DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A href="mailto:hingham@igc.apc.org" title=hingham@igc.apc.org>Hep Ingham</A> </DIV> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A href="mailto:lbo-talk@lists.panix.com" title=lbo-talk@lists.panix.com>lbo-talk@lists.panix.com</A> </DIV> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, January 05, 2000 4:24 PM</DIV> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: Cambodia Part 1</DIV> <DIV><BR></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I think that Stalin and Mao were different from Pol Pot.<BR>Where the Khmer Rouge set up killing factories, the PRC and USSR killed<BR>mostly from incompetence and disregard.  For the victims, of course, that<BR>matters little, but historically I think it does make a difference.<BR><BR>As for Kampuchea being a manifestation of Marxism-Leninism, that's questionable.<BR>It was, after all, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam which overthrew<BR>that murderous regime.<BR><BR>-I would still make a diference between China and Stalinist</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>USSR. There was some logic in Stalin's policies. They</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>were a brutal and accelerated primitive acumulation.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The forced collectivization wasn't planned   to increase</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>the agricultural output but to exploit peassant's. By doing</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>it the government had to resources to industrialize the </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>country (this may have saved USSR from Hitler's Germany</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>and probably saved the beloved  De Long's liberal democracies</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>too, since a victory over Germany would be impossible </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>withouth USSR). Very brutal, but efficient. You can prove it</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>by looking at USSR GNP statistics from 1929-50. On the</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>other hand the Great Terror was not useful, but it was a</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>logical reaction against the internal oposition in the PCUS,</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>horrified with the results of those policies (there was many</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>votes against Stalin in 1934 PCUS Congress and more than</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>90% of the delegates were killed or arrested in the following</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>years). I don't know if there was a real alternative to Stalin's</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>policies. Probably it would have be possible to achieve </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>GNP growth rates a little worse with a much lesser human</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>cost, but I can't say this. On the other hand, I see no rationale</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>for The Great Leap Forward, mainly if you consider that</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>1956's collectivization was well accepted by peasants and</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>had a good effect in increasing agricultural output. Furthermore</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>China could rely on USSR technical support to develop its</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>own industry. So this policy was simply crazy.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>There is one more thing. If you read Hobsbawn's Age of</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Revolutions (1789-40) you will find a remarkable similarity</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>between suffering inflicted by England on India and Ireland</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>and Stalin's policies towards peasants. It doesn't excuses</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Stalin for his crimes, but what I'm saying is that those disasters</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>were also caused by capitalist democratic countries in early</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>industrial age.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>                Alexandre Fenelon</FONT></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>