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Doubts in the rightness and worth of socialism not just as an unrealizable project but even as an idea were heard at the very end of the 20th century even among many proponents of socialism. This caused alarm in people who continued to consider themselves socialists. The Russian philosopher and publicist Grigorii Vodolazov wrote, “Alas, they are burning manuscripts and beautiful ideas rather often perish, not leaving a trace. The socialist idea, one of the most ancient and greatest political ideas, is threatened today by three main dangers. The first is from its direct opponents, the second from its ‘friends,’ who are worse than enemies, and the third from the inability of its supporters to contribute to the idea features corresponding to our era and move it from the heights of ideological abstractions into the language of concrete political programs. We cannot let a great idea die!” “Socialism,” the philosopher Aleksandr Buzgalin says, “is experiencing a crisis, but not a crash. To overcome this crisis it is necessary to ponder the heroic and tragic experience of the struggle for socialism in the 20th century and work out a new theory and strategy and advance new Left ideas that adequately answer the demands of the third millennium.” But to advance new socialist conceptions and political progams it is necessary to examine what happened to earlier conceptions and programs. What sort of socialism was built in the Soviet Union, and was Soviet society socialist?
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Precisely, precisely.
You would think, from the way the problem is defined here, that Medvedev's been reading this list, in which these concerns are routinely evident, in both veiled and explicit terms and along almost exactly these lines.
Chris, surely this is hard work but please do as much as time and interest allows...I find this very compelling.
.d.
--------- Sí, los terroristas son nihilists pero sus enemigos son nihilists también.