In the brief snatch o' time I have left before 8 hrs. of surplus-value extraction from my labor power, a quickie...
These last three yrs. on the list and my 25 yrs. as a lefty have seen my growing cynicism about the capacity of too many of my comrades to recognize the more than evident failures in the ideology and practice of Leninist parties and states. Passing along such autobiographical memoirs/critiques like the ex-CPUSA autobios I mentioned the other day, histories of the Comintern by leftists and ex-Communists like, Fernando Claudin that Monthly Review Press published in the mid-70's or the one that Verso published by the official historian of the Italian C.P., "Stalin and European Communism, " or critiques of Leninism from the left like, "State, Power, Socialism," by Nicos Poulantzas or back issues of Kapitalistate and , "Marxism Today, " from the Eurocommunist period of the CPGB or the Weekly Worker from the party of the same name, now, ,make one weary and wearier still, when all one gets from way too many is the same tired old, defensive, circling the wagons, solidarity with bureaucrats and thugs. Or naive apologetics.
Now, I'm not saying that Doug, who has been on the receiving end, as I have to a much lesser extent, of Stalinoid, paranoid rantings from certain quarters has ANY sympathies with bankrupt Leninist polities or economic systems. But, why is it that one cannot have, simultaneously, a critique of Capitalist Imperialism, in all it's UGLYNESS and Brutality, AND, a forthright confrontation with the anti-socialist, anti-democratic paractice and ideological/cultural vulgarities present in the fSU (except for the twenties) or Cuba, or North Korea today? Again, why should those that need the leadership of the Left, in this the most unequal society on Earth, with the most brainwashed population fed a diet of trash on TV and radio and with more guns than people whose children when they graduate hardly know what the Bay of Pigs or Tonkin Gulf resolution was OR Columbia or Venezuela today, trust us to formulate ideas to move this stinking mess of a society forward to something even approaching what Europe had in '70? Michael Pugliese P.S. Charles, you still haven't read A.J. Polan OR Neil Harding's three vols. on Lenin. Sigh.