<!doctype html public "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN"> <html><head><style type="text/css"></style><title>Re: Vanishing Marxism on LBO-talk Re: ANSWER, cops, br</title></head><body> <div>At 11:11 PM -0500 19/2/03, soil ride wrote:</div> <div><br></div> <blockquote type="cite" cite>Bill Bartlett wrote:<br> <br> >...Leninism isn't Marxism, never has been, never will be. Actual Marxists<br> have always been pretty thin on the ground of course, I don't see much<br> evidence that there's any less now than there was 20 years ago.<br> <br> "Actual Marxists"? What determines an "actual Marxist" in response to the<br> world and its situations other than claiming to have read and understood [or<br> intrepret] Marx, Lenin or Mao through their works and others?</blockquote> <div><br></div> <div>By "actual Marxist", I meant those who agreed with Marx, rather than those who agreed with the likes of Lenin or Mao. Leninists are not Marxists, it seems to me.</div> <div><br></div> <blockquote type="cite" cite>  As far as I<br> know-actual nations that have struggled to bring socialism into<br> existence-relies on actual conditions and actual demands in response to<br> actual forces-it just so happens that in any case it started with Marx,<br> Lenin and Mao [Russia, China, Albania, Vietnam, Cuba etc]</blockquote> <div><br></div> <div>I ought to tell you that I don't regard the former Soviet Union, or China, or any other society, ever, as socialist. Socialism has never been brought into existence in my humble opinion.</div> <div><br></div> <blockquote type="cite" cite>> There's always been lots of weeds - Leninism, Maoism and the like. The</blockquote> <blockquote type="cite" cite>weeds have choked the garden. Though this also can be explained in terms of<br> Marxist theory.<br> <br> For those who defend bourgeios politics [deceitful and violent means] the<br> path to conscience is always blocked when it comes to finding out the<br> truth-in this case calling the various strands of Marxism known as Leninism,</blockquote> <div><br></div> <div>I don't regard them as strands of Marxism. They are weeds in that they arose and flourished under conditions unfavourable to socialism. A feudal society has neither suitable material conditions nor suitable social consciousness.</div> <div><br></div> <blockquote type="cite" cite>Maoism, etc as weeds that have choked the garden [in this would anyone like<br> to explain what the "garden" is?] is just a superficial excuse as to<br> disregard Marxism all-together.  [The mentality that says<br> "Marx-was-right-but-Lenin-[Stalin]-Mao-fucked-it-up-for-the-rest<span ></span>-of-us"] The<br> problem doesn't lay with Lenin, Mao or Stalin.</blockquote> <div><br></div> <div>I agree. It doesn't lay with them personally. They, together with their philosophies, were merely a product of their times and of their particular circumstances.</div> <div><br></div> <blockquote type="cite" cite>  It is so easy to just<br> "blame" one single person for the problems and then use it as an excuse as<br> to not build socialism.  Lenin, Mao were not perfect, nor do they need to<br> be, and for any country in in transition to socialism, the point is how to<br> fix and solve the problems of society-by consciously engaging in solving<br> those problems.  For any problem that arises in a [socialist] society, does<br> one really sit back and intrepret the situation saying "We have so many<br> problems and it is because so-and-so misintrepreted from long ago so-and-so<br> and therefore there's no point to this. Socialism doesn't work." No.</blockquote> <div><br></div> <div>No. One cannot say that "socialism doesn't work" and I'm not saying that. I'm saying it has never been tried. And it never will be so long as many people believe socialism is the sort of society created by Lenin and Mao. The first thing to do is admit that these societies, whatever their good points and bad points might be or might have been, were not socialism.</div> <div><br></div> <blockquote type="cite" cite> The<br> "actual Marxist" in this situation would take a look at the situation and</blockquote> <blockquote type="cite" cite>assess what needs to be done, what can be done, what must be done.</blockquote> <div><br></div> <div>A Marxist in (semi-feudal )1917 Russia would have concluded that socialism wasn't something that was materially possible. That what must<u> not</u> be done was to pretend that socialism could be created without the material conditions necessary for socialism. Lenin rejected this, abandoning elementary Marxist logic. I'm sure he did the best he could with the best of intentions, but his whole political philosophy was motivated by wishful thinking.</div> <div><br></div> <div>It is well known that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. A less well known fact is that wishful thinking is the mortar between the paving on the road to hell. A philosophical great building material wishful thinking, plentiful, cheap and easy to work with. But be careful not to step on the cracks, because it doesn't hold up to real conditions.</div> <div><br></div> <div>Bill Bartlett</div> <div>Bracknell Tas</div> </body> </html>