[lbo-talk] Bolshevik-Bashing -- The Point

[Bill Bartlett]

At 9:28 PM -0800 30/11/03, andie nachgeborenen wrote:

>do. This was the point of my saying that Thomas S and
>Michael P's criticism of the Bolshies was merely
>moral.

That may be their point, though I think you are putting words into 
their mouths. In any event moral objections aren't the only reason to 
condemn totalitarianism as a strategy.

The most important reason to condemn it is strategic. Millions of 
potential supporters of a possible socialist society are alienated by 
totalitarianism, driving them to side with the capitalist class, as 
the lesser of two evils. Socialism can never be achieved by a 
political coup, only by purposeful class conscious struggle by the 
majority of the working class. So from a strategic standpoint, it is 
counter-productive to alienate the majority of the working class, to 
put it mildly.

So you and Doug are dead wrong. It isn't mere moral squeamishness, 
but mainly for pragmatic reasons, that thinking socialists eschew any 
sort of dictatorial imposition of socialism.

Bill Bartlett
Bracknell Tas