Ralph Dumain : Not to distract you from your sparring, but I don't see Gorvachev having much of a conceptual apparatus at all. What you have are general humanitarian notions--not a terrible thing to have--left in the wake of the collapse of Marxism-Leninism, but no substantive linkage to a systematic conception of social organization. This was true also of the rhetoric of glasnost and perestrojka. "Universal human values" instead of "Marxism-Leninism" and class struggle, but what this is is a non-specific cry for help.
^^^^ CB: Marxism is fundamentally, before it gets to classes, concerned with human material survival. In a section titled "History: Fundamental Condtions" they say: ... life involves before everything else eating and drinking, a habitation , clothing and many other things. The first historical act is thus the production of material life itself. And indeed this is an historical act a fundamental condition of all history, which today, as thousands of years ago, must daily and hourly be fulfilled merely in order to sustain human life." With nuclear weapons , all human life is threatened. Nuclear war would mean the common ruin of the contending classes. Averting nuclear war takes priority , in Marxist logic, over even class struggle, to the extent that class struggle is so sharp as to threaten nuclear holocaust. The main front of the class struggle during the existence of the Soviet Union, was the "Cold" War. So, I think Gorbachev had the better Marxist-materialist analysis at the level of universal human values. At this level, Marxism is "one" with "general humanitarian" values. _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list [email protected] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
