[lbo-talk] (no subject)

Chuck Grimes cagrimes42 at gmail.com
Wed Aug 1 16:44:32 PDT 2012


[WS:] Trotsky's main problem, as I see it, was oblivion to social embeddedness when it comes to the proletariat. As many radical intellectuals, he envisioned proletariat as a sheer force capable of not only abolishing all social institutions, but creating new ones from the scratch, according to a radical blueprint. In a way, this concept of the proletariat is the collective equivalent of Musil's "man without qualities."

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I understand and agree. OTOH, Trotsky organized and lead a prolitarian army of conscripts. So he knew the Russian prols pretty damned well. In the concrete he was not dealing with men without qualities. He was dealing with men from different districts and regions and cities.

In other chapters he is very specific in his descriptions of the conflicting political parties and their so-called leaders and their interests.

I am reading him like I read War and Peace as a vast panorama of Russian society at a particular time and place. It is a great adventure.

CG



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