[lbo-talk] Hello! (Zinoviev on Lukacs and Korsch)

Michael Pugliese debsian at pacbell.net
Tue Jan 6 09:31:06 PST 2004



>> Real revolutionaries don't care about manners! You must be hard and
>> cold.
>> Doug

After Zinoviev condemned Lukacs and Korsch at the Fifth World Congress of the Comintern in '24, in his speech, "The Struggle Against the Ultra- Lefts and Theoretical Revisionism, " w/ tons of demogogy contrasting, "professors, " w, "honest workers, " , (quoting from Cyril Smith, "Marx at the Millenium, pgs. 32-33 here now) "If we get a few more of these professors spinning out their Marxist theories we will be lost. We cannot tolerate theoretical revisionism of this kind in our Communist International. Bukharin, soon to replace Zinoviev as Stalin's ally is reported to have said in conversation w/ Korsch and other delegates, 'Comrades we cannot put up every piece of garbage for discussion.' (Citing Doug Kellner's work on Korsch.)

This was after one of the most brilliant marxist texts ever was published, "History and Class Consciousness, " and Korsch' , "Marxism and Philosophy."

In Suzi Weissman bio of Victor Serge or some other source (maybe directly from Serge autobiographical texts, I forget right now), when Lukacs was being shunned (Bolshevik intellectuals and Party cadre crossed the street to avoid him, even folks he'd known for a while), after this Zinoviev denunciamento, only Serge kept in touch.

In Dorothy Healy autobio of her decades in the CPUSA, she says that after the CPSU, (on nada evidence) accused Anna Louise Strong, who had interviewed Mao in Yenan in the 30's, if memory serves, of being a Soviet spy and expelled her from the USSR, only Dorothy in the CPUSA leadership maintained her friendship.

-- Michael Pugliese



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