marxist sociology

michael pugliese debsian at pacbell.net
Fri Feb 22 14:43:56 PST 2002


The recent biography of Lenin by Robert Service (not the earlier 3 volume set) has an acidic letter from Maxim Gorki to Bogdanov about the polemic in, "Materialism and Empirio-Criticism." Chaz should look it up. (As well the volumnious 3 volumes by Neil Harding, "Lenin's Political Thought, " published in the 90's or his recent one vol., "Leninism." If Chaz is going to be a leninoid he might as well update his fershtunkin' sources, eh?

On neo-kantianism, a quick look at, "Marxism and the U.S.S.R: A Critical Survey of Recent Thought, " by James P. Scanlan, (teaches at Ohio State Univ., btw) Cornell Univ. Press, 1985, reveals a paucity of Soviet scholarship on Kantianism, noe or otherwise. And this 350+ pgs. book has from the looks of it at least a thousand footnotes.

"Lenin, Hegel and Western Marxism, " blurbed by B. Ollman, Doug Kellner and Tom Rockmore, by the News & Letters member, Kevin Anderson is dismissive of Materialism and Empirio-Criticism esp. as compared with Lenin's Philosophical Notebooks (vol. 37 or so of the collected works) composed in 1916.

"Marxism After Marx, " by Marx biographer and marxologist, David McLellan, Harper & Row, 1979. Pg. 107, "there is little of abiding philosophical interest in Materialism and Empirio-Criticism..."

"Main Currents of Marxism, " by Leszek Kolakowski, 2nd vol. of the 3 vols. from Oxford Univ. Press, Chap. XVII, "Philosophy and Politics in the Bolshevik Movement, " pgs. 413-466, pgs. 424-445 focus specifically on, Mat. & E. Crit." Very critical as well.

And, on Maurice Cornforth, btw, since he has been cited a few times. His final work, "Communism and Philosophy, " published by Lawrence & Wishart the CPGB publishers in 1980, is, in my distant memory from a skim in college. Cornforth here moves away from orthodox diamat towards a Eurocommunist stance in more in line with the intellectuals around the CPGB glossy monthly of the time which I subbed to, "Marxism Today."

Sad, that Chaz is such a fuckin' dinosaur... Michael Pugliese



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