I saw a little of this too, half falling off to sleep. Cohen used to be in a Marxist Party. It flashes back in, from time to time, evidently.
Charles Ralph Dumain I haven't followed events in Russia for some time, but I was intrigued to see a face-off between Stephen F. Cohen and Garry Kasparov on the little weasel Charlie Rose's show tonight. What's really interesting is what's not said about the basis of democracy as what is. I don't know much of Cohen's current line. He says Kasparov is politically naive, and se also seems to have some regard for Gorbachev, unlike Kasparov. The discuss the history of corruption in post-Soviet Russia and America's role in Russia. They do seem to agree on much, but they have some different things to say. Neither believes the common judgment that Russia is not ready for democracy. Both blames the elites rather than the masses for the failure of the system. I think it was Kasparov who said The problem is that 'democracy' is seen as a scam for American self-interest, while Cohen says 'democracy' is secondary to economic security and has become a synonym for the current Russian disaster. Kasparov disagrees that Gorby was even minimally interested in democracy. There seemed to be, from my perspective, an implicit censorship about what the real issues were underlying these superstructural debates. But Cohen let the truth slip out a couple of times. He played along with Rose's bullshit game until he stated that there had been a sense in which the nation's resources were held to belong to everyone, and then they were illegally privatized into the hands of the corrupt individuals who own them now. His second allusion to class relations was his final claim, that democracies only work in practice when there is a vigorous labor movement, and that Russia needs free trade unions. Note how different this discourse is from the general framing of the discussion! There's little said but much implied, and that is, as always, the class relations of society. Kasparov seems much more concerned with free and fair democratic participation through the Russian territory. It's hard to tell exactly what his game is, but he does have a lot to say about the nuts and bolts of the corrupt system, including Putin's prime goal of keeping oil prices up. _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list [email protected] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
