On 8/15/15 5:43 PM, Charlie wrote: > Always quick to label someone sectarian, L.P. links to his post that is > sectarian to the maximum. He argues by quotations, does nothing to > establish that his snippets are not selective, and leaves us devoid of > materialist analysis of the economy under tsarism. > > "The problem in Russia was industrialization. It was obvious by > comparison with England, Germany, France, and so on. In 1917 there were > three million workers among a population of 145 million. The working > class was concentrated in large factories (one thousand workers or more) > to a greater degree than the United States. Still, eight out of ten > people were peasants, and 30,000 large landowners exploited them. The > capitalist class was incapable of leading a revolution against the tsar, > hoping instead to win a place alongside the land-based aristocrats in a > reformed monarchy. Then industrialization could proceed over a span of > fifty years, similar to Japan after the so-called Meiji Restoration. > Although a few tsarist officials were of similar mind, notably the > police-state expert Peter Stolypin, the regime did not budge. The > working class made the 1917 revolution and proceeded to tackle > industrialization run by the working class for the benefit of the > working people." (The Hollow Colossus, p. 167f.) > >
Our resident Stalinist would naturally refer to what happened in the USSR as "industrialization run by the working class for the benefit of the working class". It is quite shocking to see this kind of brazen disregard for historical accuracy in 2015. It went out of fashion about 30 years ago and only lives on the hollowed out cults like the Progressive Labor Party and the Revolutionary Communist Party. At least those groups actually go out and confront the capitalist state even if on the basis of ultraleft adventures. By contrast, Charles Andrews has spent his 70 years or so on earth with nothing to show for it except a couple of vanity publications. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
