He argued that the scientific facet of Marx's writings lent themselves to the authoritarianism of the 'experts' that made up the politburo. In no way was he indicting Marx himself as he made the broader argument that no philosophy will of necessity determine one politics.
D. T.
On 19-Jul-09, at 1:31 PM, Left-Wing Wacko wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 12:25 PM, SA <s11131978 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> John E. Norem quoted:
>>
>> After being thrown out of the party and losing his post at Warsaw
>>> University, Kolakowski became convinced that Stalinism was the
>>> logical
>>> conclusion of Marxism and not its aberration
>>>
>>
>> Not true. Kolakowski wrote that Stalinism was the logical
>> conclusion of
>> *Leninism*. He held that Leninism, in turn, was one *possible* and
>> legitimate interpretation of Marxism (among many others). By
>> leaving that
>> interpretation open, he believed that Marx could be blamed, in an
>> intellectual-history sense, for Leninism. But he also repeated ad
>> infinitum
>> that Marx himself was a committed libertarian and that his own
>> ideal was of
>> a democratic society. He criticized anti-Marxists who depicted Marx
>> as a
>> totalitarian.
>>
>> SA
>>
>>
> I have never read Kolakowski first hand, so I really don't know. But
> it
> seems as though I read somewhere Kolakowski being cited for making the
> argument that Leninism and Stalinism were the logical outcome of
> Marxism,
> basically as an outcome of the movement to resolve dialectical
> contradictions of capitalism and bourgeois democracy or something
> like that.
> It struck me as a bullshit argument from the second hand source I read
> (sorry, I can't place it). Can somebody fill in the blanks, did
> Kolakowski
> make such an argument, and can somebody speak to its strengths or
> weaknesses?
> Sheldon
>
> --
> http://left-wingwacko.blogspot.com/
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