[lbo-talk] Pol Pot: Not Such A Bad Guy

[Carrol Cox]

Carl G. Estabrook
> 
> "...Now we may cautiously reassess the brave attempts to reach for
socialism in
> various countries. They were done under harsh, adverse conditions, under
threat
> of intervention, facing hostile propaganda. But let us remember: if
socialism failed,
> so did capitalism. If communism was accompanied by loss of life, so was
and is
> capitalism. But with capitalism, we have no future worth living, while
socialism still
> offers hope to us and our children."

Something like this has always seemed to me fairly obvious. Mostly because
the voluminous "criticism" of these regimes has never, once, led to anything
useful, except perhaps to the moral self-satisfaction of the critic.

Socialism was simply not on the agenda in the 20th-c; arguments that this or
that course would have been "socialist" are pretty empty. But it also seems
obvious that whatever it is we call socialism, it will never come into
existence without many prior failures. "Brave attempts" seems a good
summary.

Carrol