Date sent: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 11:10:16 -0400
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
From: Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [L-I] What to do if the KLA and NATO fight
>Louis,
>
>I do not think one-liners like this advance the discussion at all.
>
>If you feel Anton is wrong or using stereotypes, explain it.
>Otherwise keep quiet, please.
>
>Johannes
Anton is wrong because he is using the methodology common to all
idealist deviations from Marxism. It opposes a mental construct to
the
living class struggle. In this mental construct all that is needed to
fight opportunism and reformism is exposure to the truth. So to make
a socialist revolution in Chile it is necessary to explain the
treachery of the popular front. To make a socialist revolution in
Venezuela it is necessary to wake the masses up to the dangers of
populism.
What's wrong with this methodology?
It assumes that ideas are the driving force of history rather than
the class struggle. When the Bolsheviks toppled Kerensky, it was not
the result of an ideological debate. It was because they had
participated in every step of the class struggle as leaders from the
1905 revolt. Workers had confidence in them. In October 1917 an
assault was mounted on the bourgeois government because that
government was seen as violating the democratic rights of working
people and prolonging a miserable war. But to reach that point, the
Bolsheviks had to have accumulated political capital over decades.
A fool once said that as soon as he accumulated one million dollars,
he would become a capitalist. The same kind of foolishness exists in
revolutionary politics unfortunately. Revolutionary credentials are
accumulated through action in the class struggle that produces
positive results. To attack the reformist enemies of the
revolutionary movement is not sufficient.
Louis Proyect
The Marxism mailing-list: http://www.marxmail.org
Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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