The collapse of the Soviet Union (was Re: marxist sociology)

[Jim Farmelant]

On 1 Mar 2002 10:07:10 +0200 "Tahir Wood" <twood at uwc.ac.za> writes:
> 
> 

> Tahir: We agreed about this, but I insisted that there will still be 
> a communist movement - that's the part that you don't like. Actually 
> I would be thrilled if the two main parts of the movement, namely 
> marxist and anarchist, could find their ways back together again.
> 
>Justin:   and has (so fars we can tell) permanently lost the ability
inspire 
> its intended constiturency, the working class. That does not mean 
> that a 
> substantial part of the substantive propositions of historical 
> materialism 
> are false; I think they are in the main true,a nd explain,a momng 
> other 
> things, the collapse of the USSR.
> 
> Tahir: Yes, I wouldn't mind if someone initiated a thread that takes 
> up your very last point above. It's far from unimportant (or 
> settled).
> 

I suppse that if we are going to discuss how historical materialism
can be applied to understanding the collapse of the former USSR,
a good jumping off point might be the new edition of G.A. Cohen's
1978 book *Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence* which includes a new
introduction in which he reflects upon analytical Marxism, as well as
some
additional new chapters which he attempts to develop a revised historical
materialism. He still maintains that his 1978 book presented a faithful
presentation of Marx's materialist conception of history (with the aid of
tools borrowed from 20th century analytic philosophy) but in the
additional
chapters he attempts to come to terms with his more recent misgivings
concerning historical materialism by presenting a revised version of the
theory which he calls a "restricted historical materialism." In addition
to
this he also has a chapter on the collapse of the Soviet Union considered
from the standpoint of historical materialism, which I once posted to
Proyect's Marxmail List at 
(http://www.mail-archive.com/marxism@lists.panix.com/msg22051.html)
_____________


> 
> Dr Tahir Wood
> Director: Academic Planning Unit
> University of the Western Cape
> Phone (021) 959 3385
> Fax (021) 959 3170
> e-mail:  twood at uwc.ac.za 
> 
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