[lbo-talk] Zizek: "Where to look for revolutionary potential

Mike Ballard swillsqueal at yahoo.com.au
Sun Mar 18 20:00:59 PDT 2007


Yoshie quoted Gramsci who wrote:

The Bolsheviks reject Karl Marx, and their explicit actions and conquests bear witness that the canons of historical materialism are not so rigid as might have been and has been thought.

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Not that one should be a dogmatic about taking Marx's conclusions about particular tactics of his time, say within the First International, as eternal truths in terms of achieving the stragtegic goal of replacing capitalist class rule with an association of free producers, but Gramsci's seemingly uncritical views on the wonders of free-flowing Bolshevism appear to me to be an appeal to replace "orthodox Marxism" with the glorification of bureaucratic Communist Party rule and State capitalism as the only possible transitional means to acchieve a communist society; that combined with the "party of a new type" dogmas we've all heard so many times before.

I suggest a close reading of Brinton's BOLSHEVIKS AND WORKERS CONTROL to get a grip on SOME of the flaws in Bolshevik dogma:

http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/russia/sp001861/bolintro.html

Best, Mike B)

Never give in and never forget to take some time to smell the roses. http://happystiletto.blogspot.com/

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