> What's your point? Your thesis was that Marxism has been 'smashed'. That
is to say that it is not widely accepted, that most people don't agree with
Marxists and believe other theories. But the same was true of the RSDLP in
Russia at all times up until November of 1917, no? So why are we worse off?
No, that's not why Marxism's been smashed. It was a great mass movement that a lot of people did believe, but no more. States adopted versions of it as their official ideology, but they have been topple except for a few outposts. In China, it's just window dressing. You have to see things clearly. It's not just a minority view. It's a _defeated_ view. That makes it worse off for Marxists.
> In some ways we are better off. We have 44 years of experience of working
together as a party, 44 years of party tradition, which is several times
what the RSDLP had in 1917.
And there are what, 200 of you after 44 years? There are about 300 people in Solidarity. There probable aren't 5000 people in all the self-styled Marxist organizations in the US.
> We did not have to argue out the ABC's of
Marxism because we are building on the foundations that were laid down long
ago.
Some might read that as saying that you guys don't think seriously about basic political questions.
> We have seen a hell of a lot of ways that Marxists can screw up and screw
each other up. If Edison was right in saying that 99% of experimental
science was in learning what doesn't work, we are on a much better
experimental foundation than the RSDLP could have been.
But are you, or is any Marxist group in America, going anywhere with all this experience?
> We are able to instantly communicate with each other and with the working
class. More people read our paper on line than read any edition of the
RSDLP papers before the February revolution.
But their papers made a difference to workers.
> The whole trick to your presentation is that you are trying to impose a
narrative structure on Marxism: first there was no Marxism, then there was a
little Marxism, then there was a lot of Marxism, and now there is a little
Marxism and 'therefore' soon there won't be any. How is this better than
Anne Elk's theory of the brontosaurus?
There already isn't any that matters. That ain't a trick, it's the hard truth. I don't knwo from Annie Elk and her theory of the brontosaurus, but you're not persuading me that Marxism is on the brink of a flourishing revival. You are deceiving yourself if you think that. The narrative I recount is absolutely true.
> Clearly you don't believe that Marxism's existence is grounded in the real
world. But if all the astronomers were killed off, you would not be
surprised to see astronomy regenerate because its existence is a reflection
of the fact that there are real stars and planets,
Know, I think that historical materialism is largely true. As far s the board outlines of views about the way the world works, you and I probably don't differ that much. I think that the truths of the theory will have to be relearned and descovered by mass movements for radical change. But they won't be rediscovered _as Marxism_. That is, the traditional vocabulary, the historical icons, the common culture, that's all gone except for the few dinosaurs like ourselves. It can no longer engage the aspirations of millions of people.
> But even though you do not believe that, and consider Marxism as being essentially an idiosyncratic belief system unconnected with the real world, like Marcionism or Christian Science,
Not at all. As I have said, I think the theory is true. It's the movement that has been defeated. Our problem, the concrete situation we find ourselves in, is what to dow hen the truth has been discredited.
> I would suggest that you read Stephen
Jay Gould and learn something about the perils of reasoning from a
superimposed narrative structure. Evolution doesn't work as predictably as
you believe, even for random variations.
I venture to say that I may know almost as much as you about evolutionary biology. I have even read Gould. But if you want to explain why your faith is rational, you will have to do better than saying that it may, unpredictably, rekindle. Truth is not enough: there are too many ways to represent the sdame truths, and indeed, truths can be suppressed for long periods. I think the truths of historical materialism will ultimately reassert themselves. But the form they took in the late 19th and early 20th century, red flags, hammers and sickles, all that stuff, that's over.
You have to be careful to not to stuff me into an incorrect narrative frame. You are answering Sidney Hook or Max Eastman, someone who used to be a Marxist, and has given up on histotical materialism, socialism and the working class. That's not me. I haven't. But Marxism has come a cropper. To answer my worry, you have to explain why it is rational to live as if there is a reasonable prospect that Marxism as it has traditionally existed, with the organizational form and vicabulary characteristic of the movements that trace their inspiration to the Octiber Revolution, will ever again matter in anything like the way that it mattered in the early and mid-20th century.
jks
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