>
> --- "Devine, James" <jdevine at lmu.edu> wrote:
>> this reminds me of 1976, when a Maoist in Mexico
>> told me that the when the CP took over China, the
>> problem of mental illness disappeared.
>> Jim D.
>
> Yes, actually I was quite surprized to learn that they
> even allowed psychiatry at all during the Cultural
> Revolution. At least the Chinese maoists were
> somewhat more nuanced than the non-chinese maoists...I
> had a phobia when I was about 18 and I was told by
> some american maoists that I just needed to engage in
> class struggle!!!! I am not exagerating; it's a true
> story!
Isaac Deutscher in one of the vols. of his bio of Trotsky relates how LDT told Joffe, a leading Bolshevik after '17 who had undergone psychoanalysis for yrs. before the Revo, that the seizure of power had done more for him to clear up his neuroses than yrs. of analysis.
From a piece by John Gray...
(see this Danny Postel piece on Gray, btw, http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20031222&s=postel )in the Dec. 15th issue of the New Statesman, quoting Koestler who was quoting Andre Malraux, from one of the Popular Front anti-fascist Writers Congresses that Roger Shattuck wrote a great piece in Partisan Review once (reprinted in the 50th anniversary issue that was re-issued in hb.or in the edited collection, "Writers and Politics, (Barnes and Noble has copies for under $7, and the latter collection from Partisan Review that includes classic exchanges between Trotsky and Dewey is available via amazon.com for a walloping $2 used),
> ...Malraux asked impatiently, "And what about the man who is run over by
> the tram car?" There was an awkward pause but, not for long..."In a
> perfect socialist transport system, there will be no accidents."
-- Michael Pugliese