Ian,
You wrote praised Meszaros' article for
> We can do without worship (or vilification) of
> Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, etc.
Were we reading the same article as mine was littered with
vilifications of Stalin and the Bolshevik revolution. You talk of
some on the left of turning Marxism into a secular religion well the
charge could be made that others have turned it into a secular
witch-hunt.
While I would not normally go out of my way to argue
against these sorts of attacks I did so because his vilification
obsured the nature of that society. It set up an Aunt-Sally in order
to make his argument look like the only reasonable way forward way.
> In my darker
> moments, I ask whether we will ever be really up to the demands of the the
> collective ownership of the means of production (but only in darker
> moments, and only wondering - I am knowm usually for my irrepressible
> optimism).
This is what I think is the danger of projecting a future communism
society. As if this was some objective reality which will come about
in a specific and detailed form which we can ever predict from within
a class-based society. That it will happen is a prediction that Marx
could make from the particular historical point from which he wrote.
But he knew only too well that a detailed sketch was beyond his
analysis.
You point about feudal culture existing in pre-revolutionary Russia,
China etc. was a bit confusing as did not feudal culture continue
post-revolution and does it not still occur in bourgeois society
right up to today. I notice that both you and I still live in a
Bourgeoie society with an hereditary head of state and 90 artistocrat
still sit in its second chamber. Feudalism may have died but the body
has not decayed away yet. And where it may no longer exist in an
economic sense its cultural aspects still continue.
Regards,
John
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