In the fSU, now there it was true, that the main movements, were not reformist socialist or Leninist ala say Roy Medvedev, but, among the intelligentsia, the bourgeois liberal dissidents, nationalists of a right-wing character (Ukranian, Latvian, etc.) and Zionists trying to get out to emigrate to Isreal or Brooklyn.
Take it fwiw, but, neo-con (well I doubt he was ever a leftist so he's just a con!) Paul Hollander in his new book, "Political Will & Personal Belief, " postulates through extensive interviews with former nomenklatura like Wolfgang Leonhard, Zdenek Mlynar (roomate of Gorby in the 50's, author of the excellent, "Nightfrost in Prague, " Karl-Kohl pubs. around 1980), P. Grigoriernko, and dozens of other major figures, that Stalinism collapsed due to a legitamacy crisis from within. Methinks that is a factor, but, the external pressures, for example, from the West in the form of arms expenditure to counteract the much higher dollar amts. of USA spending (yes, I know the triumphalist Reaganite line, kinda a reverse Khruschev, We Will Bury You!), and the CIA manipulations of discontent as related in _Operation Rollback_ by Peter Grose ("Students of American politics will be surprised to learn that a prominent figure from 1960s' antiwar activism, William Sloan Coffin, trained undercover saboteurs for Rollback missions. Call SANE/Freeze!) or another book whose name escapes me from a university press on the same, just published.
I'd prefer, natch, there was a comprehensive, neo-marxist acct. that was both anti-Stalinist and critical of Cold War liberal pieties (something like the appproach of the authors in_ The Stalinist Legacy_ ed. bu Tariq Ali, orig. Penguin, reprint Lynne Rienner in Boulder, Co.) but, as long as there isn't contrarian me, will continue to glean what I can from the neo-con and Cold War Liberal scholarship. (Waiting for the thermo-nuclear polemic across the Bay from Comrade Mayer! Both you, and John Gulick, show a similiar skill in marxist argumentation but, I'd much rather have drink with John. ;-( Not looking for a flame war, besides I have an article to write due on the 6th. Brad, in the meantime, consign Leo, Nathan and me to the counter-revolutionary stocks where we belong!) Michael Pugliese, Lumpen Bourgeois http://www.marxmail.org/archives/May99/cardoso.htm Revisionist Running Dog P.S. What joke did Colin Powell think off when he met F.H. Cardoso recently, like the one he did when Joschka Fischer came to the Belly of the Beast? P.P.S. Sure it's something to do with your e-mail program, but, for thread comprehension plz title the Re: to refer to the actual topic. P.P.S. Brad, you can beat me up in Berkeley after Kagarlitsky. I'll be wearing a Yellow T-Shirt. With my check from Langley, VA. sticking out of the pocket. In Althusserian fashion we can both view each other as overdetermined instantiations of the objective "trager" of the social relations of production. Or however he phrased it. (Trying to remember the witticisms of The Poverty of Theory on the Althusserian Orrery. ) Or, you call me a fool. Won't be the first time. ;-)