--- Justin Schwartz <jkschw at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Thomas, Stalinism is OVER. The debate is finished.
Justin, I am using here the term "Stalinism" very loosely. Doug, too, has chided me for lumping stalinists and trotskyists together. Believe me, I know the difference, even though I think they have a lot in common.
When, in the past, I have used the term "stalinist", I am referring really to "vanguardism" and the support, conditional or not, of the butchery and anti-democratic practices that have gone on under the so-called "socialist" regimes.
The support of those regimes and that ideology- whether based upon self-deception or some kind of dependency theory- has not died.
So if you are accusing me of using the word "stalinist" rather sloppily, then I agree with your criticism. If, on the other hand, you are suggesting that the concept of "vanguardism" (and self-deception about the atrocities that went on in the so-called socialist bloc) is not still alive and polluting the atmosphere, then I beg to differ with you.
You are right that we need to pull outselves out of the muck.
Thomas
===== "The tradition of all the dead generations
weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living"
-Karl Marx
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