>... The argument that Marx anticipated Stalinism is completely a
>historical statement, made out of context, which pays attention to "ideas"
>rather than to circumstances of Stalin's Russia. Projecting Marx onto
>Stalin or vice versa is an idealist reading of
>history. Ideas should be judged vis a vis circumstances, not circumstances
>vis a vis ideas, especially in Marxian praxis (Reread Gramsci)!
I did NOT blame Marx for Stalin. You misread what I wrote. Rather, I was
saying that Marx had some understanding of the problem of Stalinism.
> >Also needed is proletarian power.
>
>What a charming invitation! If you really trusted proleterian power, you
>would try to understand, or at least appreciate, the circumstances and
>social forces of Vietnamese revolution instead of saying that it was not a
>revolution in Marxist sense.
this simply repeats something that Louis and I have already discussed and I
have no intention to repeat that discussion. He and I attach different
meanings to the word "proletarian."
>This way of thinking reminds me of bourgeois Kautsky who did not expect a
>revolution in Russia because Russia was economically "backward", or the
>circumstances were not yet ready. ("so let's postpone "mass democracy"
>folks! because the "masses" are still "immature" kind of ELITIST way of
>thinking)
ditto: Louis and I had a discussion about this. You misunderstand what I
wrote. I'm in favor of "mass democracy" (except if that's simply a slogan
which has some other meaning).
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~JDevine
