Carrol Cox (cbcox at ilstu.edu)>...Read through the archives on this list...
Indeed http://www.google.com/search?q=Carrol+%22stalinist%22+lbo-talk ,Carrol always put scare quotes around Stalinist. http://nuance.dhs.org/lbo-talk/0011/1094.html Carrol>...tired old pejorative like "stalinist." From one of the best ever lbo-talk threads, "Heart of a Leftist, "http://squawk.ca/lbo-talk/0007/0262.html Carrol and Yoshie>...Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> >>So, Yoshie, can Stalinist be criticized and excoriatedwithout
> >>commiting the horrible vice of red-baiting?
> >
> >Nope. Stalinism can't be criticized without it turning into
> >red-baiting.
It really is not hard to avoid red-baiting. Criticize/attack *positions*
without resorting to the lazy habit of replacing argument with labels. There is even a label for this practice: it's called principled criticism...
If Yoshie, with her forwarding of French Trotskyist Daniel Bensaid a few days ago is coming to her senses, hurray!
To Carrol, her is what Earl Browder said in 1938 about calling himself a Stalinist w/o scare quotes. "The vigillence and unity of our members...is a unity based upon understanding and science, the science of history, founded by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels and, developed in the present era of imperialism and the rise of socialism as a world power, by Vladamir Lenin and Joseph Stalin...With the deepest pride we accapt the name of our most beloved teacher and guide. We are indeed Stalinists, and we hope to become ever more worthy of such a glorious name...Truly it is a proud name, Stalinist, and we must bear it with all modesty, for it carries with it a tremendous responsibility." Earl Browder, "The Democratic Front, " Workers Library, 1938, g. 84, as cited in fn. 25, pg. 17 of Aileen Kraditor, "Jimmy Higgins: Inside the Mental World of the American Rank-And-File Communist, 1930-1958. " Kraditor, as you might know wrote several books on the abolitionists and suffragists. She was in the CPUSA from the late 40's to the late 50's.
The above quote from Browder's written work can also be backed up with an interview he conducted with NYC newspaper reporters, just after the Pact was announced in '39 where he calls himself a proud Stalinist, again. as cited by Harvey Klehr in his history of the CPUSa in the 30's blurbed by Hal Draper.
As for principled criticism, esp. when Charles Brown was here, others and I brought up the histories of the Communist movement written by such as Fernando Claudin of the Spanish PCE that was published by Monthly Review Pres in the 70's, to no avail. C.L.R. James, Agnes Heller, Ferenc Feher and Gyorgy Markus on, "Dictatorship Over Needs, " Rudolf Bahro in, "The Alternative in Eastern Europe." Many others. But, these communists are all just red-baiters, to some. Michael Pugliese