Having gotten a thicker skin these last five yrs. and knowing Doug not to be one of those silly, naive, "progressives" that used to hand out pamphlets from the U.S. Peace Council by Mark Solomon with a dove on it, calling E.P. Thompson, an ideologue as dangerous as the Cap Weinberger he debated at the Oxford Union (Solomon, Mark Death waltz to armageddon: E.P. Thompson and the peace movement. U.S. Peace Council, New York. [1983?], 44p. ...true to form when I saw Thompson speak in Los Angeles in the early 80's, CPUSA'ers in the audience in the Q&A went on about his "anti-Sovietism"...when it was Thompson, to use the other meaning of Soviet, was the defender against dinosaur Old Left in '56 that defended Hungarian Soviets i.e. workers councils and other forms of socialist democracy vs. defenders of tanks and privileged, repressive bureaucrats), I was gonna forego replying...but, well the ghost of Max Shactmam, heh, is shouting in my ear! Double heh, M.S. just said that Iranian exile trade unionists will be one the first landing wave attacking the nuclear facility at the Bay of Donkeys, Iran.
Really, Doug, you can offer up a more serious analysis than simply an update of Edgar Snow vol. from the late 40's, "Stalin must have peace!" Look again at, "Exterminism and Cold War, " Verso, 1982, pieces by among others, Roy and Zhores Medvedev, Lucio Magri, Fred Halliday, Alan Wolfe (cf. his, "The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Threat, " Inst. for Policy Studies, early 80's), Mike Davis, Marcus Raskin, and Rudolf Bahro.
For debate from the German left on the Euromissiles see, Telos, http://www.angelfire.com/biz/telospress/contents56.html Special Section on the German Peace Movement:
Sigrid Meuschel: Neo-Nationalism and the West German Peace Movement's Recation to the Polish Military Coup Walter Suss and Michael Lucas: The "Double Decision" Makes Sense? But for Whom? A Reply to Herf Axel Honneth and Otto Kallscheuer: Strange Encounter with a Familiar Ghost Boris Frankel: The View from Australia Jeffrey Herf: The Double Decision Still Makes Sense: A Response to My Critics Joachim Hirsch: Between Fundamental Opposition and Realpolitik: Perspectives for an Alternative Parliamentarism Wolfgang Pohrt: One Nation, One Reich, One Peace Kalus Ehring: The Peace Movement in East Germany: Its Origin and Future and Jeffrey Herf, "War by Other Means: Soviet Power, West German Resistance, and the Battle of the Euromissiles."
http://www.angelfire.com/biz/telospress/contents57.html Russell Berman: The Peace Movement Debate: Provisional Conclusions Ferenc Feher and Agnes Heller: On Being Anti-Nuclear in Soviet Societies http://www.angelfire.com/biz/telospress/contents60.html Review-Symposium on Soviet-Type Societies: Participants: Tim Luke, G.L. Ulmen, Ivan Szelenyi, Zygmunt Bauman, Gabor T. Rittersporn and Graeme Gill http://www.angelfire.com/biz/telospress/contents41.html Andreas Wildt: Totalitarian State Capitalism: On the Structure and Historical Function of Soviet-Type Societies -- Michael Pugliese