[lbo-talk] Social Democracy

Marvin Gandall marvgandall at rogers.com
Mon May 30 15:22:01 PDT 2005


andie nachgeborenen wrote:


> You can score cheap points or say something helpful. I
> am nor a cuktural determinist either.

Sorry if my reference to "cultural determinist" offended you, andie. It wasn't aimed at you - it was intended as a way of demarcating my own position -and not as an insult to others. But I should have been more careful about how it could be interpreted.

There's little I can add to what Carrol has said below. I agree with all of it, including his point that there is always useful and satisfying political activity to be found in even the leanest periods. His own activity (see his penultimate paragraph) is a good example of that. Concerning Carrol's other point about being patient, it's worth noting that when movements are small and stagnating, it's easy for a frustrated sectarianism to set in which reinforces its isolation. Excessive caution ("opportunism") on the other hand, is mostly characteristic of a political movement which has approached power and has a lot to lose. That's not the situation the left finds itself in today.

MG

----- Original Message ----- From: "Carrol Cox" <cbcox at ilstu.edu> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Monday, May 30, 2005 12:56 PM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Social Democracy>
>
> andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>>
>>
>> I don't normally quote Lenin, but he boiled down his
>> sales point to three words: Bread, Land, and Peace.
>>
>> What's our slogan?
>
> I don't believe Lenin coined that slogan in 1895, or even 1907.
>
> This is not a period in which we can expect to be able to "boil down our
> sales point," since as of now we don't have (and ought not to have) a
> comprehensive product to sell. "We" are even, as I have consistently
> argued on this list, a coherent We yet, and in the _immediately_
> foreseeable future are not apt to become such a coherent agency.
>
> It is not quite accurate, either, to call that slogan a "sales point":
> Rather, I believe, it was a way of articulating what the mass of the
> Russian people had already "bought" as it were. His _sales point_ was
> somewhat different, and you can find it recorded in Lincoln Steffens'
> _Autobiography_. I'm too lazy to look it up just now, but it was
> something like "Go on and have your fun now, you deserve it, but when
> you are ready to go to work, come to the Bolsheviks." That was a message
> he repeated over and over again in the streets of St. Petersburg in a
> voice that only reached the nearest 50, who would then back off to allow
> 50 more to crowd around the speaker.
>
> "We" are not a We yet, nor do we have an audience yet who would be
> interested in hearing our "sales point," no matter how powerful.
>
> On the other hand, during the '90s "we" (Jan & I) had no audience at all
> for the first time since the '60s, but now "we" have a rather interested
> audience of about 35, all of whom are interested in becoming
> salespersons themselves.
>
> A friend once quoted Lenin as saying there are three revolutionary
> virtues: "Patience, Patience, and Patience." Not bad for the present
> anyhow. (If Lenin did say this, it must be recorded in someone's
> anecdotes, because I don't think it is in his published works. I still
> like it, whether Lenin ever said it or not.)
>
> Carrol
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>



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