>
> By heaven, let's put that warning sign over Marx's
> ideas. But as Victor Serge said about Bolshevism, it may
> have, certainly did, bear the seeds of Stalinism, but it
> bore other seeds too.
I agree that Marxism contained within itself the potential to develop towards Stalinism. In Bolshevism that potentiality became even more probable.
Perhaps, it might shed light to think back to the contradictions already apparent between the Young Hegelians and Hegel himself or in any case the legalistic (Right) hegelians. On the one hand, you had Hegel who spoke of the state as the highest embodiment of universal Spirit/Reason. Hegel supported the Prussian government of his time as the latest, greatest development of Spirit. This aspect provided a basis for the "Right" hegelians to defend the status quo.
The Young Left hegelians, on the other hand, emphasized Hegel's negativity as the law pushing forward spiritual development.
On top of this, in both instances, you have the potential for the individual to be crushed, as just a tool of Univeral Reason.
So, you have these two potentialities (and the the third one as well) within hegelianism and hence marxism.
Now, when the Bolsheviks elminated named themselves the sole representatives of the working class, took exclusive state power and wiped out the workers' councils, I would say the increased the potential of conservatism (as regards the new status quo) and diminished the importance of negativity and the possibility of change.
To address the question of Heidegger, he spoke of authenticity and being critical of Das Man. It's a world in which the individual tries to break free of "the gaze" (thinking of Satre's 'Huis Clos') of the other. No relationship between his philosophy and a politics that has nothing but contempt for "the masses? Methinks, there is a strong bearing.
So, in Heidegger, you have (at least the potential of) an exuberant, asocial individualism.
-Thomas