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The notion that academics and philosophers are in some privileged group that is exempt from radical rearrangement in a revolution is a glaring demonstration of the very elitism and presumption of class privilege that results in the use of force and violence against them in any uprising of working people. In itself, your attitude that philosophers and academics and their subject matters are aloof from the burning social issues that explode in a revolution shows why a lot of academics piss off the revolting masses and their representatives.
Tahir: Well I dunno so much about the masses being revolting, but some of their self appointed representatives are pretty revolting! Charles this is not about whether the SU was better than the US. That's a red herring. Both are shite. Can't you grasp that?
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CB: Oh, do you mean that both the SU and US are revolting , like the masses ?
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The essential point is that if we accept what you are saying here then it is right to repress all those variants of marxism and communism that you deem inconvenient at a particular time, by shooting their proponents.
^^^^^^^ CB: No, with Khruschev, I said Stalin's crimes were serious and unforgivable. Maybe you were so busy seeing in what I wrote what you had heard so much before that you didn't pay attention to what I actually said. I just feel that Stalin should have been able to settle differences within the Party without resorting to mass murder and repression. But I wasn't there.
I do think that it is likely that some fraction of the intelligentsia , philosophers and the like were from the Old School , really old, like from when philosophy and Russian Orthodox theology were taught in Russian state college and schools. There were likely to be some fairly incorrigible reactionaries, genuine counterrevolutionaries , Not everybody but some. Unfortunately , it was likely that it would just inevitably come to blows with some of the old aristocracy of all occupations, professors and lawyers, butchers, bakers and candlestick makers.
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Your idea that freedom of speech is only of interest to the bourgeoisie is rubbish.
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CB: This is not what I say. I say that freedom of speech is not a higher freedom than freedom from want and liberation struggle as in carrying out a revolutionary transformation of society. The freedom of speech does not override the freedom value of preventing the advocacy of counterrevolution or reaction, or even the need to turn all institutions upside down in a revolution. Freedom of speech must be construed in the context of all the important freedoms , and sometimes it comes out second. ^^^^^^^
What freedom did the left opposition have in the SU? Leninist/Stalinist boorish repression ensured that initially fine communists like Alexandra Kollontai turned into stooges, that many marxist intellectuals were shot and that the international communist movement chucked out brilliant marxists such as Bordiga and others in favour of pro-Moscow stooges, sacrificing their own countries' revolutions to Russian national interest. Yo! ur line of argument here is objectionable, intellectually empty and will impress only the diehard rightwing communists that still somehow inhabit the dark corners of lists like this one and Louis Proyect's. You and yours are history - now isn't that a nice irony?
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CB: No its wishful thinking. I'm fresh as a daisy.
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This contradiction was active in the French Revolution and the American Revolution. Aptheker has pointed out that there was no freedom of speech to advocate Toryism in the newly formed U.S. among the population that formulated and passed the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Tahir: So the so-called worker's state should practice the same thing?
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CB: What I'm telling you is that the originators of freedom of speech in law don't interpret to mean what you do. That should give you pause. You are more spaced out than the bourgeoisie are on the bourgeois freedom''
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The difference being that it will disallow virtually anything that the ruling clique doesn't like at a particular time.
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CB: Actually, workers have no trouble understanding that freedom of speech is limited by other freedoms. So, it wasn't likely that it was only the leaders who developed the policy , but the masses of people. It is the petit bourgeois intelligentsia who put freedom of speech and thought above freedom from want and equality.
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But there's more, much more to all this as you well know: you'll tell us moreover that all this repression should happen within the context of a particular nation state as well. So we can have yet another brand of rightwing nationalism like Stalin's, where all sorts of brilliant thinkers need to be sacrificed to the 'national interest'.
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CB: That's it isn't it ?The brilliant thinkers like you must have special privileges even in socialism . You're just special , aren't you, and the dumb workers don't understand that. You should be able to say anything you want. the struggle against the counterrevolution be damned for your brilliance must be allowed to shine forth at all costs.
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You refuse to acknowledge the undeniable real association and identification of the intellectual strata with the ruling class Czarist Russia and ruling classes!
elsewhere.
Tahir: You're advocating the same thing, just within a state capitalist context, which is the only kind of 'socialism' that comrades lenin and stalin knew. No thanks, I don't see that it represents any advance on the bourgeois democracy that you're attacking.
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CB: And what exactly do you think Marx meant by the "dictatorship of the proletariat" ? That everybody but the petit bourgeois intelligentsia would be under strict revolutionary discipline , or what ?
But anybody with common sense would know that a bunch of workers and peasants carrying out a revolution would be justified in throwing out a lot of academics as much as they would be justified in throwing out government officials. Frankly, it disgusts me that you would try to imply that academics and philosophers are somekind of "angel" strata who had no cupability for the old society just as much as other officials and rulers.
Tahir: This is exactly the language of the cultural revolution in China that made millions and millions of Chinese hate official marxism with a passion. Bordiga predicted that the Chinese leadership would soon reveal itself to be the class enemies of the people, just as the Soviet leadership had done. He welcomed these developments for just that reason. Unfortunately marxism itself becomes discredited in the process by its rightwing proponents, a horrible legacy to have to fight, but that fight will happen and is happening.
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CB: We have heard this armchair revolutionist mantra a thousand times before. Where exactly has the Bordiga line changed the world in the slightest ?