I'm getting more uncomfortable about using "ruling cvlass" as though it were a single entity with a single mind. I know neither you nor Doug believe this, but the term itself as the grammatical subject of such sentences seems to carry such a burden.
The CIA's plumping for abstract expressionism (and the picture in Life) was a fairly specific part of the Cold War, planned and implemented to show how unliberal Moscow was and how liberal 'we' were. It isn't a good example of reactions to large movements of varied nature -- such as the Movement of Movements in the '60s. Reactions to _part_ of that would have been planned by _some_ state officials with specific Cold War problems in mind. But overall it's more complicated, is it not.
Carrol
^^^^ CB: More complicated , but the key is the relativity of class unities.
The level of ruling class unity, or unity of consciousness, is always a relative "quantity". It must never be discussed in isolation but always in relation to ruled class unity. Class unity is not a thing but a relationship to the other class's unity.
As soon as ruling class unity of consciousness is less than that of the ruled class, or even if the levels of unity become somewhat equal, comes the revolution.