I wrote: >>"let's you and him fight!" -- is this an effort to divide and conquer
(what's
left of) the left?<<
quoth Brad, in his wisdom:
> No. It's an attempt to *think* about the future.
> If you want to make not thinking about the future a virtue, go ahead...<
Michael, is the above calculated to spark a flame-war?
Speaking of not thinking, if Brad had done any of that, he'd have noticed that I'm one
of
the people who argues that one should look before leaping, think about possible
socialisms...
BTW, I'm not convinced that the Second International and other socialist forces did no
thinking about how socialism would be organized before 1917. One of the biggest-selling
books on the left during the late 19th century was Edward Bellamy's LOOKING BACKWARD, a
utopian novel. He wasn't a Marxist (since he saw class antagonism as an evil) but his
vision could be assimilated by top-down socialists of various stripes, including both
Stalinists and mainstream social democrats. In many ways, his technocratic/patriotic
model
of the industrial army represents a statement of the positive ideals of Stalinism.
(It's
sort of the "dual" of the Arrow-Debreu-Walras model of general equilibrium, but
instead as
a totally planned economy. In the end, both are equally silly, though.)
On the other hand, there were socialist responses to Bellamy, such as William Morris'
NEWS
FROM NOWHERE. This was embraced by many outside the social-democratic mainstream.
In the end, however, I can't blame a lack of thinking or Bellamy-type thinking for the
rise of Stalinism. It's more a matter of actual history, not the history of ideas. The
Russian revolution was well-nigh inevitable. Lenin and the Bolsheviks stepped in and
tried
to make it a good thing for workers and peasants. The imperialist powers invaded and
encouraged the civil war (which would have happened anyway), so Lenin _et al_ had
little
choice but to embrace more top-down "solutions." (They were roundly denouced for this
by
bourgeois thinkers, as if the bourgeoisie didn't rule in a top-down way as a matter of
course.) The transition to Stalinism (which might have happened when Lenin still had
power) came when virtue was made of necessity -- and then when nationalism was
embraced.
-- Jim Devine
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