[lbo-talk] Robert Frost Defends Robespierre, Lenin, Mao

[Carrol Cox]

Marv Gandall wrote:  "Nor has Dewey persuaded me that the degeneration
of the Russian Revolution was owing to the Soviet leadership's adherence
to "a supposed scientific law" rather than to Russia's social and
economic backwardness which produced Stalin, aggravated by the failure
of the revolution to spread to the West which would have broken the
siege and come to the aid of the USSR."

A revolution in the west would have failed as well, though it might even
in its failure, have made the Russian Revolution less brutal and
prevented WW2! But that does not mean the revolutionaries of the 2d
International (esp. Luxemburg, Lenin, the Irish socialists, others who
opposed the slaughter of WW1) were wrong in attempting revolution. Doug
ended one of his posts on Lenin with "You never know," and that in fact
is the s ecret of Luxemburg's and Lenin's greatness.

I was not being facetious in my selection of the Subject line - Frost's
poem _is_ a vindication of the revolutionary efforts of the last 210
years. Again, Luxemburg at Stuttgart was totally correct in selecting
the workers of the (failed) Paris Commune as her model. Though she
slandered old women, many of whom have more steel in their spine than
most social deemocrats, still her point was clear: Those who wait until
'conditions' are obviously 'ripe,' wait forever while the world cooks.

Carrol