[L-I] RE: [CrashList] Z-Net Flunks Test on Depleted Uranium

[Mark Jones]

OK, now I have Jared's response and I'm sorry if I seemed peevish. FWIIW, I much
respect Jared's work so this is a comradely talk.

>Just read your long
> commentary, hjowever, and I think you miss the point - which is, arrest of
> Borodin is flagrant act of aggression by the Us and SWISS cohorts.  It
> employs a new US weapon of choice - whom the US would make an example of, it
> first calls corrupt.  Whether or not the charge is without foundation - as is
> apparently the case with Milosevic - or whether it may have foundation which
> you say is true with Borodin is irrelevant.  The accusers are corrupt on a
> scale impossible for mere Russians to achieve - including creating the
> conditions of misery for most Russians today.

'Mere Russians' took the decisions to liquidate the Soviet Union, and no-one else.
It was an unforced move. They didn't have to do it. If Cuba can survive, so
self-evidently could the USSR. There were many forks which the postwar Soviet
leadership stumbled over and took the wrong turning, but the really critical one was
the decision by Gorbachev to surrender, to concede defeat in the Cold War. I know we
all know by heart Trotsky's famous lines on how the 'bureaucracy' was a bourgeoisie
in waiting, but there were and are always antidotes - *political* antidotes - to
Jekyll + Hyde transformations. 'Corruption' was not a kind of accessory, it was the
whole idea, the only game in town, and it wasn't long before 'mere Russians' like
Borodin and Yeltsin began to give lessons to their US (Harvard-trained) masters in
how it is done. They really took the best of the old and melded it with the best of
the new. Every minor form of bureaucratic self-enrichment and self-advancement
perfected in Brezhnev's time now flourished like cancer gone world in the brave new
world of Russian capitalism. And Pavel Borodin was amongst the grossest,
Roman-empire style, thieves. To say that we must line up in defence of him is
grotesque, and surely absurd. We cannot talk like this; it insults our own movement,
+ the huge historical struggle and sacrifice of the Soviet working class, and to the
whole tradition of Marxist and Leninist theory and practice.

Nor is it the case that this is simply the US employing a new weapon )to do what?
Terrorise corrupt plunderes and thieves? If so, it's NOT a new weapon and indeed it
is a very old weapon, often used by imperial nomenclaturas against quislings who
become a political embarrassment: to take just one example out of many, Noriega --
is he someone we should defend?). But in fact, in this case it seems clear that
their is collusion between the Kremlin and the Swiss and US authorities. But if it
is true that Putin is trying to establish his independence from Yeltsin (stooge,
criminal and quisling No. 1) and is trying to create a new 'strong' Russian state -
as the Bushites themselves now appear to be arguing, then you might expect that the
US would not be rushing to help him, you might indeed expect them to simply refuse
to act in a way which *supports* Putin and which pulls the rug from under their old
ally, Yeltsin and family. So it simply is not the case that the Borodin arrest is
another example of US state terrorism against foreign leaders.

As for theBelarus connection, Borodin's disappearance can only HELP the
strengthening of ties between Belarussia and Russia. His presence as secretary for
the Belraussian-Russian alliance was simply a guarantee that nothing woiuld happen
except the discovery of new forms of corruption and enrichment.

And I think that relations between Putin and Lukashenko are etxremely warm and are
developing strongly; nor have I heard one word of complaint from Lukanshenko about
Borodin's fate, only the same ominous silence as from Putin himself.

> Lukashenko of Belarus has offered his view - that this is calculated slap in
> the face to Russian and Belarus sovereignty and an attempt to sabotage the
> Russia-Belarus union - and I think he's right.

I haven't seen this. Can you provide a reference?

> As for the corruption of
> leaders, I say, let the Russian people - who with all due respect are not
> adequately represented by Internet polls - decide on that.

Internet polls? We are talking about public opinion polls tekn by VtSIOM and other
domestic Russian agencies.

>
> BTW Since we are quoting polls, Lukashenko is more popular than Putin in
> Russia.  Also BTW isn't it an outrage that Putin has remained silent on this
> - calling Bush to congratulate him on his inauguration after Bush went on the
> Barbara Walters show 20/20 to read Russia a lecture about corruption after
> arresting a state secretary - and Putin calls to congratulate.  And then
> there was that sub which rapparently was really rammed by a US vessel and
> which coincidentally had been helping the Yugoslavs during the bombing and
> Putin said nothing...Oh my.


There is no evidence that the Kursk was rammed, and it almost certainly sank as a
result of an onboard expl

RE: [L-I] Borodin Falsely Arrested - Washington's Excuse a Lie

[Mark Jones]

> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: 09 February 2001 15:33
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: [L-I] Borodin Falsely Arrested - Washington's Excuse a Lie
>
>
> The URL for his article is http://emperors-clothes.com/news/bor.htm
> www.tenc.net
> [Emperor's Clothes]
>
> Borodin Falsely Arrested - Washington's Excuse a Lie
>
> by Jared Israel [revised 1-31-2001]

I responded to this on CrashList as follows and await a response from Jared:


Jared, I think the story about Pavel Borodin is more complicated than this. Your
interest in the matter seems to come down to this: an important Russian diplomat and
public official is arrested. This is prima facie an attack on 'the former Soviet
peoples' themselves  and a sign of renewed American aggression.

If only life was so simple. I guess where you are coming from is the parallels with
the possible fates of former Yugoslav leaders, or, let me rephrase that, leaders of
different ethnic and political and national groupings within the ex-YF. But frankly
I don't think you are doing your cause many favours by attaching it to the fate of
someone as notoriously corrupt and evil as Pavel Borodin, someone that, according to
opinion polls cited yesterday on Johnson's Russia List, many ordinary Russians
*themselves* don't want back. Borodin is a hate-figure for millions of Russians; he
is one of the oligarchs and pro-western modernisers with strong Kremlin links, like
Anatolii Chubais or Boris Berezovsky, who could not appear in a public place: if he
did, the mob would tear him to pieces. So arresting Borodin is one of the few
'unfriendly acts' by Americans which most ordinary Russians would actually be
grateful for.

Before being shunted off to the semi-retirment of his new post as  Secretary of the
Russian-Belarus Union, Borodin was in charge of the Kremlin property administration.
This was the heart of darkness of the Yeltsin programme for plundering Russia and
enriching his oligarch cronies. Trying to save Borodin on the grounds of his alleged
diplomatic status is equivalent say to the attempts which some well-meaning
Americans made to have Hermann Goering saved from the noose on the grounds that he
was a former member of a Govenrment and should have immunity as a result of the
German surrender.It is absurd to argue that criminals can enjoy life with immunity
because they own a piece of paper. But I'll tell you something else about Russian
diplomat passports: these documents occupy a special place in Russian consciousness
even today, because the main beauty of them during the Soviet era was not so much
that you could go *into* any third country with them, but that they allowed you
*out* of the Soviet Union without the (almost impossible to obtain) exit visa. This
made the dip passport such a revered object that any Soviet (now Russian) possessor
of one has an almost preternatural awareness of its importance; if you have one, you
are in a class apart.

This means that Borodin did a thing almost incomprehensible to any Russian,
especially a high-placed bureaucrat, when he chose to travel on an ordinary passport
because he couldn't get a visa for his dip. passport. True, these days a Russian
doesn't need an exit visa from the KGB to leave his homeland. That's the theory. But
in practice, life is not so simple. Highly-placed persons who have fallen from
grace, like Borodin, in particular are aware that coming and going is not so simple.

Not only the Russian people are calm about Borodin's arrest, so too is president
Putin, who so far has not uttered a single word on this incident. Why is that? The
answer is that there is a secret war going on between the Putinites and the
Yeltsinites. It is not a war for the soul of Russia, but it is a fight between 2
groups, one in decline, one ascendant, for access to the stream of plundered wealth
and for new sources of power and privilege. Yeltsin's 2 main oligarch backers,
Gusinsky and Berezovsky, are in trouble. Gusinsky is in a Spanish jail awaiting
extradition to Russia. Berezovsky, now in New York, faces the same fate.

Top bureaucrats and oligarchs do live in fear, surrounded by guards, with travel
plans constantly updated. Chubais himself recently fled Russia for a time. ALL these
people -- the elite of "New Russians" -- depend on being able to flee Russia at a
moment's notice. There were times in Yeltsin's presidency when HE HIMSELF  had his
personal jet warm its engines up, when the going  got specially rough. ALL these
people have based themselves on the export of capital: phenomenal amounts. There are
more than 100 dollar billionairs living in the Moscow region alone. A game has gone
on for more than a decade, in which the West has not only countenanced but
encouraged the export of capital from the ex-SU, perhaps a trillion dollars in all.
This helped impoverish the Soviet people, destroy its industry and turn it into a
helpless appendage 

RE: [L-I] Why I am on this spamming kick...

[Mark Jones]

> what
> the heck is
> a Leninist program today? Is it reading the Leninist classics? Some, but
> not really.
> I, unlike Mark Jones, don't see tremendous merits in simply re-tracing
> the steps (I'm
> bastardising you, Mark- feel free to tear a strip off of me) of the first
> successful
> Leninist project.
>

It's impossible to replay history, except as farce, and we've had the farce of the
groupuscules long enough. Where I agree with Lou about the 'zinovievisation' of the
Bolshevism is that the Bolsheviks before the revolution were not AT ALL a party of
robotised cardes following central committee liones with automatic discipline: the
Bolshevik p[arty was a boiling broth of different ideas, trends, viewpopints etc,
and debate was often incandescent. They lived for debate more than any other form of
organising work (eg leading strikes). The monolithic bureaucratised verion which
emerged in the early 1920s and crystallised only after Lenin's death, had almost no
relation except the name (and even that was changed) to the Party which had actually
led the revolution and won power.

We should think about this and ponder the meaning of it all the time. Do not engage
i sterile somnambulist readings of the Holy Write of Lenin, etc. Look at the
historical context, look at what was actuially going on, think about it as a
historical novelist might. Then the Scripture starts to look mighty different.

There are some people who misrepresent the past in order to pretend that Lenin's
Bolshevik party pre-1917 was the same kind of brain-dead monolith it later became,
and then to argue that 'times have change' and 'we don't need that sort of thing any
more'. Usually they can't say very well WHY we don't need a revolutionary
organisation any more, but the arguments for this sort of DEFEATIST thinking which
only serves to DISARM the workers and leave them defenceless so that there never IS
a revoluion, come down to (a) something's changed within society which makes the
leninist 'party-form' (a creature ONLY of their own imaginings!) irrelevant: eg, the
internet, the mobile phone etc, or which makes it impossible -- too much police
surveillance etc. Then they go on to say that (b) because of globalisation, the
state ain't the powerfil thing it was anyway, and overthrowing the state is
therefore a waste of time; and finally (c) they go on to say that what we really
need to do is to working to build up all the amorphous social movements and
political currents we saw at Porto Alegre. I have some sympathy with THIS at least,
for these movements are indeed the seed-beds of the future revolution, HOWVER, let
us be, as Gramsci said, not the manure that gets ploughed into history but the sharp
ploughshare which turns it all over.

On (a), we don't need boring old parties any more because we've get the Net etc: the
truth is that this is just RAVING IDIOCY. Without an organisation, there cannot be a
revolution, and don;t let anyone kid you. This means both idoelogical organisation
and political organisation. It means taking up positions on major issues, like for
eg the state, and and and when these positions are adopted by the party, after
prolonged debate, using them as powerful ideological weapons to smash the
petit-bourgeois vaciliaationism, the empty slogabnising about 'social movemenmts'
etc, and the cowardly spiel that the state is 'no longer the enemy.' In this
resopect, NOTHING has change: Lenin and the Bolsheviks were QUITE SURE that the
Russian revolution would be STRANGLED if the revolution did not spread. So nothing
has changed, or much less than people pretend. They were quite sure that you could
not have islands of socialism in a sea of capitalism, and that control of YOUR OWN
state is NOT enough to solve the fundamental social problems and histyorical tasks
faced by the working class in power. That does not mean that you don't try to
destroy the bourgrois state! Of course not! There IS no more important goal for
revolutionaries than that of helping the working class seize state power thru the
revolutionary, insurrectionary overthrow of the existing state, not be a putsch but
by a mass revolutionary rising. Yes, we cannot create socialims in one country. But
yes, the overthrow of the state is an indispensable first step. Of course, the
international dimension remains the OTHER key to the lock so there has ALSO to be an
international and it has to organise the overtrhow of internetional instutions of
bourgeois power and has to generalisew the world revolutionary process. Lenin was so
sure of this that despite the incredible difficulties he faced INSIDE Russia he
never ceased to work, to carry out enormous organisational feats and propaganda
work, on the international front, and he took the view that the Third International
was essential to the survival of Soviet

RE: [L-I] Re: Whither the List?

[Mark Jones]

 A.Wosni wrote:

>I find that M.J's position is entirely defeatist: If I get him 
> right he says, 1. we must not blame a party which carries the name of 
> 'communism' for not being communist but reformist, and 2. that anyway it doesn't 
> make any difference for the revolutionary process if there is a revolutionary 
> mass party or non, since there is no objective chance for a revolution. To my 
> mind this amounts to rejecting Leninism (and therefore of course Marxism) 
> interely. 

It would be if I said it but I didn't. 


Mark

___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

[L-I] FW: DEBATE: Zim's main neoliberal hits back

[Mark Jones]

[this is the kind of concrete analysis we need much more of. Mark] 

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Patrick Bond
Sent: 04 February 2001 23:08
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: DEBATE: Zim's main neoliberal hits back


My submission to the Zim Independent... probably won't get in but I 
feel better already.

 It was better, pre-Esap

by Patrick Bond

AGAINST all evidence, Eric Bloch (Independent, 2
February) continues to insist that the 1991-95 Economic
Structural Adjustment Programme (Esap) was necessary
because of "the devastatingly shattered state of the
economy then prevailing."

Bloch starts by disputing my first round of figures--
higher growth from 1980-90, and much lower from 1991-95-
-because "averages can distort" especially in light of
"substantial growth in the years immediately after
Independence."

Right then, let's consider the period 1985-90, to factor
out droughts following the 1979-82 economic upturn.
Gross domestic product rose from $17.1 to $20.9 billion
(correcting for inflation, using 1990 prices) but then,
using the same measure, fell from $22.7 to $22.3 billion
from 1991 to 1995. Inequality increased dramatically
during the latter years as well, transferring most pain
from GDP declines to the poor, especially rural women,
children and the aged.

Why was the economy "shattered"? Bloch claims that
"economic policies from 1982-90 were increasingly
destructive." How so? "The economic decline accelerated
as government progressively pursued Marxist-Leninist
economic policies with increasing vigour."

In reality, the alleged "Marxist" policies were nowhere
near as state-interventionist as the Rhodesian Front's
1962-79 exchange controls, directed investment,
parastatal expansion, rigid import/export system, etc.
The "Marxist" Zanu PF government deregulated in
virtually all areas of economic activity from the
outset, with the exception of a very few (irrelevant)
new state investments (e.g., Zimbank) and institutions,
which changed nothing by way of overall corporate
behaviour.

A 1982 US AID report concluded that Zanu PF "has adopted
a generally pragmatic, free-market approach... and this
approach has the full support of the US AID."
Liberalisation only stalled occasionally, e.g. 1984,
when there was a forex crisis.

But even that year, finance minister Bernard Chidzero
confirmed that Zimbabwe was the IMF's "blue-eyed boy."
By 1990, Deloitte and Touche praised Zimbabwe's monetary
and financial policies as "pragmatic and conservative."

Was Zanu PF more "Marxist-Leninist" during the late
1980s, leading to a "devastatingly shattered" economy
just before Esap was implemented? No and no.

Bloch accuses me of ignoring "increases in unemployment
in the first decade of independence" as well as "the
magnitude of the depreciation of the Zimbabwe dollar in
the 1982-90 period, and... the then horrific lack of
foreign exchange." Let's take these in turn.

Total formal-sector jobs (including agricultural) rose from
just under a million at independence to 1.244 million in
1991 and then remained flat. More importantly, urban
employment (not commercial farmwork) rose from 454,000
in early 1980 to 620,000 in 1991 before falling back to
590,000 by year-end 1995. So the unemployment rate grew
faster during Esap than before.

And between 1980 and 1990, the Zimbabwe dollar lost 70%
of its value against the US$; between 1991 and 1996, it
lost 67%. During which period was average annual
devaluation twice as rapid--pre-Esap or Esap?

Interestingly, the Zimdollar's early-1990s slide is
explained by the combination of exploding inflation (as
price controls were lifted in mid-1991) and massive
growth in foreign debt (which as a percent of GDP rose
from 8.4% to 21.8% from 1991-96). The new debt was
mainly taken on to pay for imports (which were double
the volume anticipated by planners).

Certainly there were forex shortages during the 1980s,
but whose fault was that? Bloch should recall the role
of Washington loan-pushers. The World Bank alone
unloaded US$700 million on Chidzero during the 1980s.

In early 1983, Chidzero reckoned that the foreign debt
repayment burden--which required 16% of export earnings
that year--would "decline sharply until we estimate it
will be about 4% within the next few years."

Astonishingly, the Bank concurred: "The debt service
ratios should begin to decline after 1984 even with
large amounts of additional external borrowing." In
reality, Zimbabwe's foreign debt servicing spiralled up
to an untenable 35% of export earnings by 1987.

Forex crises were inevitable thanks to such impressive
miscalculations, for which in any serious profession
malpractice and disbarment would result. Instead, the
very same people--in the finance ministry in Harare, and
at 18th and H Sts in Washington--went on to design Esap,
where their record was similarly destructive.

Here's another point about the 1980s and 1990s that
Bloc

[L-I] request

[Mark Jones]

Can anyone email me the following paper: Bunker, Stephen G. and Paul Ciccantell.
1999. "Economic Ascent and
the Global Environment: World-Systems Theory and the New Historical Materialism," in
Goldfrank, et al., eds., Ecology and the World-System

Many thanks

Mark Jones


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

[L-I] sorry

[Mark Jones]

Sorry for inadvertently crossposting twice between l-i and crashlist yesterday, it's
against the rules and hope didn't inconvenience too many of you masses hungry for
knowledge out there.

best to all

Mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] The Tragedy of Russia's Reforms: Market Bolshevism Against Democracy

[Mark Jones]

Warines is definitely recommended, but Reddaway seems to usefully summarise the
reasons why hopeful old-fashioned liberals like him became so jaundicved about the
New Russia.

> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of
> Barry Stoller
> Sent: 31 January 2001 05:19
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: [L-I] The Tragedy of Russia's Reforms: Market Bolshevism
> Against Democracy
>
>
> > The Tragedy of Russia's Reforms: Market Bolshevism Against Democracy.
>
> I read a review in The Nation which confirmed my suspicions raised by
> such an offensive phrase as 'market Bolshevism.' Under it all lurks the
> promise of social-democracy with a little rugged anarchism to radicalize
> it. Perhaps the book may serve as another sad but necessary glossary of
> facts regarding the joys of capitalism in its primitive accumulation
> phase of development, otherwise wariness is recommended.
>
>
> ___
> Leninist-International mailing list
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
> http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
>


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

[L-I] The Tragedy of Russia's Reforms: Market Bolshevism Against Democracy

[Mark Jones]

From: Johnson's Russia List

From: Peter Pavilionis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: New Book: The Tragedy of Russia's Reforms: Market Bolshevism
Against Democracy

The Tragedy of Russia's Reforms: Market Bolshevism Against Democracy
by Peter Reddaway and Dmitri Glinski
768 pp./6 x 9
$29.95 (paper); ISBN: 1-929223-06-4
$55.00 (cloth); ISBN: 1-929223-07-2

For more information or to place an order:
Domestic
United States Institute of Peace Press
P.O. Box 605
Herndon, VA 20172
Tel.: 1-800-868-8064 (U.S. toll-free only)
or 1-703-661-1590 Fax: 1-703-661-1501

International
Pricing inquiries and orders for Europe and the U.K. should be directed to:
United States Institute of Peace Press
c/o Plymouth Distributors Ltd.
Estover Road
Plymouth PL6 7PY
United Kingdom
Tel.: 1752-202301
Fax: 1752-202333
Throughout the rest of the world, orders should be sent directly to:
United States Institute of Peace Press P.O. Box 605
Herndon, VA 20172 USA
Fax: 703-661-1501

CONTENTS
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Reform or Reaction? The Yeltsin Era in a Millennium of Russian History
2. Russian Postcommunism in the Mirror of Social Theory
3. Populists, the Establishment, and the Soviet Decline
4. From Russian Sovereignty to the August Coup: A Missed Chance for a
Democratic Revolution
5. Catching up with the Past: The Political Economy of Shock Therapy
6. Yeltsin and the Opposition: The Art of Co-optation and Marginalization,
1991–93
7. Tanks as the Vehicle of Reform: The 1993 Coup and the Imposition of the
New Order
8. The Imperial Presidency in a Privatized State, 1994–1996
9. Market Bolshevism in Action: The Dream Team, Shock Therapy II, and
Yeltsin’s Search for a Successor
Epilogue: Market Bolshevism, A Historical Interpretation
Notes
Index

***

INTRODUCTION

The Tragedy of Russia's Reforms: Market Bolshevism Against Democracy
By Peter Reddaway ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) and Dmitri Glinski
([EMAIL PROTECTED])
United States Institute of Peace Press [www.usip.org]
2001
768 pp.
Washington, D.C.

Few would dispute that the events of 1989-91 that originated in Moscow and
culminated in the disappearance of the Soviet Union and the emergence of
Russia as its main successor state marked a watershed in recent world
history. Yet the true meaning and consequences of these events are subjects
for a worldwide debate that is only beginning to unfold. While many Western
observers--and a few fortunately positioned Russians--exulted in these
changes and in the glowing prospects they saw for a new world order, Russia
from at least 1990 has been sinking--from the socioeconomic, demographic,
cultural, and moral points of view--into turmoil and decay. From late
1991-early 1992, a period marked by the first application of the medicine
of radical deregulation, privatization, and an economic austerity regime
prescribed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF)--a course of
“treatment” that was known, perhaps for lack of a better term, as “shock
therapy”--the country’s disease became markedly more severe. Whether the
eventual bottoming out and upturn in the economy of 1999-2000 can be
sustained remains to be seen.

The amount of destruction has exceeded that of the comparable American
experience during the Great Depression and the industrial loss inflicted on
the Soviet Union in 1941-45 by World War II. To give but a few figures:
from 1991 to 1998, Russia’s gross domestic product (GDP) declined by 43.3
percent; in particular, industrial production fell by 56 percent, and the
agricultural decline was even larger. (For comparison, from 1929 to 1933,
U.S. GDP shrank by 30.5 percent; between 1941 and 1945, the Soviet GDP
declined by 24 percent.) Meanwhile, capital investment in the Russian
economy fell by a spectacular 78 percent between 1991 and 1995, and this
decline has continued ever since. Of all the country’s economic activities,
its high-technology industries--which are strategically important for the
economic development and survival of major industrial nations--suffered the
worst. Thus, for example, production in electronics fell by 78 percent
between 1991 and 1995. Closely related to this collapse of domestic
production, imports in 1997 made up half of the Russian consumer market
until the ruble’s 1998 collapse reversed the trend. Inflation, which soared
to 1,354 percent in 1992, was gradually but never fully tamed--declining to
11 percent in 1997, but rising sharply again in 1998 to 84 percent, and
then declining again. It cut the average real incomes of working Russians
by 46 percent in 1992; incomes managed to improve until 1998; but in
1998-99, the population’s real disposable income dropped by a third.

Behind these figures lurk qualitative changes in Russia’s identity and its
place in the world. Thus Russia has been precipitously losing its status as
an intellectual great power--a status it enjoyed for a much longer time,
and with much more benefit for itself and the rest of the world, than it
enjoyed its status as a military giant. The 

RE: [L-I] IMF 'apes Soviets' : more original ideas from Kagarlitsky

[Mark Jones]

>I have been receiving information on P. Alegre. Too 
> much foam, too little beer. Will try to give some report to the list.

excellent, we need to see the materials and here more about it. 

___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

[L-I] Louise Bryant: Smolny during October

[Mark Jones]

from Six Red Months in Russia


SMOLNY INSTITUTE, headquarters of the Bolsheviki, is on the edge of Petrograd. Years
ago it was considered "way out in the country," but the city grew out to meet it,
engulfed it and finally claimed it as its own. Smolny is an enormous place; the
great main building stretches in a straight line for hundreds of feet with an ell
jutting out at each end and forming a sort of elongated court. Close up to the north
ell snuggles the lovely little Smolny Convent with its dull blue domes with the
silver stars. Once young ladies of noble birth from all over Russia came here to
receive a "proper" education.

I came to know Smolny well while I was in Russia. I saw it change from a lonely,
deserted barracks into & busy humming hive, heart and soul of the last revolution. I
watched the leaders once accused, hunted and imprisoned raised by the mass of the
people of all Russia to the highest places in the nation. They were borne along on
the whirlwind of radicalism that swept and is still sweeping Russia and they
themselves did not know how long or how well they would be able to ride that
whirlwind

Smolny was always a strange place. In the cavernous, dark hallways where here and
there flickered a pale electric light, thousands and thousands of soldiers and
sailors and factory workers tramped in their heavy, mud-covered boots every day. All
the world seemed to have business at Smolny and the polished white floors over which
once tripped the light feet of careless young ladies became dark and dirt-stained
and the great building shook with the tread of the proletariat

I ate many of my meals in the great mess hall on the ground floor with the soldiers.
There were long, rough wooden tables and wooden benches and a great air of
friendliness pervaded everywhere. You were always welcome at Smolny if you were poor
and you were hungry. We ate with wooden spoons, the kind the Russian soldiers carry
in their big boots, and all we had to eat was cabbage soup and black bread. We were
always thankful for it and always afraid that perhaps to-morrow there would not be
even that. ... We stood in long lines at the noon hour chattering like children. "So
you are an American, Tavarishe, well, how does it go now in America?" they would say
to me.

Upstairs in a little room tea was served night and day. Trotsky used to come there
and Kollontay and Spiradonova and Kaminoff and Volodarysky and all the rest except
Lenine. I never saw Lenine at either of these places. He held aloof and only
appeared at the largest meetings and no one got to know him very well. But the
others I mentioned would discuss events with us. In fact, they were very generous
about giving out news.

In all the former classrooms typewriters ticked incessantly. Smolny worked
twenty-four hours a day. For weeks Trotsky never left the building. He ate and slept
and worked in his office on the third floor and strings of people came in every hour
of the day to see him. All the leaders were frightfully overworked, they looked
haggard and pale from loss of sleep.

In the great white hall, once the ball-room, with its graceful columns and silver
candelabra, delegates from the Soviets all over Russia met in allnight sessions. Men
came straight from the first line trenches, straight from the fields and the
factories. Every race in Russia met there as brothers. Men poured out their souls at
these meetings and they said beautiful and terrible things. I will give you an
example of the speeches of the soldiers:

A tired, emaciated little soldier mounts the rostrum. He is covered with mud from
head to foot and with old blood stains. He blinks in the glaring light. It is the
first speech he has ever made in his life and he begins it in a shrill hysterical
shout:

"Tavarishi! I come from the place where men are digging their graves and calling
them trenches! We are forgotten out there in the snow and the cold. We are forgotten
wile you sit here and discuss politics! I tell you the army can't fight much longer!
Something's got to be done! Something's got to be done! The officers won't work with
the soldiers' committees and the soldiers are starving and the Allies won't have a
conference. I tell you something's got to be done or the soldiers are going home!"

Then the peasants would get up and plead for their land. The Land Committees, they
claimed, were being arrested by the Provisional Government; they had a religious
feeling about land. They said they would fight and die for the land, but they would
not wait any longer. If it was not given to them now they would go out and take it.

And the factory workers told of the sabotage of the bourgeoisie, how they were
ruining the delicate machinery so that the workmen could not run the factories; they
were shutting down the mills so they would starve. It was not true, they cried, that
the workers were getting fabulous sums. They couldn't live on what they got!

Over and over and over like the beat of the sur

RE: [L-I] IMF 'apes Soviets' : more original ideas from Kagarlitsky

[Mark Jones]

Nestor:
>
> I know Mark hates Kagarlitsky to the guts, which I highly deplore

I don't hate him at all. I'm trying to get a debate going about the difference
between revolutionary reforms and reformist reforms.

The trouble is that the likes of you, Boris Kagarlitsky and others may very well
succeed in getting rid of the WTO, IMF and WB, but you may not like what you get
instead. Clamouring to get rid of these engines of exploitation is all very well if
your only purpose is didactic (politics as a way to teach the masses something about
struggle, transitional demands etc) but if all you are going to do is to argue for
'regional' banks instead, or for Russia to join some 'Third World" organisation,
then I'd call it refomrist utopianism and also (and Boris must know this) it just
ain't never going to happen anyway: NO WAY is Russia going to give up its great
power pretensions.

So the whole politics is vacuous, however superficially reasonable and well-thought
out it might seem. What we need is a *revolutionary* politics which doesn't waffle
on about 'Keynesian' alternatives, 'regional' banks, 'delinking' and such hoopla,
but which talks directly about socialism on a world scale. That means *abolishing*
banks and financial systems IN THEIR ENTIRETY and it means MOVING beyond commodity
production: look, Lenin thought it was possible to move straight from precapitalist
to postcapitalist relations of production and from an anti-tsarist bourgeois revo
straight to an anti-bourgeois, SOCIALIST revolution without any any intervening
period. But we GOT the intervening period after all, and now there are NO
precapitalist social formations left, and NO societies which have not in all broad
respects completed the bourgeois revo, or won its major social gains (free labour,
the franchise, personal sovereignty etc). So why on earth are we still talking about
these kinds of empty, dare I say it, Menshevik style reforms, when what we face is
an abrupt historical turning point, we face the EXTERMINIST phase of capitalism,
biocide, ecocide, energy-system collapse and a giant social impasse. If people ever
DO rise up en masse against it, they won't be dying at the barricades in order to
win 'regional' banks, 'delinking' etc. They will want, as you rightly say, REAL
globalisation, and that can only be achieved by dissolving class, social, regional,
territorial barriers, dissolving nation-states (not reincarnating them!) and above
all by ABOLISHING CAPITALIST COMMODITY PRODUCTION which is the source of inequality
and injustice and of core-periphery distinctions.

What Kagarlitsky is indeed different from what Fidel wants, because Castro
understands that ending neoliberal globalization entails ending capitalism as such,
ie, world socialist revolution. It is not going to mutate into something nicer and
more welfareist because of popular pressure but only because of more fundamental
shocks and events, which destroy the system itself.

I am deeply suspicious of populist demagoguery which has learnt nothing from
history. People thought that the German workers movement and its disicplined social
democrats would never permit the catastrophe of war in Europe in 1914. The means of
ideological and poltiical hegemony are far stronger now than then, and the workers
movement far weaker. In any crisis, the deacons of corporate and finance capitalism
will have the rank and file of the working class marching up and down in uniforms a
lot quicker than we will get them at the barricades. But social crises and wars are
inevitable and are bound to happen BEFORE there are any serious revolutionary
outbreaks which might really threaten bourgeois hegemony in the capitalist
heartlands. The people now leading the New Social Movements are highly likely to
find themselves watching that unfold from behind barbed wire, if they are alive at
all. So it seems to me to be simply fatuous to be so optimistic as B Kagarlitsky is
about his "anarchists and feminists". Noble though they are, they are not going to
make a revolution and nor are the massed ranks at Porto Alegre. Only when all these
people take definite political and organisatiopnal steps capable of meeting the
*real nature*, the extremely serious and threatening nature, of the crisis, will
there be any hope that the revolution will even survive the counter-revolutionary
pressures on it. You live in Argentina, you know how it is when the Black Hundreds
start to work.


Mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

[L-I] IMF 'apes Soviets' : more original ideas from Kagarlitsky

[Mark Jones]

BBC Monitoring
Russian opponents of the IMF hold anti-Davos news conference in Moscow 
Source: Kommersant, Moscow, in Russian 27 Jan 01 

None to vanquish the IMF. 

In Moscow yesterday, a few Russian antiglobalists held a news conference
timed to coincide with the summit in Davos. During it they expressed their
regret that they had no money to go to Davos and sling manure at the
participants in the summit. 

The organizers began the news conference with a statement that the
antiglobalists are certainly not hooligans, as they are usually
represented, but altogether serious people. And of course, the especially
serious antiglobalists live in Russia. They organize news conferences
rather than sensational protest actions. 

However, they are not averse to participating in a sensational protest
action either. In September a delegation of 60 Russian citizens were about
to try to get into Prague where the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange
[MICEX] and the IMF were conducting their most recent meeting ... 

However, [former dissident] Boris Kagarlitskiy said, the antiglobalists are
not antiglobalists at all and the term "antiglobalists" is just as wrong as
"anti-Soviets". Actually they are in favour globalization but of a
democratic globalization. The very method of organization of this movement,
with leadership exercised from several centres via the Internet, is a model
of true democracy whereas, according to Mr Kagarlitskiy, the IMF itself
apes the purely Soviet structure and is an implement of diktat and
pressure. In the opinion of Moscow State University Professor Aleksandr
Buzgalin, Russia suffers more than other countries from globalization.
Salvation can come from religious fundamentalism or great power chauvinism,
but according to the professor, these are not, of course, appropriate for
Russia. So true antiglobalists are advising Russia to join the third world
countries and start a difficult economic struggle against the "global
players". Mr Kagarlitskiy went on to say that there is no reason for Russia
to ask to join the World Trade Organization, which is even worse for Russia
than MICEX and the IMF. He also commented that our "great power opposition"
did not participate in the actions abroad. "How would they look against the
background of the anarchists and feminists there?" the former dissident
asked people to picture. He himself participated in the actions in Prague
and apparently did not look too bad in the eyes of the feminists. 

___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] The legacy...part 1

[Mark Jones]

Stephen E Philion:

> Mark,
> Who was criticising Frantz Fanon? And what is wrong with saying that an
> argument that Doug Henwood, even if you do think he is the most evil force
> haunting the world today, happens to be similar to or even the same as
> FF's on a particular issue? What is Leninist about that?

I don't think Doug H is particularly evil (not banal enough, perhaps). My remark was
not directed at you anyway, and I'm glad you mentioned Fanon. Sorry if I sounded
rebarbative. Didn't intend it. Not about you, anyway.

Mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] The legacy...part 1

[Mark Jones]

 Stephen E Philion wrote:

> Well, if that is Henwood's argument, it's not that far from Frantz Fanon,
> who argued that advanced capitalist countries frequently set conditions
> for investment on newly decolonized countries that keep them from being
> able to experience development *and* if they refused they would be faced
> with the very real threat of withdrawl altogether of financial assistance
> (which Fanon also felt they were owed from the advanced cap. world as
> reparations for years of pilfering of colonial economies...).

Wait a minute, whoa. Fanon gets a lot of (IMHO) entirely undeserved flak because of
his alleged lack of centre-periphery focus. It would be good to have a seminar about
Fanon. People talk about him in thought-bites and only half remember what they read
years ago. Fanon was an entirely consistent fighter against colonialism and is a
giant of our movement. Doug Henwood is not that. He is a pygmy. The problem with
Henwood is not that he argues like/unalike Fanon (or anyone else), it's that he
contradicts himself, does both often at the same time, and is politically
inconsistent. Empirical accuracy used as a camouflage for wild opportunism is an old
trick of Anglo-Saxon scholarship and should not mislead us. You cannot debate
empirical opportunism, because it is a true wilderness of mirrors, a political bog
and a haven for the worst kinds of self-seeking leftwing careerism. And this is
something we ought to have settled accounts with by now, and must do if we are to
develop.

We shall have to take on board all the things which are flowing out of Porto Alegre,
and find the ways to participate more actvely, and decisively, in the movement it
embodies/represents: a movement which is characterised by a tacit alliance between
the compliant petit-bourgeois socialism of acadameics, and the lumpenised
semi-proletariat of the megacities who are now *also* firmly in the *political*
sights of the emergent, post-neoliberal Davos Consensus. These things are connected.
The bitterest and most decisive struggles against petit-bourgeois socialism will be
necessary and while I agree we should be comradely, we should also be extremely
serious and decisive in combating  petit-bourgeois socialism.

Mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] The legacy...part 1

[Mark Jones]

Louis Proyect wrote:
>
> I stand corrected. Furthermore, as a rule of thumb whatever Sam says I
> agree with in advance. Unless, of course, it is related to the topic of
> wild life preservation.
>
>

I'd like to get a wilder life myself. I'm a protected sub-species, too, according to
my wife.


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

[L-I] FW: DEBATE: (Fwd) Stop the DRC War... (pls circulate)

[Mark Jones]

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Dominic Tweedie
Sent: 28 January 2001 11:00
To: Patrick Bond
Cc: Hugh Macmillan; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: DEBATE: (Fwd) Stop the DRC War... (pls circulate)


> A warm welcome to Dominic Tweedie (well known to readers of 
> letters-to-editor)

?Since you mention my letters let me just say
that if one is trying to "speak truth to power" then
one had better do so in public.

To business. In the "18th Brumaire", as I recall,
Marx describes four contending (self-conscious,
organised) classes: the (Bourbon) Monarchists,
the Peasants, the Bourgeoisie (capitalists), and
the Proletariat (workers). No single one of these
classes was at the time able to subordinate the
other three. This made the opportunity, which
Louis Napoleon took, for a placeholder. He was
able to hold the ring for a while "precisely
because he was a nobody" or words to that
effect.

The eventual resolution of all this was the victory
of the bourgeoisie in France, the survival of the
proletariat, the permanent reduction of the
peasants, and the disappearance of the
monarchists and Louis Napoleon of course.

In a situation of simultaneous class formation and
unresolved class conflict there may be many
opportunities such as the one exploited by Louis
Napoleon, and so therefore many nonentities
and anomalous figures "in power". Rather follow
Marx and examine the basic arrangement of
class forces that produces the surface
phenomena than get preoccupied with the
personal qualities or faults of such individuals.
They are part of a complex superstructure which
is fascinating but not understandable without a
prior knowledge of the base upon which they
stand.

What is the disposition of class forces in African
countries? Mahmood Mamdani in "Citizen and
Subject" provides a simple basic model which he
says is typical and which is convincing and
useful.

Imperialism allies itself with the most
anachronistic, feudal forces, the "traditional
leaders", in support of a quisling class which acts
to frustrate and suppress the modernising urban
population. This pattern is inherited from
colonialism. Mamdani concludes by pleading for
democracy in the abstract, which is no doubt
what his American readers like to hear.

Looking at this again with a more Marxist glass
than Mamdani cares to supply, it is clear that
imperialism is as defined by Lenin, the force of
finance capital, the party of war, and of
monopoly, having no concern for the interests of
the inhabitants at all. This force positively
"underdevelops" (see Walter Rodney) the neo-
colonial territories. It started its monstrous life in
Africa in the form of the Anglo-Boer War, roughly
16 years before Lenin wrote "Imperialism, the
Highest Stage of Capitalism" (and sixty-odd years
before Kwame Nkrumah's "Neo-colonialism, the
Last Stage of Imperialism").

Mamdani thinks that South Africa has the most
developed examples of the complicity between
imperialism and "traditional leadership". Gatsha
Buthelezi with his IFP is only one of many
examples. This is because SA is more deeply
penetrated by monopoly finance capital than any
other African country.

Now to Mamdani's other contender, his
modernising urban force. This has two
components. The leading one is the national
bourgeoisie. Following and supporting the
national bourgeoisie is the working class. This is
how it has been in Africa for the last hundred
years at least.

You do not understand class conflict in Africa if
you cannot see that it is firstly a contradiction
between national capital and international
finance capital. African Nationalism is a
bourgeois phenomenon and its enemy is
imperialism. The working class, for very good
reasons, sides with its African Nationalist
bourgeoisie.

Imperialism hates this "intra-capitalist" conflict to
be exposed. It prefers to speak of generalities
such as "free enterprise" and "democracy" or
even just "stability". It seeks to co-opt sections of
the national bourgeoisie using these rubrics. Good
current examples are the Millenium Council and
the attempt at co-opting the black business 
association NAFCOC into the fold of monopoly 
capital in SA.

Thus those who conflate imperialism with the
national bourgeoisie under the general heading
"neo-liberal" are objectively serving imperialism.
The intellectuals who will serve the working class
will be those who sharpen the contradictions
between the national bourgeoisie and
imperialism. 

(Colin Leys in "Underdevelopment in
Kenya" rightly remarks that Frans Fanon in "The
Wretched of the Earth" omits any discussion of
active neo-colonial imperialism, which makes the
book to be "like Hamlet without the Prince of
Denmark").

The African working class follows its national
bourgeoisie in the anti-imperialist cause because
it is in its interest to do so. Anti-imperial capital
will employ and organise a working class and
prepare the material conditions for working-class
rule (the dictat

RE: [L-I] The legacy...part 1

[Mark Jones]

I'm glad Mac posted this Panitch artcle (presumably the intro essay to a recent Soc
Register, publication detalils WOULD be welome) and I think that L-I has a raison
d'etre as a site dedicated to high-level theoretical debate about the state, and how
we analyse and conceptualise it within the process of developing revolutionary
theory/practice.

I would like to propose that we resolve different schools of thought into a
schemata. This article is part of the MR/SR school/tradition of
non-soviet/anti-stalin critiques of the state and capital in the Baran/Sweezy
tradition of anti-leninism (another anti-lenin tradition is that of Paul Mattick,
shading over into Lucien Goldman and the autonomist/Tony Negri school which for eg
Tahir Wood follows, is Tahir on l-i btw?)

If we can agree to some admittedly arbitrary scheme then we can try to sharpen
up/deepen our understanding of these different 'schools' thru further debate,
elaboration etc.

The link Mac gave goes to Martin Shaw's pages. Here he discusses NLR, Perry
Anderson, Peter Gowan etc. I have on file a huge (and I mean big) file of papers on
the state + capital by these and otthers which i can put into a zipfile if anyone
wants to get it.

Mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] The legacy...part 1

[Mark Jones]

this link goes to a different article!

Mark

> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of
> Macdonald Stainsby
> Sent: 28 January 2001 09:53
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: [L-I] The legacy...part 1
> 
> 
> "reply to article in New Left Review 2, 2000"
> http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/hafa3/panitch.htm
> 
> 
> > Mac, where was this published? Reference, please
> > 
> > Mark
> ---
> Macdonald Stainsby
> Rad-Green List: Radical anti-capitalist environmental discussion.
> http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/rad-green
> 
> Leninist-International: Building bridges in the tradition of V.I. Lenin.
> http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
> 
> In the contradiction lies the hope.
>  --Bertholt Brecht
> 
> 
> 
> ___
> Leninist-International mailing list
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
> http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
> 

___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] The legacy...part 1

[Mark Jones]

Mac, where was this published? Reference, please

Mark

> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of
> Macdonald Stainsby
> Sent: 28 January 2001 07:48
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: [L-I] The legacy...part 1
> 
> 
> Any comments? - Macdonald
> ***
> 
> Colin Leys and Leo Panitch

___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Re: Sacher-Masoch in the Age of Shock Therapy

[Mark Jones]

> >Masochism seems like an appropriate psychological accompaniment for
> >the transition from communism to capitalism in Russia and the
> >Ukraine. The citizens are being screwed so best that they like it
> >and continue under the whip of the oligarchs, and receive
> >shock-treatment by following the policies of western neo-liberal
> >advisers et al..

couple of points (and thanks, Yoshie, for this thread): (a) Ken Hanly is presumably
being ironic: I never met a single Soviet person who got pleasure from being
deprived of job, housing, health, social security and who now suffers malnutrition,
sickness, family breakdown and the loss of basic services including communal heating
(very important) public transport etc, and who is now stranger in his/her own
country, allowed to remain on sufferance but preferred to die soon and with no fuss.
As for Judith Butler, whatever the relative merits of her work as social theory, (I
have no idea), it has scant bearing on the felt experiences and concrete day to day
lives of people in eastern Europe (the broad masses, not the super-elite and their
thin cohorts of semi-westernised dollar-earning 'professional' servitors). Peope are
not resigned, do not need to be resignified (are we object which bear lables, like
Winnie the Pooh?) and are not attached to their subjection. Their problem is like
ours: TINA. For 75 years there was an alternatived,. now there is not.

Read the latest UNDP figures comparing living standards, HDP, GDP indices etc and
see the dismal story of what happened throughout the socialist world after 1989 with
the solitary and blindingly significant exception of Cuba (it's at:
http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base/

> Those who seek to become the tribune of the oppressed in Russia (&
> the periphery in general) have a difficult task cut out for them: to
> represent the interests of women at the same time as to champion
> residents of small towns & rural regions in practice.
>

I think you can go further and make a distinction between Moscow/St Peterburg and
Everywhere Else. Moscow is a sump into which, after 1993, flowed everying that could
be turned into liquid assets from the accumulation-effort of 75 years of socialism.
The sump drains into the smooth and silent laundries of Zurich, New York and London,
and subsidiary centres: Cyprus, Bahamas etc. From there this huge flow of value,
equivalent in fertilising effect to the flow of gold and silver plundered from the
America after the 16th century, became anonymous investment capital. As they say,
money doesn't have to wash its face.

I think the experience of the 1998 financial crash showed that as soon as (ie within
24 hours) the chokehold of finance capital comes of the Russian windpipe -- because
of some financial emergency or Wall St meltdown: there is immediate political
galvanising effect in Russia. We shall see. They haven't managed to bury Lenin yet,
they are afraid to, and for the good reason.

Mark



___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Sacher-Masoch in the Age of Shock Therapy

[Mark Jones]

I was in the USSR when, as a result of Gorbachev's 'glasnost' (openness in the
press), the first editions in many decades were published of the main works of Freud
(pronounced 'Fried' in Russian). It was a sensation. Perfectly sensible people
suddenly ceased to notice the collapse of society, family, their livelihoods etc,
and could talk only, and animatedly, about the Friedian unconscious, the Friedian
libido, the mirror phase etc, the Jungian-Friedian dichotomy etc. Suddenly women in
particular began to lose their moral anchorages, and an era of unparalleled
promiscuity began, which rapidly degenerated (as everything else did) into unbridled
licence and the complete collapse of the feminist social victories of bolshevism,
still then enshrined (more or less) in  equal eductaional and career opportunities
etc. An appalling wave of quite terrifying male-machismatic behaviour swept Soviet
society, and with it began to mass adulation of gangsterism and the real conquest of
power by the 'dark forces' of the Russian mafiya (and they were dark indeed).
Meanwhile, in the Central Asian republics, now cut adrift and left to fend for
themselves, women were plunged back into polygamy, organised rape and the chador;
for manybwom,en, even career scientists who'd worked a lifetime in the Soviet space
programme, to not acknowledge purdah was to risk death by stoning, as it had been
before the October Revolution and the birth of Soviet power 75 years before.
October, of course, had brought with it real emancipation to the women of Kazakstan,
Tadjikistan, Uzbekistan, Kirgizstan etc.

In short, it was a very bewildering and (for yours truly) a very depressing time
indeed. Freedom of thought and the 'rebirth of democracy', the end of 'bolshevik
totalitarianism' etc, only plunged women back into a feudal/atavistic nightmare and
prepared the way for the mass trafficking in prostitutes and slaves from Eastern
Europe to the West (where people were more familiar I suppose with the downside of
Fried).

Mark

> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of
> Yoshie Furuhashi
> Sent: 27 January 2001 14:57
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: [L-I] Sacher-Masoch in the Age of Shock Therapy
>
>
> *   New York Times  27 January 2001
>
> Masochism Finally Gets Even


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

[L-I] more important stuff from kagarlitsky

[Mark Jones]

Moscow Times
January 26, 2001
Russia Needs A Pokemon to Call Its Own
By Boris Kagarlitsky

Even children's cartoons can provoke political controversy. As soon as ORT
announced plans to broadcast the Japanese cartoon Pokemon, the press was
full of critical commentary. Why do we need these "pocket monsters" if we
already have our own excellent cartoon favorites, such as the adorable
Cheburashka? ORT ended up broadcasting a special program defending Pokemon
and showing its roots in Japanese culture.

In terms of artistic quality, Soviet cartoons are indeed considerably
better  both the artwork and the literary value. Many of the most
labor-intensive forms of animation were practiced almost exclusively in the
Soviet Union. Moreover, Cheburashka is a creation of the great writer
Eduard Uspensky, while most Japanese cartoons are based on comic books that
have absolutely no literary merit.

It is hard to imagine the creators of Pokemon developing a scene in which
the mini-heroes, having lost their masters, decide not to fight one another
but to instead sit down over tea and discuss life. After all, its producers
must crank out hundreds of episodes each year, so there is simply no time
for aesthetic niceties.

Alas, however, it is this mass production that guarantees Pokemon's
victory. Cheburashka stars in only four films, while Pokemon is attacking
along the broadest possible front. Every day new episodes appear on our
screens, while the stores are full of related toys and clothing and
goodness knows what else.

The advent of Pokemon will not mean the end of Cheburashka. After all, he
and his friends continue to fire children's imaginations. However, it is
impossible to ignore mass production. In this instance, the experience of
Finland may be instructive. Instead of whining about the onslaught of
American/Japanese popular culture, it fought back with its own weapons.
They created a mass-culture version of the popular Moomintroll series by
the talented Finnish writer Tove Jansson. Now Moomintroll has become an
entire industry  books, toys, comics, clothes, etc.

Moreover, the Moomintrolls appeared on television with the help of the
Japanese, who shared their mass-production techniques. The profundity and
beauty of the original stories were combined with mass production and
highly efficient Japanese technologies. As a result, Jansson's heroes now
speak not only Swedish and Finnish, but English, German and Japanese as
well. The Finns were never tempted to try to block themselves off from
global culture: Instead, they sought a serious and realistic response.

But we have a different tradition. Inertia prompts us to immediately start
bandying words like "ban," "prohibit," "censor." If we can't formally cut
off the flow of Japanese cartoons, then we will call upon parents to forbid
their children from watching them. We can lobby state-controlled ORT to
stop showing Pokemon. We can pass laws banning foreign mass culture. We can
make our children watch Leopold, Baba Yaga and Cheburashka until they are
absolutely sick of them.

Of course, this is no answer. The late-Soviet system of restrictions and
semi-bans on foreign culture simply produced a generation that was willing
to blindly consume absolutely any trash as long as it was produced in the
West. By defending one's native culture with idiotic means, one merely
hurts oneself.

We should learn from the Finns. You can and must defend your native
culture, but you have to do it using the means and opportunities of the
modern world. Even with our limited resources we can find a creative
solution if we apply our imaginations.

In order to resist the onslaught of mass culture, we need to understand the
secrets of its success and learn from it while maintaining our own
traditions and values. Cheburashka can learn from Pokemon.

Boris Kagarlitsky is a Moscow-based sociologist.


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

[L-I] FT: Davos elite poised to vie with protesters

[Mark Jones]

Demonstrators look to steal the show at the leading global talking shop, says Guy de
Jonquihres
Published: January 23 2001 21:23GMT | Last Updated: January 24 2001 07:59GMT



The 2,000 members of the international power elite converging on Davos for the start
of the World Economic Forum on Thursday may be wondering whether they or rowdy
opponents of global capitalism will be the stars of the show.

Inside the conference centre political leaders such as presidents Vicente Fox of
Mexico, Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and Vojislav Kostunica of Yugoslavia, are set to
share the stage with business moguls including Bill Gates of Microsoft, Steve Case
of AOL-Time Warner and Coca-Cola's Douglas Daft.

But as they discuss issues as diverse as the digital divide, executive stress and
the ethics of science, they may face competition for media attention from protesters
outside.

Unprecedented security measures are planned to repel threats by dissident groups,
branded "hooligans" by the forum organisers, to infiltrate the Swiss Alpine village
and disrupt proceedings.

Several hundred protesters slipped into Davos last year and held a brief
demonstration, trashing the local McDonald's restaurant.

This time, they are making more elaborate plans. A Swiss group called Anti-WTO
Coordination has been rallying dissident groups on the internet for months in
support of a "total blockade" of Davos in protest against "capitalism, racism,
patriarchy, authoritarianism, nationalism, homophobia and anti-semitism".

Swiss authorities have responded by banning all demonstrations, barring about 300
known troublemakers from entering the country and beefing up the police presence.

Meanwhile, up tp 10,000 activists are expected to attend an "Anti-Davos" meeting
starting on Thursday in Porto Alegre, Brazil. They aim to counter the forum's
agenda.

For the forum organisers, the prospect of trouble poses a delicate public relations
dilemma. It would hardly do if Davos, with its carefully-cultivated image as the
pre-eminent global talking shop, escaped attention.

On the other hand, there is a risk that too much of the wrong sort of publicity
could frighten away the right kind of people, and violent protests have been a
hallmark of high-level international economic conferences since Seattle. The US
State Department has advised American citizens to defer plans to visit Davos until
after the six-day meeting.

So far, the most conspicuous no-shows are representatives of US President George W.
Bush's administration. Several cabinet nominees were invited, but declined, saying
Senate confirmation hearings prevented them attending.

The organisers are relieved that most other invitees still plan to come.
"Considering the media coverage given to dissidents, we are pleased that we have had
fewer cancellations than last year," said Charles McLean, the forum's director of
communications.

However the assembled masters of the universe may be in a disconcertingly hesitant
mood. Many regulars from government and business are likely to have more questions
than answers, particularly about prospects for the world economy, financial markets
and Mr Bush's policies.

In only a year, the confidently upbeat atmosphere evident at the last Davos meeting
has given way to doubts, as US growth has slowed, equity prices have tumbled and
dotcoms have imploded.

These trends may well mute the US triumphalism about its "new" economy miracle and
high-tech prowess that has dominated recent Davos meetings and caused some
participants to complain that they risked becoming a paean to American hegemony.

This year, European speakers seem more likely to set the tone of economic
discussions.

They are expected to include Hans Eichel and Laurent Fabius, the finance ministers
of Germany and France.

Meanwhile, a glance at the guest list suggests executives from old economy
businesses will heavily outnumber high-tech whiz-kids.

For the first time, Saudi Arabia and several other Gulf states are sending
delegations. However, east Asia's presence will be restricted by Chinese New Year,
while president Vladimir Putin of Russia has said nyet.

Restoring world growth is among the headline discussion themes, along with bridging
the rich-poor divide, the future of IT and biotechnology and the 21st century
corporation.

The organisers hope for "action-oriented" outcomes to some sessions. However, as in
previous years, the really big decisions are likely to be taken in private in hotel
rooms, well away from the gaze of protesters and the media.




___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

[L-I] FW: DEBATE: (Fwd) Kagarlitsky on Prague

[Mark Jones]

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Patrick Bond
Sent: 24 January 2001 06:56
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: DEBATE: (Fwd) Kagarlitsky on Prague


(Just received...)

Boris Kagarlitsky

The Lessons of Prague

 The events of September 2000 in Prague marked a turning-point. When
 the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund planned their
 annual meeting for the Czech Republic, they hoped for a peaceful
 gathering in the only Eastern European country where hatred of
 neo-liberalism has not yet become a mass phenomenon. The outcome was
 that the international bankers were obliged to flee from a city whose
 streets had become the scene of battles between police and thousands
 of demonstrators from all parts of Europe. The bankers did not even
 manage to hold a concluding press conference. By no means all the
 participants in the movement against capitalist globalisation,
 however, interpreted what had happened as a victory. Many were
 shocked by the violence on the streets, and still more were dismayed
 by the united attack mounted on the movement by the press. It is thus
 essential to draw up a balance sheet of the events and to form
 conclusions. After Prague, the movement is clearly shifting into a
 new phase. It is not simply that disagreements have begun appearing
 among the protesters. The international financial organisations are
 not standing still either. For them, Prague was a severe defeat, in a
 certain sense even more serious than the "uprising in Seattle". For
 this very reason, the "executive committee of the ruling class" will
 inevitably draw conclusions from what has happened, and will adjust
 its course. So what did Prague mean for the left? The most important
 development was that in Prague, the movement against corporate
 globalisation became truly international, that is, global. Seattle
 was above all a manifestation of protest by a new generation of
 American youth, to a significant degree retracing the route of the
 1960s radicalisation, though in new historical circumstances. Now,
 thanks to Prague, the movement has taken root in Europe. For the
 first time since the international brigades in Spain in the 1930s,
 people from different countries joined in resisting a common enemy,
 resisting it physically. Solidarity, from being a slogan and a
 symbol, was transformed into practical action. In Prague, Turks and
 Kurds, Turks and Greeks, Germans and Poles, Spaniards and Basques
 marched together. They were forced to stand up not only to the
 police, but also to neo-nazis. The anti-globalist movement is at the
 same time both internationalist and anti-nationalist. Meanwhile, the
 "defenders of globalisation", in order to stop the movement, resorted
 to the power of the national state. They not only used the Czech
 police against demonstrators, but also set out illegally to stop
 people on the borders of the republic, deported people from the
 country, and so on. After the IMF and the World Bank had fled, the
 police took out their frustrations on the Czech protesters, who were
 subjected to widespread repressions. It was made clear that
 globalisation does not mean "the impotence of the state", but the
 rejection by the state of its social functions in favour of
 repressive ones, irresponsibility on the part of governments, and the
 ending of democratic freedoms. As the movement has spread to Europe,
 it has changed in many ways. If an anticapitalist spirit or mood
 prevailed in Seattle, in the case of Prague one can speak of a much
 more distinctly formulated anti-capitalist message. Here the
 difference in political cultures is making its effects felt; Europe
 has a far stronger socialist tradition. In Prague, far-left
 organisations that had gathered from the whole continent also played
 a notable role. Here we find new prospects opening up, but also new
 problems. In principle, the ideological clarity and readiness of the
 participants to articulate their principles represented a step
 forward. At the same time, many people recognised that the red flags
 and revolutionary rhetoric frightened not just ordinary residents of
 Prague, but the more moderate participants in the movement as well.
 The ultra-left groups unexpectedly proved capable not just of uniting
 and working together on a European scale. They also showed that
 masses of young people are once again pouring into their ranks. At
 the same time, the predominance of the most radical and ideologised
 groups may act as a brake on the growth of the movement. In my view,
 the solution to this problem does not lie in cultivating "moderation"
 - this would be the same thing as the activists admitting their own
 powerlessness - but in the participants in the movement making their
 own positions more profound. The time has come for left activists not
 just to denounce globalisation, but to formulate their own demands.
 There needs to be less socialist rhetoric, and more so

RE: Teaching: [L-I] Learning (was Re: Congo)

[Mark Jones]

>No one on LBO talk could last five postings in a debate with the
> Leninists who "dwell" on L-I, and they would never subject their fragile egos to
> several posts with us anyways), but rather forwarded something from the "Week".

It is true that they tend to avoid debate, but nonetheless there are some good
economists and social thinkers there. You have to winnow a lot. But in any case,
elists are not a substitute for real life, real struggles, and most of they are not
a substitute for books and libraries (wherein indeed both Marx and Lenin spent the
greater part of their adult lives: working in libraries).

Mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

FW: [L-I] Re: Socialism, Regionalism, & Pan-Africanism [reformatted]

[Mark Jones]

ugh even this scenario
is no doubt over-utopian) and that is (a) systemic collapse of fundamentals such as
the energy-base, the environmental integrity etc, and (b) Chinese and Russian
nuclear weapons. The only mass activism which has any purchase on state power is in
the most marginal of peripheries, eg Phillippines, Indonesia etc and even there we
are not exactly seeing the second coming of Great October.


>
> (Flattered for the attention, but you do realise, Yoshie, that I'm
> merely a fast-typing mouthpiece for lots of much more organic
> Southern Africa leftist work going on around here... and as an
> expat--soon to be an SA citizen--I should be much more discrete,
> really. But you can pass this on if it adds anything.)


Why should you be much more discreet?

Mark Jones
___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Re: Socialism, Regionalism, & Pan-Africanism (was Learning)

[Mark Jones]

Patrick Bond:

>>True, the better people writing on this (e.g., Amin and Bello)
haven't got to the point of staking out concrete strategic
approaches (in the current issue of Socialist Register, two SA
comrades and I make some tentative arguments about regionalism from
below). In the southern African case, the logical trajectory is to
have Southern African people's movements unite to contest a)
neoliberalism, b) Pretoria's subimperialism, and c) particular
national regimes (like Mugabe's or Nujoma's). That process has begun
nicely, at last August's Windhoek meeting of Southern African
Development Community, where a superb collection of these movements
issued a dramatic statement against neoliberal regionalism
(http://www.aidc.org.za) <<

The links don't work. Bur there is a report of a workshop, entitled:
""Making Southern African Development, Cooperation and Integration,
a People based, People-centred, and People-driven
Regional Challenge to Globalisation"

The title itself is part of the problem. There is *no* viable model for "Southern
African Development, Cooperation and Integration" etc, and there is NO SUCH PROCESS
IN REALITY, ie, on this planet. What there IS is a very typical construction of pork
barrel politics for bureaucrats and bigwaigs, and there academic ideologists and
APOLOGISTS who provide theoretical cover for this process of plunder.


The aims of the workshop are "to promote information and capacity building amongst
popular organisations on the inter-governmental structures and programmes, and other
processes already underway within the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

However, the more fundamental concern was to identify the ways in which the existing
inter-governmental and business initiatives in the region were, or were not,
advancing the aims of genuine development".
Specifically:

1. to share amongst non-governmental organisations(*) in-depth information on the
broad aims and strategic possibilities, as well as problems confronting regional
development cooperation and integration in Southern Africa; (*) meaning not only
professional research and development policy institutes, many of which are engaged
in different ways on/in SADC, but broad social movements, church-linked
organisations, campaigning and community-based organisations, trade unions and so
on;

2. to make available to participating organisations - as intermediate bodies to
carry the processes further in their own countries - comprehensive information on
the structures and functioning of the Southern African Development Community, and
the formal institutional spaces' and political opportunities that could be used for
non-governmental engagement and popular inputs to help shape the methods of
operation, the content of SADC agreements and programmes, and the direction,
character - and very progress - of regional development processes;

3. to provide in-depth analysis of the main formal agreements already underway -
particularly on trade and investment, but also the other many and varied joint
programmes being carried out in all spheres between the member countries, or
sub-groupings of these countries; that are little known but are already impacting
upon the lives of the people of Southern Africa; and that can have very different
and/or improved developmental effects with the informed interventions of peoples
organisations;

4. to provide mutual information through country reports, on the impact of SADC
programmes within the respective countries, including the various cross-border
development projects, and particularly the role and effects of the operations of
South African businesses and investors throughout the region; the positions of
national or domestic businesses with or against this penetration; and the positions
of regional business in general and the governments of the region towards the
penetration and role of international trade and investment in the region;

5. to encourage joint efforts amongst non-governmental organisations in Southern
Africa, through diverse cross-border initiatives in many spheres: not only to
influence inter-governmental decisions but to build on and encourage the strong ties
of mutual support and positive interactions amongst the people of Southern Africa;
and to counter any negative, and even xenophobic, attitudes towards each other in
some sectors of the population, and competitive chauvinistic tendencies amongst the
political, governing, business elites;

6. to consider and contribute to the creation and functioning of regional,
supra-national democratic institutions and organisations - such as a regional human
rights court, a supreme court of appeal, a regional parliamentary forum etc. - as
the concrete institutional expressions, and means, to share and extend to the whole
of the region the various democratic strengths and popular gains achieved within the
respective countries, and to advance genuine regional democratic cooperation and
mutual support;

7. to contri

RE: [L-I] Socialism, Regionalism, & Pan-Africanism (was Learning)

[Mark Jones]

>
> Mark Jones wrote:
>
> > >
> > Unfortunately the world just is not and will not be like this pleasant
> day dream.
>
> o.k. So?
>
> Carrol

Carrol, that's what we are here discussing. For a long time some of us have been
discussing fundamental problems buried within the technostructure at the heart of
the capitalist mode of production. Glad you're here to help.

Mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Socialism, Regionalism, & Pan-Africanism (was Learning)

[Mark Jones]

>
> Ideally, socialism in Africa should coincide with pan-Africanism of
> the revolutionary kind, and at the level of short- to medium-term
> goals, movements on the left should aspire to a regionalist program
> of the kind that Samir Amin, Pat Bond, etc. have advocated.  That
> would go toward a solution of the Black Man's Burden that Basil
> Davidson has discussed.  (In the case of Albania & Yugoslavia, calls
> for the Balkan Federation raised a couple of times in the early
> twentieth century, if implemented, might have prevented one seed of
> the present predicament from being sown.)

This is wildly unrealistic. There is no basis for any 'short-term to medium goals'
outside the full embrace of neoliberalism by these same 'African socialists' -- you
only have to look at what has happened to the ANC to see not how it might be, but
how it IS. The elites who came to power in the process of decolonisation were all
corrupted, destroyed, wasted, hunted or shot; their replacements have been without
exception, worse. This process of hisorical decay is *ACCELERATING* (compare and
contrast Thabo Mbeki with Nelson Mandela; and Mbeki is not the worst there can be,
because in reality S Africa is not stabilising, it is slowly but surely unravelling
and I cannot see a single reason why it should escape the fate of social implosion
and state-failure which has been Africa's.

Let us avoid utopian day-dreams. There is no 'short-term/medium term' other than the
complete collapse of the social, material, technical infrastructures amidst
population meltdow, rampant HIV/AIDS etc: what is happening in Africa, is also now
happening in Russia, and for the same reasons. Inertial demographic momentum can
give us the ghastly coincidence of a population which still grows and even increases
substantially, even in the midst of a pandemic where up to 50% of the entire
population has AIDs/HIV. What are the political elites going to do, except grab the
money and run? The history is totally plain, totally clear. You must not be afraid
to face it.

>
> Here's an excerpt from an article by Pat Bond, with my comments
> interspersed here and there in it:
>
> *   Patrick Bond, "Global Economic Crisis: A View from South
> Africa," _Journal of World-Systems Research_ 5.2 (Summer 1999):
> 413-455, at
> 
>
> ...From Africa's leading radical economist, Samir Amin, has come the
> theme of regional delinking:
>
> The response to the challenge of our time imposes what I have
> suggested naming "delinking" ... Delinking is not synonymous with
> autarky, but rather with the subordination of external relations to
> the logic of internal development ... Delinking implies a "popular"
> content, anti-capitalist in the sense of being in conflict with the
> dominant capitalism, but permeated with the multiplicity of divergent
> interests.68

Sadly, this is pure *illusion*, arrant nonsense, and the absolute theoretical
bankruptcy of a whole political tradition embracing social democracy and Soviet-era
socialism/bolshevism alike.


>
> As unrealistic as this appears at first blush,

And at 2nd, 3rd, 4th blush.

>the recent, present
> and forthcoming conditions of global economic crisis appear to both
> demand and supply the material grounds for a profound change in power
> relations.  The ideological hegemony and financial stranglehold that
> neoliberalism and its sponsors have enjoyed are discredited and could
> fast disappear.  Out of nowhere (East Asia!), after all, suddenly
> appeared system-threatening contradictions.  [Yoshie: Now, the USA
> itself is about to contend with the economic fallout of neoliberalism
> that it has worked hard to make globally hegemonic, if California is
> a harbinger of things to come.]


No, no and again no! Taking things in reveverse order, what is happening in
California is not a harbinger of things to come, except in very general terms. There
is still no general crisis of US capitalism, let alone a general crisis of ruling
class hegemony, which is a separate, deeper crisis, and a much later stage in the
general dissolution of the world system, and SUCH A CRISIS OF HEGEMONY cannot be
taken for granted, it simply may never happen to way you seem to suppose. In short,
what you, Pat Bond, Samir Amin, and also, it must be said, Arrighi and Wallerstein,
to judge from certain recent writings, are doing is taking an altogether too facile
and superficial view of what is in fact a very deepseated, longrun crisis which is
both MORE serious in its ultimate contradictions, and also LESS likely to force
capitalism to concede an anti-capitalist solution than you think. Ie, it is quite
wrong not to see that the 'forces of socialism, pan-african revolution etc, which
you so glibly talk about, (a) on the whole simply DO NOT EXIST and (b) even if they
did, are not capable of imposing a working class solution top the crisis, upon
caitalism, and it is not S Afric

RE: [L-I] Re: "Democratising" Africa

[Mark Jones]

> An interesting development is that in the USA an economic downturn,
> rising energy costs, effects of deregulation, etc. have coincided in
> California.  Not yet the nation- & region-wide crisis of the kind
> that you speak of, but California may be a harbinger of things to
> come.  Neoliberal capitalism has now to contend with its own fallout.
>


The California grid meltdown and collapse of the current version of "deregulation"
is interesting in itself and tells us sg. about some of the intrinsic difficulties
of providing energy flows to modern large scale centres of production. And it may
offer interesting insights into the viability or not of the much-vaunted
hydrogen/fuel cell economy, with the grid and large generating sets progressively
replaced by small local or even household-scale electricity production. There is so
much hype about this right now that what happens in California (the crucible wherein
the future of capitalism is forged) will tell us much.

And it is also gratifying to have one's own longtime theoretical conjectures about
the implausibility of natural-gas as the energy wave of the future, confirmed.
HOWEVER (maybe this is a matter for regret) a due-diligence approach does not
suggest that the California crisis is as profound or likely to be as long-term, as
would be the case if this was a first *metropolitan* instance of the kind of
systemwide failure of energy platforms and carriers, which destroyed the USSR. There
are too many highly specific features of the California crisis to make it easy to
generalise.

On the more general question about the depth and seriousness of the US
recession/slowdown, I am being careful not to repeat my own earlier stupidities,
like predicting the meltdown of the markets etc. Is there anything more underlying
than the usual business cycle, which has been aggravated by the Net-hype/real estate
bubbles etc? I dunno.

What I am clear about is that Bushonomics (Reaganomics Pt 2) will have the same
intent as the earlier version: to offload the costs of crisis from the US core to
Europe/Japan, and most of all to the peripheries and semi-peripheries. It remains to
be seen how politically acceptable the costs of this will be, in the absence of a
Soviet bogeyman to justify excessive defence spending etc. And the peripheries are
in worse shape now than 20 years ago, it seems to me (generalising wildly). A savage
deflationary attack may not result in revolution, but it does seem to result in
state-failures and local societal implosions so serious that it's simply
counterproductive for corporate capitalism.

Finally, Whither China? is I suppose the question of questions.

Mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Re: "Democratising" Africa

[Mark Jones]

OK, I apologise. I was wrong to be so puerile and frivolous about James Heartfield,
Richard Gott etc. I should have known better.

Let's draw a line under this right now. Yoshie or any of us have a right to cite
anyone she/they want to in support of an argument or position. Lou surely has a
right to point to the person's credentials, or lack thereof, as part of a general
assessment of who people are and where they are coming from. James Heartfield is a
problematic figure because of his resolute espousal of extreme right wing AND
left-wing issues and causes, and because of his highly heterodox approach to theory
in general and Marx in particular. he is a well-read man and he has studied Marx's
writings. For those of us who've done battle with him, that means him controversial
and also irritating. It means we have to keep doing our homework and keep going over
the same ground, because this is not a person who easily acknowledges error or
logical contradictions even when these occur and are very obvious, in his work.
Since his group had strong African connections, he can draw on a wealth of local
knowledge and expertise about Africa and that makes him still more difficult to deal
with, because it become almost impossible to disentangle the threads of his
argument, yet those who know him always have the sneaking suspicion that there is
always a hidden agenda, and that we are in danger of being led by the nose through a
circuitous route towards positions we damn well know we will disagree with. However,
we shall have to just deal with it. There must surely now be a strong desire to find
unity on l-i and have no more splits among the moderators. The goal of the list is
to develop revolutionary theory in the light of Leninism. Let's bear that in mind.
James Heartfield's group has dissolved itself and they have abandoned organised
politics and all claims to socialism or to working class political renewal.
Therefore Heartfield's articles cannot be more than raw material to be worked over
and used with care, as we do with anything else from the mainstream, be it the NY
Times, the Guardian, a book by Doug Henwood or anything else. We do not take
anything for granted. But we rely on the scholarship and witness of *bourgeois*
academics, thinkers and writers because we are not able to do without it; we simply
are not. We do not have the resources, and this is simply obvious.

Our starting point about Africa today is the colonial and postcolonial background
and the formative effects of the Cold War; the ending of which has indeed profoundly
affected Africa in both positive and negative ways. The collapse of the apartheid
regime was surely one of the tectonic aftershocks of the collapse of the whole
Soviet bloc. But subsequently, as US imperialism has grown enormously in strength,
with the brakes on growth caused by the drain of military competition with the USSR
now off, and with the huge surge of neoliberal globalism generally, things have got
progressively worse in most peripheral and semi-peripheral zones, and Africa most of
all. US growth has been achieved *at the expense* the living standards and security
of *hundreds of millions of people*, in Africa, Latin America, Russia and Eastern
Europe, the middle East, south central Asia and elsewhere. Whole developed zones
have been struck down and bulldozed off the economic map in order to release new
resources for the cores, and of these, on Europe has just about managed to stay in
the game; Japan has been defeated. So we have been living through a period of
unequalled imperial plunder, a vast looting of peoples, nations, resources, biomes
and ecological systems, an absolutely unparalleled process of enrichment of the
elites in the metropoles (the worlds new gulags of wealth, the whole system of gated
communities skeined out over the whole planet, and linking to each other more than
to their own locales, so we really do now have a globalised bourgeoisie).

One of the great strengths this new imperial order has, in addition to many others,
is its now highly developed capability for micromanaging political processes in
every periphery and semi-periphery. We have a system of universal political lockdown
which masquerades as universal democracy! Orwell was right! So this new reality is
what confronts the broad masses everywhere, and which also and most importantly,
guarantees that the ONLY POTENTIAL LEADERS are the revolutionaries, because all
other forms of mass organisation and politics have been ruthless purged,
conscripted, co-opted and reconstituted under the rubrics and by the discourses of
imperial hegemony. This is why what WE are doing is so very, very important, because
it is literally true that WITHOUT US, there is literally no hope for humankind; we
are the only hope. Only ruthlessly PROLETARIAN political organisation can create
truly AUTONOMOUS forms of mass liberatory politics. EVERY other political form.
discourse etc has already been or is now being, thorough

RE: [L-I] Congo

[Mark Jones]

Yoshie Furuhashi:

> >Most surreal...Richard
> >Gott, who republished Guevara's Congo diaries as a blast against Kabila
> >at the same time charges him with having 'alienated foreign investors by
> >refusing to make payments on the gigantic foreign debt of $14bn incurred
> >by his profligate predecessor' (Guardian January 19, 2001).

More surreal still is Hreatfeild pretending to be pro-black Africa. This is the man
who vocally supported Larry Summers' desire to dump shit there. Richard Gott, per
contra, is not only a real marxist and revolutionary, and a man who worked
successfully for the KGB while employed as a journo at the Grauniad, he is also a
man who put his life where his money is not once but at least twice. Of course, this
validates nothing in his views about the Congo.

As for Kabila, he was just another slave-selling SOB and we should not make a martyr
out of his fat carcass. IMHO.

Mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Congo

[Mark Jones]

 Louis Proyect:
>
>
> Despite their pleasant demeanor on various progressive Internet forums,
> people like James Heartfield are Thatcherites who choose to use Marxish
> verbiage as the need arises.


Heatfield is a runner. let's never forget it. Like those Russki sectaries who can't
stand the heat of real theoretical debate, Heartfleid
ran away when the warming debate go too hot for 'im.  That's what I mainly remember
about 'im: the sight of his fleeing cyber-ass.

Mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Baiborodova-Bilenkin-Myers-Shein

[Mark Jones]

> I wonder why Svetlana is so upset because of Bilenkin's expulsion only
> and not about expulsion of Myers.

A very interesting question. Ho-hum, I suppose we shall never know, know that Svyeta
has *gone*.

Mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Re: oTWET: To moderators from Russia -to Louis Proyect

[Mark Jones]

 Carrol Cox wrote:
>
> Freedom of speech refers only to the use & abuse of
> state power. it is irrelevant in the present context.

Damn, and here was I hoping to drag Lenin into it somehow. You're right of course.
As ever.

Mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] oTWET: [L-I] Re:Svetlana to Moderation team

[Mark Jones]

Svetlana Baiborodova wrote:
> 
> I go away, be happy!

Svyetichka, this already your 5th or 6th curtain call, are you going or staying?

Privyet,

Mark

___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Re: oTWET: To moderators from Russia -to Louis Proyect

[Mark Jones]

Tony:

>  Mark is not a list moderator, yet assures us that
> certain folk shall not return.

I'm not a moderator so can't keep people off the list. Those who have left all seem
to be highly active (fissile, in some cases) on other lists, so anyone wanting to
debate them still can.

>what about the general question of 'free speech'?Should
> it be limited in a 'free society'?

This is a very interesting question. What did Lenin and/or Marx have to say about
it?

Mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] JRL

[Mark Jones]

I think you have to write to David Johnson [[EMAIL PROTECTED]]

> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of
> Nestor Miguel Gorojovsky
> Sent: 19 January 2001 00:15
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: [L-I] JRL
>
>
> En relacisn a [L-I] Latynina article on Russian external debt,
> el 18 Jan 01, a las 10:20, Mark Jones dijo:
>
> > [from JRL, which anyone interested in Russia shiould be on]
>
> Could you post the instructions to sub, Mark? You once gave them to me, but I
> could not sub at the moment and do not find them. I suppose many on L-I would
> join JRL, that's why I send the request to the list.
>
> Nistor Miguel Gorojovsky
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> ___
> Leninist-International mailing list
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
> http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
>


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

FW: [L-I] To moderators from Russia - Activity of the Workers Trade Union "Defense"

[Mark Jones]

[typos corrected! Eyesight not what it was]

-Original Message-
From: Mark Jones [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: 18 January 2001 23:51
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [L-I] To moderators from Russia - Activity of the Workers
Trade Union "Defense"


Svetlana Baiborodova:
>
> Well, I shall tell the members of the list about my organisation`s activity
> and not only in Samara because Interregional Association of the Workers
> Trade Union "Defense of Labor" is All-Russian trade union. I suppose it is
> interesting for our Western comrades therefore I shall detail the story.

I am grateful to you for this.  I hope that this is only the beginning of our
dialogue and of your participation on L-I.

As for my own work, which you asked me about, it goes back a number of years. The
first active role I played in the peace movement was in 1961, when I organised 2
buses of people from Lancashire, who participated in the Aldermaston CND march.  I
was lucky enough to meet Bertrand Russell and also Dora Russell on that occasion. I
attended every subsequent CND march. I became a communist at that time.

I have continued to be active in the workers' and revolutionary movement from that
time. I lived in the USSR from 1987 until the mid-1990s. Now I am semi-retired, and
not in good health. But my faith in the Russian working class is not more or less
than it was.  I wrote two books about the Soviet Union, "Moscow in World War 2"
(Chatto + Windus 1985) and "Storming the Heavens" (Pluto Press, 1987). The latter
book is about the Great October Revolution.

If you would like to more about what I am now doing, some of my recent writings are
collected at:

http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base

If you would like to know more, please write to me offlist at
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>.

Let me say once more, and from the heart, Svetlana Baiborodova, that I am very glad
of the participation of revolutionary Russian workers on this elist.

Best wishes

Mark Jones





___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] To moderators from Russia - Activity of the Workers Trade Union "Defense"

[Mark Jones]

Svetlana Baiborodova:
>
> Well, I shall tell the members of the list about my organisation`s activity
> and not only in Samara because Interregional Association of the Workers
> Trade Union "Defense of Labor" is All-Russian trade union. I suppose it is
> interesting for our Western comrades therefore I shall detail the story.

I am grateful to you for this.  I hope that this is only the beginning of our
dialogue and of your participation on L-I.

As for my own work, which you asked me about, it goes back a number of years. The
first active role I played in the peace movement was in 1961, when I organised 2
buses of people from Lancashire, who participated in the Aldermaston CND march.  I
was lucky enough to meet Bertrand Russell and also Dora Russell on that occasion. I
attended every subsequent CND march. I became a communist at that time.

I have continued to be active in the workers' and revolutionary movement from that
time. I lived in the USSR from 1987 until the mid-1990s. Now I am semi-retired, and
not in good health. But my faith in the Russian working class is not more or less
than it was.  I wrote two books about the Soviet Union, "Moscow on World War 2"
(Chatto + Windus 1985) and "Storming the Heaveans" (Pluto Press, 1987). The latter
book is about the Great October Revolution.

If you would like to more about what I am not doing, some of recent writings are
collected at:

http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base

If you would like to know more, please write to me offlist at
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>.

Let me say once more, and from the heart, Svetlana Baiborodova, that I am very glad
of the participation of revolutionary Russian workers on this elist.

Best wishes

Mark Jones





___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

FW: [L-I] Russia, and Rebuilding the Left in Canada

[Mark Jones]

-Original Message-
From: Mark Jones [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: 18 January 2001 13:12
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [L-I] Russia, and Rebuilding the Left in Canada


Johannes Schneider wrote:

> Mine argues for the expulsion of a person who did a tremendous work in
>informing the public in the rest of Europe about the struggles of the
> Russian working class.

This person is Steve Myers.

I've just spent an entertaining half hour looking at the list archives of the Iskra
and proletarism egroups list. Here Myers, Bilenkin, Ben Seattle and other stalwarts
have joined forces with Russian Trotskyists and various anarcho-communists. Their
main enemies are each other. It is the marxist-leninist equivalent of a roman orgy.
Anything goes, and every email takes the form of a pronunciamento, or denunciamento.
To the barricades!

If you think you know the full awfulness of sectarianism, you are wrong unless you
have visited the Russian variant. It is like taking a bath into the angst-ridden,
conflictual, spiteful, incestuous exile politics of the Russian revolutionary
diaspora before 1917. It is a swirling mass of snakes, vipers, piranhas, crocodiles
and vampire-bats. It is wonderful, delirious, indescribable and who knows? Probably
just how one ought to do it.

Poor old Steve Myers! Boy, oh boy, have they got HIS number. The people he thought
were his allies turned out to be former Nazi sympathisers (or not, it's hard to say,
in that netherworld of denunciation, recrimination and kompromat). The
internationalists he most pinned his hopes on soon revealed themselves to be card
carrying Cossacks of the old school. Steve, an innocent Brit-Trot abroad, wandered
into this amazing, surreal world with no more heed than a Boy Scout mistakenly
booking tickets for a vacation in Dachau in 1944. He did his level best to compete:
he is a vicious little rat in his own way, and quite capable of gnawing off the hand
that feeds him. But he is horribly, horribly outclassed. I do admire the Russians!
They made mincemeat of our little english boy scout. In the end, they ALL seemed to
have turned as one man against him: Russian trots, monarchists, Zionists,
anti-zionists, the whole blooming lot. I haven't laughed so much for a long time.


Mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

[L-I] Latynina article on Russian external debt

[Mark Jones]

[from JRL, which anyone interested in Russia shiould be on]

Moscow Times
January 17, 2001
Some Debts Are Better Than Others
By Yulia Latynina

President Vladimir Putin has announced that pensions will be raised. At the
same time, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin announced that Russia would not
make its full payment due on its Paris Club debts this quarter. The reason
for skipping payment is easily understood: Money for this purpose was not
allocated in this years budget. Of course, money for increasing pensions
was also not included in the budget, but they will be paid all the same
from unanticipated budget revenues.

It should be acknowledged that the Paris Club debt is one of the only debts
that our otherwise generous government seems reluctant to pay. London Club
debt, for instance, was drastically restructured: Before restructuring, it
amounted to $32 billion and afterward  $41 billion. In connection with
this restructuring, these debts dramatically increased in value and those
insiders who knew about it in advance were able to make billions.

Debts racked up by Soviet foreign-trade organizations are similar to London
Club debt. These organizations were set up during the late 60s by the KGB
to finance Soviet-backed insurgencies and governments in third-world
countries. By the 70s, they were mostly used to launder money abroad for
Party insiders. By the 80s, they were laundering money for the KGB
leadership itself and in the 90s their debts were resold, goodness knows
where, through a network of offshore companies.

There has been much speculation that those companies were controlled by the
very government officials who were negotiating the restructuring of these
debts. All that is known for certain is that in 1994 these debts stood at
$5 billion and now, after resale and restructuring, they amount to more
than twice that, according to Kudrin.

The government has also promised to pay off the debts of the company
building the Moscow-St. Petersburg High-Speed Railway. Since everyone knew
that this company would not be able to pay its debts, its bonds were
selling literally for kopeks. Insiders who got wind of the governments
pending decision could (and did) make some easy money.

In addition, Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov has promised to pay $16
billion that the government owes to the military-industrial complex. These
debts were never included in the latest budget or in any previous budget
for that matter. They were "incurred" when these factories  without any
state orders  simply produced aircraft or tanks and then presented the
government with a bill. By now youve guessed that these hopeless debts too
could at one time be cheaply bought up and that the states decision to pay
brought hefty profits to those who did so.

So, what is the problem with Paris Club debt? After all, the government is
ready to pay off even debts that it never incurred.

It is, Im afraid, not very difficult to guess the answer to this question.
London Club debts and the others mentioned above trade freely on debt
markets. These bonds can easily be transformed into hard cash in the
pockets of government insiders. But Paris Club debt cannot be.

These debts are the only ones that Russias corrupt politicians do not owe
to themselves. Or, rather, to "their" banks, companies, offshore firms.
These debts are owed directly to Western governments. They do not trade on
the open market.

>From the point of view of Russian bureaucrats, that means that there is
absolutely no reason to pay them.

Yulia Latynina is creator and host of "The Ruble Zone" on NTV television.


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Re: Russia: CPRF Leader Interviewed - Russia TV

[Mark Jones]

> This may be chauvinism. But probably the less "C" of all the CPs in the world 
> was the Argentine one (and the Uruguayan?). I missed it on Mark's short list, 
> when in fact it should have been heading it.

sorry, Nestor. My mistake.

___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Re: Zyuganov Interview 11 September 2000: Russian CP Leader Supports Kremlin, Drops Old Allies

[Mark Jones]

Yoshie wrote:

> One one hand:
>
> *   Financial Times (London)
> January 5, 2001, Friday London Edition 1
> SECTION: WORLD NEWS - EUROPE; Pg. 6
> HEADLINE: WORLD NEWS - EUROPE: Russia turns its back on western aid:

In order to understand anything in Russia, you have to dig beneath the surface and
that applies as much to FDI, foreign and Soviet debt repayment issues a fortiori.
The review of Yulia Latynina's novel which I just posted (sorry for the formatting)
gives a clue about this. Because of the way Soviet debt was structured, the odd
thing is that much of it *is actually owned by the Russian oligarchs themselevs*.
They bought up bonds and debt instruments when Soviet debt was securitised some
years ago. Now they want to cash in: so the Putin govt's eagerness to pay the Soviet
debt etc, is actaully just another example of the oligarchs looting Russia, because
it is Russian taxpayers who must pay this bill. This btw tells you who Putin is
working for, if anyone believes the fairytale that there is an 'objective
difference' between the Russain security services (which he is alleged to be part
of) and the oligarchs (which he is supposed to be cleaning up and isn't).
Meanmwhile, the breathtaking, undisguised cynicism (lack of 'hypocrisy' etc) of the
Russian oligarchs continues: for the so-called 'Paris Club' debt is the ONE part of
Soviet/Russian debt which ISN'T substantially owned by the oligarchs. It is owned by
western govts. Therefore, there is no need to repay it, is there? And that's why
they are refusing. No principle involved, of any kind.

As for turning its back on western aid, of course they are not turning their backs
on real money. What they don't like is 'aid' which mostly finds its way into the
pockets of *western* consultants and not their own pockets etc.

Mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Re: Russia: CPRF Leader Interviewed - Russia TV

[Mark Jones]

>
> The man's craftier than Zyuganov, I gather.  He has his supporters
> use the anti-Semitic rhetoric, avoiding it himself.

This was not an anti-semitic joke but a joke by a famous *Jewish* comedian. If the
context had been transferred to Brooklyn and the person who made the joke was Woodie
Allen, you might have got the point. The joke was made *at the opening of a
synagogue*. More recently, Putin observed on the eve of Hanukah that the Jewish
minority were an important and valuable part of Russian society, etc. He has striven
to tone down and eliminate signs of anti-semitism in the media, political life etc.
He has warmly embraced the work of the leadership of Russian Jewish people.
Antisemitic?


Mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Re: Zyuganov Interview 11 September 2000: Russian CP Leader Supports Kremlin, Drops Old Allies

[Mark Jones]

Yoshie:
> First of all, Russian leftists need to expand the base for support of
> Communism beyond "platoons of pensioners"!  I don't think they can
> expand it while accommodating themselves to Putin, though.  It seems
> to me that Zyuganov ain't smart or ambitious enough to use Putin for
> his social-democratic purpose.  What's happening is the other way
> around, most likely.

actually you raise important and central issues, I think. You also spoke about
rising tides of dissent and protest which is not yet politically focussed or
canalised. The problem is that is is simply and literally impossible to create mass
revolutionary parties under today's conditions when the overpowering, stifling and
suffocating weight of US imperialism, ideological hegemony etc, simply strangles
almost every form of protest, even the most seemingly innocuous and vapid. We live
in a world where US finance and monopoly capitalism is strong enough not merely to
snuff out the socialist ideals or national pretensions of ex-Soviet people, but even
to trample on US democracy itself. At the same time as there exists a monstrous
apparatus of mass surveillance, of mind-policing, and of thousands of insidious
forms of mass coercion and persuasion, there also exists the seemingly unanswerable
logic of mass consumerism with its intense, hypnotic influence over mass
consciousness.

However, despite the seemingly overwhelming pressure of imperialism and of
ideological hegemony and political control, the world system is so inherently
unstable and riven with contradictions that crises and upheavals of variopus kinds
are surely simply inevitable. Perhaps it is true, as Clinton says, that 'the state
of the Union has never been stronger' but it is also true that world capitalism
faces certain fundamental problems which it cannot yet overcome and which
collectively constitute a serious historical impasse. These objective contradictions
are why it is important that we also discuss the subjective questions of working
class political organisation, of our programmatic and ideological goals. Your own
contribution to this is really very important, of course, and we all of us accept
this.

Mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Re: Whither the List?

[Mark Jones]

Yoshie:
>  we don't want to lose someone like Johannes
> from the list, do we?  He's on the side of anti-imperialism.
>
> >ONE part is revolutionary and
> >wishes to overthrow capitalism; the other is accommodationist and has no such
> >intention.
>
> The problem is that the CPRF has & will accommodate itself to
> Yeltsin, Putin, etc., remaining a "responsible" opposition, to borrow
> Zyuganov's own words.

Yoshie, I didn't expel Johannes or ask him to leave, so you're talking to the wrong
person. As for the cprf, why is it any more a problem that it is a reformist not a
revolutionary party than is the case with any mass electoral party anywhere on
earth? Russia is a normal capitalist country at least in the sense that there is
simply no social space nor historical opportunity for a mass revolutionary party
there. It is simply fantasy to suppose that the kprf could be other than it is, and
still be permitted to exist. *THAT* is the problem. We do not live in an era of
revolution. It is useless to waste time excoriating Zyuganov for being what he
cannot help being. The idea that if Zyuganov was a little more honest, bolshevik,
revolutionary etc, there would be the insurrectionary overtrhow of capitalism in
Russia is, I repeat, simply fantasy. The fact that people like Kagarlitsky, who
should know better, also seem to share this fantasy, changes nothing. But in fact, K
does know better. He is chasing the kprf for the same reason ultra-left sectarians
always do this: in order to appear to be on the side of the angels while actually
NOT doing anything politically, ie, not actually attacking capitalist state, society
etc etc.

>
> I don't, however, question any L-I poster's _desire_ to overthrow
> capitalism, least of all yours.  That posters are filled with
> revolutionary desire doesn't mean, though, that some of us may not
> commit some errors trying achieve our objective.  If this list is to
> amount to anything, it should become a place where comrades can
> correct comrades, without needless outbursts deflecting attention
> from substantial issues.  That's what you wanted yourself, no?

I'd rather you said what's on your mind than resort to innuendo. I am not a
moderator here but you are. My position is clear: I gave up moderating l-i when I
was too ill to continue. Now I'm not so ill and I'm in a mood to try to help the
list get back on track. What I mean by this is that we should not indulge
sectarianism here. Have you forgotten the prehistory of lists like this? The *whole
point* about l-i was that it should be a non-sectarian and leninist platform. I have
always encouraged debate and it was I who first invited Johannes to particpate,
altho I obviously do not share his politics. But trench warfare is what we don't
want. I am very glad you are participating + moderating and I hope you will use your
undoubted skills as scholar, theorist, feminist and revolutionary to make the list a
better and more useful political tool. By all means, let us talk about substantive
issues.

Mark



___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Re: Russia: CPRF Leader Interviewed - Russia TV

[Mark Jones]

Yoshie wrote:
> Putin, by co-opting anti-Semitic & anti-liberal rhetoric widespread
> in Russia, can coopt the themes of "socialism = the modern form of
> Russian patriotism" as well.  The CPRF has only itself to blame,
> since it's happy with the role of the loyal opposition.

On the contrary, Putin has been at pains to publicly oppose anti-semitism. For
example:

BBC MONITORING
PUTIN CRACKS JEWISH JOKE AT THE OPENING OF COMMUNITY CENTRE
Source: NTV International, Moscow in Russian 1800 gmt 18 Sep 00

[Correspondent] Vladimir Putin is the second Russian president who have
opened a synagogue. The first was Boris Yeltsin, who was present at the
consecration of a chapel on Poklonnaya Gora [Great Patriotic War memorial
in Moscow]. Today Putin took part in the opening of a Jewish community
centre - the largest in Eastern Europe. First, the president was invited to
have a look inside - the community had a lot to be proud about. Apart from
a synagogue, the seven-storey building will house a library, a gym, a
cinema, an Internet-cafe, a huge kosher restaurant and offices...

[Correspondent] Putin spoke briefly, but passionately, saying that the
times of state anti-Semitism in Russia are gone forever. He ended on a more
personal note.

[Putin] I met Gennadiy Khazanov [popular Jewish stand-up comedian] today
and we had lunch together. He told me a good joke. It goes like this: a
Jewish family man walks about his home stark naked, save for his tie. His
wife asks him indignantly what does he think he is doing walking around
like this. To this, the man says can't he just take it easy in is his own
home? OK says the wife, I suppose you can. But must you wear a tie? Well,
the man says, what if we get visitors? [laughter] And I think now that we
have this community centre opened, we can all take it easy, take our ties
off and enjoy ourselves because this will be a meeting place for everybody...
>


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] To moderators from Russia

[Mark Jones]

> My name is Svetlana Baiborodova. I am a chairwomen of Samara branch of
> Russian Association of the Workers Trade Union "Defense of Labor", a member
> of Coordinating Commitee of the All-Russian Campaign in Defense of Acting
> Labor Code, an editor of weekly Left.ru ("Left Russia"): http://left.ru.

I am sure we'd all want to welcome Svetlana to this list. It is very good to
establish cordial relations with Russian leftist and working class organisations. I
hope that she will play an active part in our discussions. When comrades honestly
and sincerely strive to understand each other's positions, and diligently seek to
explain and analyse differences, much can be achieved. But to begin by attacking the
moderators is not helpful. Rather than begin with a discussion of personalities and
of list policy, I think it would be more useful if Svetlana informed the list about
the activities of her organisation in Samara, and about its viewpoint and arguments,
and also if she asks any questions she has about the political orientations etc of
other people on the list. Then we can hope to find some common ground, or anyway to
understand one another better.

Mark



___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Re: Program, Organization, Conjuncture

[Mark Jones]

> Last year I had my e-mail program crash, so I lost the Crashlist URL, 
> among other things.  Can you mail the URL to me or post it here?
> 
> Yoshie

I'll sub you if you like.

Mark

___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Re: Whither the List?

[Mark Jones]

I think Yoshie's interventions are helpful and I am obliged to her for them.

HOWEVER: to say


> The clarity of revolutionary Leninist politics can't be achieved if
> one part of the Left remains trapped in the overblown fear of
> Red-Brown alliances on the periphery and the other part falls for the
> overestimation of political capacity of whatever party or movement
> that claims to be patriotic, socialist, etc. (e.g. the CPRF).
>
> Indeed, we need to raise the level of the debate here!  I ask sober
> heads who are still here to post their thoughts.

begs a question. Firstly and IN PRINCIPLE I do not think it is Leninist to accord
equal merit to 'one part of the left or another'. ONE part is revolutionary and
wishes to overthrow capitalism; the other is accommodationist and has no such
intention. The phraseology they use may be almost identical, mensheviks v.
bolsheviks q.v., but there is a world of difference IN PRACTICE, no?

Second, as Tony properly says, outfits like ISWOR are not part of the left at all,
they are stooges of imperialism. If I ran the CIA or MI5 I probably wouldn't help
out this kind of thing, but I'm not sure thay are so dignified and noble-minded.

Mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Zyuganov Interview 11 September 2000: Russian CP Leader Supports Kremlin, Drops Old Allies

[Mark Jones]

Yoshie wrote
>
> Zyuganov Interview 11 September 2000
>
> BBC MONITORING
> ZYUGANOV INTERVIEW: RUSSIAN COMMUNIST LEADER EXPANDS ON MOVE TO
> SUPPORT KREMLIN, DROP OLD ALLIES

but if you read what the man says, is it so unreasonable?


> Russia today is at a crossroads. Either we following the new state
> line which takes the national interest as its guide or continue with
> the old policy of [acting prime minister in the early nineties Yegor]
> Gaydar or rather [Economic Development and Trade Minister German]
> Gref. If the choice is in favour of the latter, of liberal reforms
> when the land is sold off and they try to finish off the nuclear
> missile shield, when the railways are sold off and the last natural
> monopolies are eliminated and when even our forests are sold into
> private hands then there will be nothing left of Russia.
>
> So we shall do everything we can to ensure that people who understand
> how far things have gone and recognize that very little time indeed
> is left in which to take decisions gain the upper hand in the
> executive structure.

What do you expect him today, lead platoons of pensioners in an assault on the
Telegraph Office, Kremlin etc?

Mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Re: Russia: CPRF Leader Interviewed - Russia TV

[Mark Jones]

 you don't think that the CPRF = Marxism-Leninism, do you?

No, no and again no, as Vladimir Ilyich might say. But so what? Is it the use of the
name 'communist' which winds people up into such hysterical frenzies? But we have
had non-communist communist parties for years and decades and people have fogiven
them their tactless misappropriation of the name (eg, CPUSA, PCF, PCI, Chinese CP
etc etc). So why single out poor Zyuganov?

>
> Since your comeback, you have argued for the importance of
> revolutionary theory & the need to debate it on this list.  This may
> as well be our point of departure.

indeed.

>
> Russia today, it seems to me, is virtually free from Marxism-Leninism.

By what test? According to a recent poll, Russians voted Lenin as 'man of the 20th
century' (followed by Stalin) by handsome majorities. There is a well-attested
yearning for the good old soviet days, which all polls confirm. Even if Kagarlitsky
is right in rubbishing the kprf, there is no getting away from the fact that the
Kremlin and its western minders acknowledge *the need* for the kprf, because of the
huge residual popularity of Communist ideas, values etc.

And I know it's true, because I've spent time there.

Mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Re: Russia: CPRF Leader Interviewed - Russia TV

[Mark Jones]

Yoshie wrote:
>
> The CPRF's program, such as it is, can never be achieved by the
> CPRF's means.

This means that it's a normal party no? Operating according to the normal rules of
hypocrisy, double-dealing, sanctimoniousness etc of bourgeois parties everywhere.
Until just a few years ago, the British Labour Party's programme for more than 70
years had contained the famous Clause 4, which obliged the party when in govt to
take the means of production (!) into national ownership and to secure the full
fruits of those who labour by hand and brain, in a just and equitable system of
distribution. Nobody called all Labour MPs, ministers etc, systematic thieves,
crooks and liars when they did the exact opposite, because no-one ever expected them
to carry out any part of their programme. Why is not the same decency, the same
right to a fig-leaf, permitted to the KPRF?

Actually, hypocrisy is all right in its way. The 'Red Directors' who now squat like
tribal hetmen over the plunder of state and party, or the famous oligarchs, are not
hypocrites: they honestly behave like feudal barbarians. Which is better? Let's face
it, the hypocritical morality of the bourgeois is the only public morality we've
got. Better that than the alternative. This from JRL:

Foreign Policy
January-February 2001

In Other Words
True Crime, Russian-Style
By Chrystia Freeland

Okhota na izyubrya (Stag Hunting)
By Julia Latynina
527 pages, Moscow: Olma-Press and St. Petersburg: Neva, 1999 (in Russian)

Pity the would-be Russian thriller writer. A big part of the pleasure we take
in the latest blockbuster mob movie or bestselling crime novel is the sheer,
children's-bedtime-story catharsis of entering an imaginary world whose
dangers are vivid, yet safely removed from the struggles of our ordinary
existence. But in postcommunist Russia, "real life" is as lurid and scary as
any John Grisham pot-boiler. This is a country where a small-business owner,
engaged in a trade as mundane as selling shoes, must pay local gangsters more
often than the electric company. Here, tax officials sometimes wear
bulletproof vests, conceal their faces in black balaclavas, and carry machine
guns; the best restaurants have metal detectors in the foyer; and the
country's leading tycoons routinely must evade car bombs and flee the country
under threat of arrest. And as for luridbwell, one of Moscow's most popular
news programs features an anchorwoman who strips while she recites the day's
top stories.

Against the backdrop of this surreal reality, Russian journalist Julia
Latynina's attempt to write an "economic thriller" is a heroic undertaking.
She tells the story of a Moscow banking oligarch's underhanded campaign to
seize control of a Siberian metallurgical factory from Vyacheslav Izvolsky,
the plant's tough, young local owner. The book's publishers have tried to set
the tone with a pulpish cover featuring a steely-eyed assassin cocking his
pistol at the reader.

Latynina gamely struggles to keep the book jacket's guns-and-molls promise.
She stages a gangland shootout, gives us a couple of scenes of creatively
gruesome torture, and, by the end of the book, manages to tote up three
corpses, a half-dozen assassination attempts, and several encounters with the
prostitutes of Moscow's casino land. It's a noble effort, but ultimately,
Latynina is outgunned by the sheer brutality of everyday Russian life. In a
country where a week of headlines produces more gore than all 527 pages of
Stag Hunting, Latynina's thriller never quite manages to thrill.

That may be why Stag Hunting hasn't quite achieved the runaway popular
success its publishersbwho touted the novel as "a book with every chance of
becoming a national best-seller"bhad hoped for. But Latynina's work has
become a must-read for the select group of mostly Moscow-based journalists,
pundits, politicians, and executives who unselfconsciously refer to
themselves as the Russian elita. Stag Hunting owes its influence among the
elita to the meticulously detailed economic story Latynina tells once she has
dispensed with her sex-and-guns subplots.

As one of Russia's leading business journalists, Latynina is an able guide to
the intricacies of post-Soviet economic life. She deftly combines a firm
grasp of the dizzying financial detail of Russian businessban intentionally
confusing realm of barter, arrears, and offshore bank accountsbwith a clear
understanding of the larger, systemic role these transactions serve. When it
comes to interpreting the Russian economy, Latynina is, to borrow Isaiah
Berlin's terms, both a fox and a hedgehog, and that is what makes Stag
Hunting such a fascinating book.

The novel, which helpfully includes a three-page appendix listing all the
banks, offshore companies, and trading firms attached to the Siberian
metallurgical factory that is the main theater of action, is full of riveting
detail. Latynina explains precisely how factory directors use offshore firms
to evade taxes, illus

RE: [L-I] My resignation as moderator from L-I

[Mark Jones]

> (((
>
> CB: Please give an example of a successful list .
>
> 

It would be invidious to make examples, but I suppose that if Bob Malecki really has
312 people listening to him on his egroups list, perhaps we should call that a
success, hey?

Mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Whither the List?

[Mark Jones]

Tony, I agree with most of your remarks, and I'm glad you're here and also that you
are struggling heroically at Solidarity.

In particular I agree that "the phobic iSWor/
> Kagarlitsky crowd" is just a front. You're right: they "trumpet within the Left
> of the  imperialist bloc countries a hysterical fear that a Russian 'Red
> -Brown' uprising is the  world's greatest menace" and this is "thoroughly
> repugnant and reactionary. "

However I also agree with what Lou said the other day: that people who are active on
a list, must share some kind of basic commitment to the purpose of the list. People
who are actually fronting imperialist, anti-working class propaganda, who are just
stooges, obviously do not share this commitment to leninism. It is not searching for
purity that motivates me to want to draw a line, but the fact that it is impossible
to have any kind of serious discussion while this trench warfare is going on. The
fact that the miscreants have gone does not necessarily mean that we shall now get
serious debate, because that depends on the energy and input of the rest of us. But
it is surely a start.

It is noteworthy that people like Doug Henwood and Slavoj Zizek - cynical
opportunists and leftwing careerists - have starting talking again about Lenin. I
think this is because people sense that things like an economic slowdown or
recession, combined with the incoming Bush regime, are going to sharpen social
tensions, increase workplace struggles and polarise politics etc. I'm sure they are
quite cynical about this: they think there is a political cycle just like the
business cycle, and probably in lockstep with it. In a recession you have to sound a
little more militant, otherwise you start to look stale and uninteresting. Doug H.
is a great one for finding out where the "mainstream" is, and his antenna work. On
the one hand, it's fine that people are talking more militantly; but on the other,
it makes it all the more important that we don't let these people, who are our
political enemies, drown out the real message about what is a real revolutionary,
leninist politics. To do this, we have to have some kind of material base or
presence, and an elist is one possibility (there are others, obviously). If we were
a leninist party, we wouldn't let anti-leninists or imperialist stooges in. So why
should we let them in here, since this is the workshop or foundry where we have to
try and forge new theory, analysis etc?

I agree that there is a fine distinction between censorship and liberal
over-indulgence -- lenin himself talked about that all the time and in the excerpts
I just posted from Lenin on the press + media, you can see clearly how he saw the
problem. And it was never solved in the USSR. And the death of real debate
practically guaranteed the eventual death of the Soviet state itself. However
Lenin's position was simple: any accommodation between the USSR and the encircling
capitalist powers was bound to be illusory and transient, and war to the death was
inevitable in the long run. In *that* situation, the party monopoly of power and
control of the press was essential for survival; so here is an insoluble
contradiction or paradox. If you monopolise power, you guarantee corruption,
political senility and bureaucracy. If you permit pluralism, OTOH, you're dead just
the same only quicker. The only sure way out of the impasse is to *beat the enemy*,
ie destroy world capitalism. That IS the only way.

We're not trying to make believe that an elist can be a workers' party, let alone a
wrokers' state, but it is important that we do what Lenin wanted to do in 1901, in
WITBD: to draw a line between ourselves and the others. Before you unite, you have
to split: you have to get ideological and political clarity. That is what we should
be trying to do here. Get clarity. It is still possible to debate Myers etc, and
even possible to invite them back (btw, it was the moderators who unsubbed them, not
me). If it was me, I'd argue the shit out of the sods, but I'm damn sure they'd soon
run away anyway, they always do. You wouldn't need to expel them. But then you
really would get a gigantic flame war. I'm particularly good at that, but what's the
point? Nothing is achieved that way.


mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] My resignation as moderator from L-I

[Mark Jones]

>
> CB: What the fuck is going on , Mark ? Why the hell would you call for
> closing down the list like some goddamn the lord giveth and the lord taketh away ?

If you've been following the exchanges you'll see that i'm concerned to make the
list a success, not close it down. maybe licence for a little hyperbole is
permissible. but it must surely be clear that i want the list to succeed. i'm not
responsible for johannes' or anyone else's misunderstandings. maybe you should ask
him why he says the odd things he does.

mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] My resignation as moderator from L-I

[Mark Jones]

I just want to point out that it was no less a rooted stalinoid perverted sectarian
than I myself who originally invited  Nestor G. -- and what's more, Johannes S. --
to comoderate L-I. So I picked up a stone and dropped it on my own foot, in the
latter case, as the maoists say. But I have always taken the view that we need to
talk, and still do. Mostly what I hope for is to *raise the level of debate*. We
should not be afraid of losing arguments. In the case of Nestor and many other folks
whose political backgrounds are dissimilar to my own, the dialogue has generally
been fruitful and I am very glad of it.

Mark

> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of
> Macdonald Stainsby
> Sent: 17 January 2001 09:17
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: [L-I] My resignation as moderator from L-I
>
>
>
> - Original Message -
> From: Johannes Schneider <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2001 11:16 PM
> Subject: [L-I] My resignation as moderator from L-I
>


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Re: Owen-the-Kid Panics Old Goats

[Mark Jones]

Mac, it's not a question of being pro- or anti-kprf. I don't think, for instance
that either Lou or I are pro-kprf (i shouldn't speak for him anyway). The point is
that we have to begin from two simultaneous start-points: (a) analysis of the global
conjuncture and how Russia sits in that and (b) analysis of the programme, history,
leadership etc of specific political entities oncluding bnut not only the kprf. It's
impossible to analyse the kprf in asbtraction from overall russian reality and from
the concrete history of the kprf, cpsu etc.

Bilenkin and Myers are simply hopeless sectarians, who were once bosom pals and then
fell out and became bitter enemies; and the whole hollow hoopla is about nothing and
for nothing. i don't honestly think that kagarlitsky is any better; altho he is
undoubtedly better-informed, better-paid and better-known, he too has a
self-marginalising sectarian take on russian reality and the kprf. his
conspiracy-theory analysis of the kprf's alleged role as 'loyal opposition' to the
yeltsin/putin regime ignores the basic social, class and economic realities which
define the existence of all political entities in all countries, not only russia,
and which mark off or delimit the social space and political opportunities open to
them. quite obviously the kprf is not a leninist revolutionary party, and if it
tried to be the regime would instantly close it down. equally obviously, it has an
important social and political role to play. you might as well get hyserical about
tony blair or chancellor schroeder or lionel jospin or al gore, as get wound up
about zyuganov. They all claim to be socialists. blair is against fox-hunting and
pro socialised health care. on balance, i'd vote for him, definitely. but, as they
say, *without illusions*.

people like owen jones, steve myers etc, are great fountains of moral indignation
and outrage when it comes to the alleged derelictions of political leaders in
far-away countries of which they know perilously little. It might be helpful if they
at least supplemented their activity with equivalent indignation, outrage etc about
events and personalities closer to home. at least bilenkin and kagarlitsky have the
merits of being russian citizens, altho as far as i can tell both spend much of
their time elsewhere. The plain fact is that all this indignation and hysteria is
simply a fuel for what would otherwise be extraordinarily empty and sectarian
politics of the kind for which grouplets avowing allegiance to trotsky[ism] are
notorious. It is simply a complete waste of time (and one cannot help noticing how
this great indignation, principled stands over 'antisemitism' etc, is always highly
tuned to whatever is winding up the NY Times or WSJ this week, etc.)

What we need is theory, theory, theory, and concrete analysis, investigation,
synthesis. We need ideological organisation and we need to struggle for political
clarity, not about the rights and wrongs of zyuganov etc but about *global
capitalist crisis*. Our ideas about the infamy of Bush, the horrors of Makashov etc
etc, must be focussed on *how these things relate to capitalist crisis, the crisis
of the state* etc, and not the other way around.

best wishes as ever and keep up the good work: you did the right thing.

Mark



> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of
> Macdonald Stainsby
> Sent: 17 January 2001 03:56
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: [L-I] Re: Owen-the-Kid Panics Old Goats
>
>
>
> - Original Message -
> From: Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >
> > This is not about censoring a point of view. It is about trying to move
> > away from dead end factionalism. There were problems with James (Red Rebel)
> > Tait, the DHKC, and A. Wosni as well. I can't even remember if they were
> > unsubbed or not. This mailing list had turned into trench warfare of the
> > kind that destroyed mailing lists in the past. My only observation is that
> > unless it can figure out what it's mission is--and adhere to it--it will be
> > vulnerable to destructive interventions.
> >
> > Louis Proyect
> > Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
>
> If people want to know these things, Anton has been allowed back on the condition
> that getting into silly combats where we sling slogans and labels at one another
> ceases. In other words, no attempts to start fights. James has been
> warned, and one
> of the DHKC addresses was removed and has not returned. The moderators
> have agreed on
> a basic mission for the list. It will be announced.
>
> A personal note. I like Owen, but he has now informed me that I am a
> "Proyectist" and
> that he will not return. To make this very dramatic, he also removed
> himself from my
> other project, Rad Green. We had an exchange on "ICQ" about this whole
> recent spate
> this morning. He threatened to try and "organize list member walkouts" is the best
> way to sum it up- if I didn'

RE: [L-I] My resignation as moderator from L-I

[Mark Jones]

> 1. The acceptance of the defence of anti-semitism ('not the real question')
> or anti-semitism itself ( criticising Yeltsin for beeing a Jew ) from the
> side of moderators. This is simply too disgusting that I do not want to go
> into further details.

It is not a *criticism* of Yeltsin to say that he is of Jewish origin. Lenin *also*
had Jewish antecedents, so what?

> 3. After Mark Jones had been subbed to L-I he publicly called for closing
> down L-I.

Nonsense.

Mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Re: Owen-the-Kid Panics Old Goats

[Mark Jones]

>
> I am also a member of Solidarity, and contribute commentary on that list
> sponsored by that organization, where  Owen and Steve's views on
> Milosevic and Kagarlitsky reign supreme.  It does not make my case
> easier to argue against these views there, when a level of intolerance
> for debate is set on this list and/or others, with like sympathetic
> political lines.
>
> I believe that the presence on this list of these 3 indiviuals that have
> now been thrown off, helped provide contrast.   Contrast is
> necessary to make the list of interest to more than just the most narrow
> circle of subscribers.

A variety of views is obviously important. We do not want to replicate what happened
to marxism-international when Lou Godena achieved his ambition of taking over. Now
only Godena himself posts there, and his posts are all crossposts. m-i used to be
the liveliest list on the marxist net.

At the same time, debate has to be real. we are not duelling bands of antique
tribesmen whose best warriors strut their stuff in front of the massed ranks and
repeat well-known phraseology without actually listening to the other side.
Posturing is not debate. empty rhetoric is not debate. lack of scholarship and
arrogant opinionation is not debate. The plain fact is that there is NOT ONE serious
forum where revolutionary theory is analysed and discussed from a leninist
perspective, anywhere on the Net. This is the ONLY place.  By all means, argue the
kagarlitsky position if you will, but first tell us what relationship there is
between kagarlitsky and leninism, anywhere in HIS OWN writings? None that I know of.
So why on earth should he be a benchmark for debate HERE? Solidarity is and
ANTI-leninist organisation. Why should its views also reign supreme HERE?


> I would urge the moderators to control their 'piss', and resub these 3
> individuals.

Why? As you say, they have other platforms. Would I be welcome on the solidarity
list?

Mark



___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

[L-I] Nikolai Podvoisky on Lenin and October 2of2

[Mark Jones]

This was but one of the Red Guard battalions and it was followed by
a second and a third. The fourth was awaiting its turn, the men excited
and with their nerves on edge. News from the Front was scanty.
We knew that Comrade Chudnovsky's advanced troops had been
unable to stem the attack and were in a difficult
position. Chudnovsky was wounded and his detachment had lost contact
with other units at the front and was threatened with annihilation. T
was no commander-in-chief; the Krasnoye Selo and Tsarskoye
garrisons and the Red Guard units were all operating on their own.
Comrade Antonov-Ovseenko went to the front himself but returned:
dismayed at the lack of order and the confusion there. Tired out
depressed, he had scarcely realised what was going on and had reacted
weakly to an extremely critical situation. Weeks of sleepless nights
sapped his energy and will-power. We settled down to a discussion o:
situation. With the command disunited and improperly organised
seemed that the enemy could defeat us easily with very small forces,
during the ensuing panic and the retreat of our troops to Petrograd, c
effect the counter-revolution.

The situation was extremely serious.
Despite the revolutionary enthusiasm of the masses and their real
to sacrifice themselves, there was little organised resistance to
Kerensky's advance owing to our poor leadership. The tone of his
proclamations 'orders' became more and more confident.
The chief difficulty arose from the fact that the soldiers were flushed
with recent victory and did not all appreciate the approaching danger.
regiments that had accomplished the socialist revolution in co-operation
with and under the leadership of the Petrograd workers, considered
their work was done and that they were heroes. They were ready to  admit
that the defence of Petrograd from enemies within the city was their
affair but as far as Kerensky's troops were concerned -- well, they were
somewhere near Gatchina, let the local garrisons fight them, they were
nearer ...

Orders, in the soldiers' sense of the word, had long since ceased to
effective. This had been a positive factor when it had helped us get the
regiments out of the hands of the counter-revolutionary officers. Now
however, it had become the opposite -- the soldiers had got into the
habit of deciding for themselves what they should and should not do.
My order to the troops of the Petrograd garrison to move against
Kerensky was obeyed by only a few of the regiments, the majority refused
to go to the front on the excuse that it was essential to defend
Petrograd.

Krylenko went round the barracks. When he returned he told us that his
persuasions and exhortations had met everywhere with rebuff.
In order to put an end to that mood I went to the regiment that had been

the first to rise against Tsarism, the Volhynian. I mustered the
soldiers and demanded action. The regiment, through its committee,
informed me unceremoniously that it would not fulfil the order.
The same thing happened in a number of other regiments.

I felt that the whole of our front line of defence was beginning to
collapse as a result of this refusal.
I got into my car and rushed off to the Smolny to ask Vladimir Ilyich
for his advice.

Hurriedly I told him of the failure to get the soldiers to act. I said
Is the Volhynian and other tried and trusted regiments refused
absolutely to leave we would not be able to get a single army unit out of the city
Lenin answered calmly:

'You must get them out. This very moment. At no matter what cost.'
'Krylenko tried and failed', I answered, 'nor did they listen to me.'
Then I added, 'We can't do anything with the regiments.'
Lenin went into a terrible rage, his face became unrecognisable, he
fixed his sharp eyes on me and, without raising his voice, although it
seemed to me that he was shouting, said:'You will answer to the Central
 Committee if the regiments do not leave the city instantly. Do you hear
me, at this very moment!'

I shot out of the room like a bullet and in a few minutes was again at
the barracks of the Volhynian Regiment. I mustered the soldiers and
said very few words to them...

The soldiers must have seen something extraordinary in my face.
Silently, they rose to their feet and began to get ready for the
campaign. Other regiments followed them.
That evening, rain set in. It poured all night long. At 2 o'clock in the
morning Vladimir Ilyich unexpectedly arrived at the regional
headquarters where a conference of Military Organisation workers was
in progress...

Lenin's overcoat was soaked through and the water ran off his
cap in streams

His very first questions showed that he was closely following Kerensky's
offensive and had a very real appreciation of the critical situation at
the front. He turned to Antonov-Ovseenko, Mekhonoshin and
demanded that we give him a detailed report on the situation at the
front.
In answer to my question as to the meaning of this sudden arrival -
he Council of People's Co

[L-I] Nikolai Podvoisky on Lenin and October 1of2

[Mark Jones]

The October Rising: a feeble putsch by a few intellectuals?


"... my relations with Vladimir Ilyich had been most cordial. But at
that moment... I saw the full extent of [his] responsibility for the
fate of the country and the revolution... "

"... an armed insurrection means arming wide sections of the
working class... revolutionary enthusiasm is not enough for 
victory..."

. Nikolai Podvoisky.

My autograph copy of Podvoisky's memoirs was given me by Nina
Sverdlova-Podvoiskaya, grand-daughter of Podvoisky himself and of
Yakov Sverdlov, leading Bolshevik and first president of the Soviet
Republic. I met Sverdlova-Podvoiskaya in 1985 in the Old 
Bolshevik commune where she lived, in Serpukhovskaya Ulitsaya, 
Moscow.

A socialist publisher before the October Revolution, Nikolai Podvoisky
was Chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd 
Soviet. He was a leading organiser of the October Rising, which was
coup de theatre as well as coup d'etat. Podvoisky's memoirs, excerpted 
below, incidentally cast a special light on some of Trotsky's claims. 
Podvoisky's testimony is direct and compelling. 

I post the following extract, taken from my book 'Storming the Heavens' 
(Pluto, 1987) to counter support shown on this List for the new right-wing 
orthodoxy associated with Richard Pipes and Orlando Figes.

Mark Jones
___

The evening of October 17 has remained firmly fixed in my
memory After a meeting in one of the regiments I hurried to the
Smolny Institute The long corridors of the gigantic vaulted building
resounded to the trample of many feet. Soldiers' grey greatcoats, the
black jackets and smocks of the Red Guards, the dark pea-jackets of
sailors with machine-gun belts strapped round them and bristling with
hand-grenades, armed men everywhere -- such was the picture
presented by the Smolny. At the entrance were two quick-firing guns,
between them and on their flanks stood machine-guns.
A big former class-room of the Institute, on the ground floor, was
the headquarters of the Bolshevik group; the only furniture in the
room was the desks moved up against the walls. The room was full of
people. An important conference of representatives of all districts of
the Petrograd Bolshevik organisation and the Military Organisation
of the Central Committee was under way. The question of armed
insurrection was being discussed. The chairman was Comrade
Sverdlov. In the middle of the room stood a simple little table
without a cover. One report after another told that the workers and
soldiers of Petrograd were prepared for the insurrection. Party
workers from the districts produced facts and figures showing that the
time was ripe... As chairman of the Military Organisation of the
Bolshevik Party, I  reported to the conference on the Red Guards, the
army units and the fleet.  I began with the Red Guards in Vyborg
District. They were in close contact with the factory and district
Bolshevik organisations and with the factory committees. I
mentioned the names of the organisers of the Red Guards. I made
special mention of those secretaries of Party groups and chairmen of
factory committees who had shown ability in drawing workers into
their in the Red Guard. These organisers of the Red Guards had
worked well to put into force the battle slogans of the Bolshevik
Party. The former Moscow Regiment of Life Guards had given great
assistance to the Red Guards of Vyborg District, where it was
quartered. I spoke about the Red Guard of Petrograd District which
was developing into an important force. It had had its baptism of fire
during the April demonstration when a group of Tsarist officers had
attacked the Red Guards in an attempt to take away and tear up their
red flag. They were repulsed by armed force. I spoke of Moscow-
Narva District and the giant Putilov Works with its forty-thousand
strong army of workers. The February Revolution began with the
demonstration and strike of the Putilov workers. As early as 5 March
1917, the Putilov workers adopted a resolution not to lay down their
arms until the final victory of the proletarian revolution. The Putilov
workers were a well-disciplined Red Guard. I reported on the soldiers
of the Petrograd garrison, on the famous Armoured-Car Detachment
amongst whom were many former Petrograd, Moscow and Kolomna
workers. The older soldiers amongst them remembered the battles
with the Tsarist government in 1905. They had shown no fear of
court-martial when, in April, they took two armoured cars to the
Finland Railway Station on the memorable day of Lenin's arrival. The
17 armoured cars in possession of the detachment were an important
force. The officers of the Provisional Government had got control of
this force and with its aid were guarding the railway stations,
telephone exchange, telegraph office, post office, the Winter and
Marinskii palaces and the Army Headquart

RE: [L-I] Re: Russia: CPRF Leader Interviewed - Russia TV

[Mark Jones]

Stever Myers wrote:

>This I will detail in an article I am doing research for 
>currently - and put on this list. 

I hope the moderators will permit no such thing.

Mark

___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Lenin on the role + work of Party media

[Mark Jones]

In lapidary prose, full of burning urgency, revolutionary passion, love of the
people and devotion to the cause of the Party, Lenin analysed and dealt with
intractable issues of freedom of speech and of the press, of the meaning of state
power in the hands of the workers, and of the crucial tasks of ideological
transformation and of the legitimisation and perdurance of the workers' state.

Let us analyse more closely the positions adopted by Lenin about the Party's
ideological work, the role of the press, and of the need to avoid induration, the
pathological sclerosis of bureaucracy, which he clearly saw, even in the earliest,
headiest days of Soviet power, would come to be critical issues.

We are talking here about two substantially different issues: (a) the Party press
before the revolution, when the task is to create and consolidate the revolutionary
party, to massify and solidify its presence in culture and society, to steel its
cadres and to reveal historical truth through the prism of revolutionary Marxist
theory, as well as to survive during long periods of oppression, clandestinity,
exile, life under police supervision etc. And (b) the control of the mass media when
the Party is in power, when the issues which confront it are if anything still more
daunting, the stakes still higher. How to survive under siege, during mass
starvation, with imperialist wolves baying at the door, with fifth columnists mining
the shallow foundations of the workers' state; that is one thing; and more, how to
avoid the still worse risks attendant upon success -- how to prevent the workers'
state from degenerating into a corrupt, complaisant, wallowing bureaucracy which is
nothing more than a raw-material appendage of these same capitalist powers, again
triumphal, resurgent in arms and overshadowing the pitiful efforts of the workers'
state in the fields of science, technology, arms etc. How to compete ideologically
when imperialism has found the historical space to enact the selfsame social welfare
measures which are almost the only source of mass legitimisation of the workers'
state, copying them and even outdoing them?

It is a sign of Lenin's greatness, of his epochal genius which guarantees his
relevance for more than one century and more than the lifetime of the state he
created, that he was able to think through and confidently address these issues,
even in the throes of military campaigns, while organising the dogged defence of the
new state day-by-day and hour-by-hour. Perhaps no statesman in history has
encompassed and achieved so much. Certainly, no-one before was so selflessly
motivated. The testimony of his co-workers, supporters, friends and allies, and even
his enemies, bears witness to his outstanding qualities, personal humility and
simplicity of lifestyle of this, the greatest statesman of the previous century.
This is the background.

> The
> forced reserve of those who wished to express party views merged with the immature
> thinking or mental cowardice of those who had not risen to these views
> and who were
> not, in effect, party people.
> An accursed period of Aesopian language, literary bond-age, slavish speech, and
> ideological serfdom! The proletariat has put an end to this foul atmosphere which
> stifled everything living and fresh

Unfortunately for us, this is possibly truer now than it was then. Therefore we
should be careful not only not to internalise the thinking and values of the enemy,
we should covetously cherish in our minds and hearts *the image* of the enemy, and
never allow this ideological and moral vigilance to flag or go to sleep. Whatever we
read, see or hear in the daily bombardment of enemy propaganda, we must question,
and cultivate the habit of automatically questioning everything, of automatically
denying the truth of enemy propaganda, even while we make our own investigations and
consult with our comrades. We should take nothing for granted. This is ABC. And we
should sternly contradict those who try to pinion us with our own words or with the
alleged misdeeds of the greatest leaders of the proletariat. Equally, we should
avoid the trap of mindlessly repeating formulaic sentences and slogans, of
mindlessly retreating into group-therapy and of ignoring the most valuable attribute
of all, that of proletarian honesty. We can be honest with ourselves and with each
other, for the same reason that we can be confident of ourselves and each other:
because we are the inheritors of the greatest weapon of all, and the one for which
the enemy has no antidote: the weapon of solidarity and of fraternal feeling. We are
not and will not be betrayed by the cynicism and hypocrisy of the bourgeois.

> But so far the proletariat has won
> only half freedom for Russia.
> The revolution is not yet completedAnd
> we are living in times when everywhere and in everything there operates this
> unnatural combination of open forthright, direct and consistent party
> spirit with an
> undergrou

RE: [L-I] Re: Russia: CPRF Leader Interviewed - Russia TV

[Mark Jones]

Johannes wrote:

> Unfortunately it will be rather easy
> to find more antisemitic quotes from leading CPRF members.
>

Unfortunately there is seemingly no end to attempts like this to create hysterias
about alleged pogroms, mass anti-semitism etc in Russia. Makashov was, of course,
roundly condemned for his remarks by the leadership of the KPRF, ie, Zyuganov. When
these remarks were made, several years ago at a time of acute social crisis in
Russia, after the cuirrency collapse of 1998, the western press was full of
orchestrated hysteria about alleged anti-semitism in the KPRF, which was supposedly
not really socialist at all 'fascist', ultra-nationalist etc. The context of
Makashov's remarks: the incredible collapse of Russian living standards and social
values and solidarity under the pressure of Yeltsin (a Jew) and his international
backers. The fact that 7 of the 8 'oligarchs' most associated with the plundering of
Russia are Jewish and at least two hold joint Israeli nationality, etc. Of course,
Makashov's remarks were deplorable and appealed to the worst instincts, the lowest
political common denominator, but his real error was to avoid indicting the real
criminals: US finance capital, the IMF etc. Now, to suggest that Russia is in the
throes of mass anti-semitism is *simply absurd* and an outright lie. Considering how
profound is the post-Soviet agony of the Russian people, Mr Schneider should instead
point to the evdiently high degree of general civic maturaity and the lack of a
backlash. Unfortunately for both them and for their Caucasian neighbours, Russians
are much more racist about Chechens. Azeris etc than about Jews.

Mr Schneider should (a) get his facts right and (b) not bring to *this* list the
wilful prejudices and blind anti-Russian hysterias of the Western, imperialist
media.

Attempts to equate Marxism-Leninism with the ultra-right are not only not new, they
are as old as socialism.

Mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

[L-I] Lenin on the role + work of Party media

[Mark Jones]

1. From WHAT IS TO BE DONE?
Burning Questions of Our Movement

"We should dream!" I wrote these words and became alarmed. I imagined myself sitting
at a "unity conference" and opposite me were the Rabocheye Dyelo` editors and
contributors. Comrade Martynov rises and, turning to me, says sternly: "Permit me to
ask you, has an autonomous editorial board the right to dream without first
soliciting the opinion of the Party committees?" He is followed by Comrade
Krichevsky,  who  (philosophically  deepening Comrade Martynov, who long ago
rendered Comrade Ple-khanov more profound) continues even more sternly: "I go
further. I ask, has a Marxist any right at all to dream, knowing that according to
Marx mankind always sets itself the tasks it can solve and that tactics is a process
of the growth of Party tasks which grow together with the Party?"
The very thought of these stern questions sends a cold shiver down my spine and
makes me wish for nothing but a place to hide in. I shall try to hide behind the
back of Pisarev.
"There are rifts and rifts," wrote Pisarev of the rift between dreams and reality.
'My dream may run ahead of the natural march of events or may fly off at a tangent
in a direction in which no natural march of events will ever proceed. In the first
case my dream will not cause any harm; it may even support and augment the energy of
the working men. . . . There is nothing in such dreams that would distort or
paralyse labour-power. On the contrary, if man were completely deprived of the
ability to dream in this way, if he could not from time to time run ahead and
mentally conceive, in an entire and completed picture, the product to which his
hands are only just beginning to lend shape, then I cannot at all imagine what
stimulus there would be to induce men to undertake and complete extensive and
strenuous work in the sphere of art science and practical endeavour. The rift
between dreams and reality causes no harm if only the person dreaming believes
seriously in his dream, if he attentively observes life, compares his observations
with his castles in the air and if generally speaking  he works conscientiously for
the achievement of his fantasies. If there is some connection between dreams and
life then all is well.
Of this kind of dreaming there is unfortunately too little in our movement. And the
people most responsible for this are those who boast of their sober views, their
closeness to the concrete,  the representatives of legal criticism and of
illegal tailism

Written between the autumn of 1901 and February 1902
Collected Works, Vol. 5, pp. 509-10

2. PARTY ORGANISATION AND PARTY LITERATURE

The new conditions for Social-Democratic work in Russia which have arisen since the
October revolution have brought the question of party literature to the fore. The
distinction between the illegal and the legal press, that melancholy heritage of the
epoch of feudal, autocratic Russia, is beginning to disappear. It is not yet dead,
by a long way. The hypocritical government of our Prime Minister is still running
amuck, so much so that Izvestia Soveta Rabochikh Deputatov  is printed "illegally";
but apart from bringing disgrace on he government, apart from striking further moral
blows at it, nothing comes of the stupid attempts to "prohibit" that which the
government is powerless to thwart.
So long as there was a distinction between the illegal and the legal press, the
question of the party and non-party press was decided extremely simply and in an
extremely false and abnormal way. The entire illegal press was a party press, being
published by organisations and run by groups which in one way or another were linked
with groups of practical party workers. The entire legal press was non-party-since
parties were banned-but it "gravi-tated" towards one party or another. Unnatural
alliances, strange "bed-fellows" and false cover-devices were inevi-table. The
forced reserve of those who wished to express party views merged with the immature
thinking or mental cowardice of those who had not risen to these views and who were
not, in effect, party people.
An accursed period of Aesopian language, literary bond-age, slavish speech, and
ideological serfdom! The prole-tariat has put an end to this foul atmosphere which
stifled everything living and fresh in Russia. But so far the proletariat has won
only half freedom for Russia.
The revolution is not yet completed. While tsarism is no longer strong enough to
defeat the revolution the revolution is not yet strong enough to defeat tsarism. And
we are living in times when everywhere and in everything there operates this
unnatural combination of open forthright, direct and consistent party spirit with an
underground, covert, ''diplomatic" and dodgy legality. This unnatural combination
makes itself felt even in our newspaper: for all Mr  Guchkovs witticisms about
Social-Democratic tyranny forbidding the publication of moderate liberal-bourgeois
newspapers,  the  f

[L-I] Lenin on the National Question

[Mark Jones]

V. I . Lenin

Lenin on the National Question

  THE SOCIALIST REVOLUTION AND THE RIGHT OF NATIONS
   TO SELF-DETERMINATION (THESES)

1. IMPERIALISM, SOCIALISM AND THE LIBERATION OF OPPRESSED NATIONS

Imperialism is the highest stage of development of capitalism. Capital
in the advanced countries has outgrown the boundaries of national
states. It has established monopoly in place of competition, thus
creating all the objective prerequisites for the achievement of
socialism. Hence, in Western Europe and in the United States of
America, the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat for the
overthrow of the capitalist governments, for the expropriation of the
bourgeoisie, is on the order of the day. Imperialism is forcing the
masses into this struggle by sharpening class antagonisms to an
immense degree, by worsening the conditions of the masses both
economically--trusts and high cost of living, and politically--growth
of militarism, frequent wars, increase of reaction, strengthening and
extension of national oppression and colonial plunder. Victorious
socialism must achieve complete democracy and, consequently, not only
bring about the complete equality of nations, but also give effect to
the right of oppressed nations to self-determination, i.e., the right
to free political secession. Socialist Parties which fail to prove by
all their activities now, as well as during the revolution and after
its victory, that they will free the enslaved nations and establish
relations with them on the basis of a free union--and a free union is
a lying phrase without right to secession--such parties would be
committing treachery to socialism.

Of course, democracy is also a form of state which must disappear when
the state disappears, but this will take place only in the process of
transition from completely victorious and consolidated socialism to
complete communism.

2. THE SOCIALIST REVOLUTION AND THE STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRACY

The socialist revolution is not one single act, not one single battle
on a single front, but a whole epoch of intensified class conflicts, a
long series of battles on all fronts, i.e., battles around all the
problems of economics and politics, which can culminate only in the
expropriation of the bourgeoisie. It would be a fundamental mistake to
suppose that the struggle for democracy can divert the proletariat
from the socialist revolution, or obscure, or overshadow it, etc. On
the contrary, just as socialism cannot be victorious unless it
introduces complete democracy, so the proletariat will be unable to
prepare for victory over the bourgeoisie unless it wages a many-sided,
consistent and revolutionary struggle for democracy.

It would be no less mistaken to delete any of the points of the
democratic programme, for example, the point of self-determination of
nations, on the ground that it is "infeasible," or that it is
"illusory" under imperialism. The assertion that the right of nations
to self-determination cannot be achieved within the framework of
capitalism may be understood either in its absolute, economic sense,
or in the conventional, political sense.

In the first case, the assertion is fundamentally wrong in theory.
First, in this sense, it is impossible to achieve such things as labor
money, or the abolition of crises, etc., under capitalism. But it is
entirely incorrect to argue that the self-determination of nations is
likewise infeasible. Secondly, even the one example of the secession
of Norway from Sweden in 1905 is sufficient to refute the argument
that it is "infeasible" in this sense. Thirdly, it would be ridiculous
to deny that, with a slight change in political and strategical
relationships, for example, between Germany and England, the formation
of new states, Polish, Indian, etc., would be quite "feasible" very
soon. Fourthly, finance capital, in its striving towards expansion,
will "freely" buy and bribe the freest, most democratic and republican
government and the elected officials of any country, however
"independent" it may be. The domination of finance capital, as of
capital in general, cannot be abolished by any kind of reforms in the
realm of political democracy, and self-determination belongs wholly
and exclusively to this realm. The domination of finance capital,
however, does not in the least destroy the significance of political
democracy as the freer, wider and more distinct form of class
oppression and class struggle. Hence, all arguments about the
"impossibility of achieving" economically one of the demands of
political democracy under capitalism reduce themselves to a
theoretically incorrect definition of the general and fundamental
relations of capitalism and of political democracy in general.

In the second case, this assertion is incomplete and inaccurate, for
not only the right of nations to self-determination, but all the
fundamental demands of political democracy are "possible of
achievement" under imperialism, only in an incomplete, in a 

RE: Interimperialist strife (was Re: [L-I] Chemical/Nuclear Warfare in Bosnia: Eyewitness To Hell)

[Mark Jones]

> IMHO, this is an issue we on L-I should be particularly focused on.

Indeed it is.


> An aside:
>
> I suppose that this may start a healthier debate on L-I than what we have been
> having recently. And -unlike Mark Jones- I would not blame the team of
> moderators for this, though of course those who are given the right to moderate
> are also given the burden of generating debates. I would not blame them, in
> fact, because L-I is (or should be, at least in my own idea) a collective
> creation. If things go wrong here, it is up to every and each list member.

I strongly and violently DISAGREE. Comrades who take posts in the revolutionary
movement must shoulder their responsibilities and must learn what is meant by
LEADERSHIP. This applies to the field of ideological struggle as much as or more
than anywhere else. What on earth IS a party for if not to offer LEADERSHIP and to
be judged accordingly. I agree with Lou; close the damn thing if we cannot do better
than this.

Mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Russia: CPRF Leader Interviewed - Russia TV

[Mark Jones]

> > For the system to work properly, it required an opposition that was
> > incapable in principle of taking office. Zyuganov's party coped with this
> > role to perfection. In this sense it has always been one of the system's
> > fundamental political elements. The KPRF has also been assigned another
> > task, no less important and perhaps even more so: to struggle against any
> > attempts at founding a political alternative to the regime.

I didn't see this, but it sounds like Kagarlitsky.

Any day now, we are going to have Slavoj Zizek reinventing Lenininsm and Bolshevism.
Doug Henwood, that by-word for journalistic huckterism, is already polishing up his
revolutionary vocabulary preparatory to making his forthcoming 'intervention' in the
Zizek-sponsored recreation of Leninism. It is time for all of us who have a
commitment to the fundamental values of Leninism not to allow ourselves to be
hoodwinked and taken for a ride by people whose political lives and careers are
untinctured by any trace of either Bolshevism or Leninism; that applies to people
like Henwood, and a fortiori to Kagarlitsky, whose biography during Soviet times was
that of an *anti-lenin* dissident, ie, what some people here are pleased to call
*Menshevism*.

If we are going to discuss the KPRF, let it be on the basis of *the facts* and of
real historical investigation, not this goddamn mouthwash I keep reading.

> Yes, I fear this is exactly right. So we now know that the KPRF are not just
> grotesque, but actively part of the problem (whether or not this is a
> deliberate act

No, we do not know any such thing. What we DO know is that before making any
statements/hypotheses about the KPRF or any other party in Russia, there has to be a
serious and elaborated concrete analysis of post-socialist Russia's
insertion/articulation into the world system, because without understanding THAT is
is simply pointless speculating about the real intentions, politics, startegies,
possibilities etc of the KPRF or anyone else.


Mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Re: Russia: CPRF Leader Interviewed - Russia TV

[Mark Jones]

Owen Jones wrote:

>  The CPRF are, unfortunately, anything else other than funny and should be
> regarded as even more reactionary and dangerous than the regime of Vladimir
> Putin.
>

regardless of the truth or not of what follows, there is no arguing that this is all
simply unsupoported, unsubstantiated assertion, and not analysis, argument, or fact.

I do urge the moderators to take a view, and to inist that l-i serve the purpose is
was set up for, ie, to be a locus of serious political theory, history and analysis,
with high and real standards of *scholarship* and with appeals to reason, argument
and empirical FACT and with the use of investigation. It SHOULD NOT BE a site for
empty armchair opinionation and this kind of thing ought to be SEVERELY discouraged,
otherwise the List has no purpose and would be better off closed down.

Mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

[L-I] Notes from Louise Bryant "Six Red Months in Russia" [reformatted]

[Mark Jones]

Notes from Louise Bryant "Six Red Months in Russia" [written 1917].

[Bryant was the political co-worker and lover of John Reed. In this little memoir
she gives her thumbnail impressions about Lenin, the Bolsheviks and the early days
of Soviet Power.]


The workingmen demand, above all, frankness and the unpowdered truth. An address by
Lenin is, therefore, as direct, unsentimental and full of facts as a statement to a
board of directors by an executive of an American corporation... The Russians of
today... are close to the earth and striving for the stars. Lenin's calm, majestic
as a Chinese Buddha's. The Lenins ... had become accustomed to privations long
before the revolution, had lived in the meanest quarters of every city they visited,
occupy as a rule only one room, where they ate, slept, studied and carried on their
revolutionary work. Lenin more interested in America than in any other country. 'We
must make friends with America'- for the thousands of tractors,  railway  engines,
cars etc we need. Lenin 'will flay an opponent in debate and walk out of the hall
arm-in-arm with him. Every man in Lenin's cabinet, except Trotsky and Chicherin had
worked with him +20 years- they are his disciples.'  Us editors always asked Louise
Bryant to get Lenin to keep a diary. Non vanity- Lenin 'in real distress' when he
had to sit for Clair Sheridan to do his bust. Angelica Balabanova  said
revolutionaries should not waster their time in such a way; but Lenin only sat for a
few hours, and worked through'. After the revolution Lenin only had time to attend
the theatre once- he went to see Yelena Suchachova in 12th Night.

Lenin also went in for hunting and horseback riding. 6 months after October Lenin
said 'if they crush us now they can never efface the fact that we have been. The
idea will go on'. During the Civil-War when Red-Army morale fell very low and even
the trusted Lettish sharpshooters guarding the Kremlin grew discouraged- the enemy
was at the gates of Peter. They began to drink the wine in the Kremlin cellars. One
night Lenin came down to barracks and, wordlessly, felt in the soldiers pockets,
finding several vodka bottles he smashed them on the cobblestones, still without a
word. The soldiers were so shamed they never drank on duty again.  Bryant talks of
the 'legendary significance' which the blockade bestowed on Lenin. One of his best
friends and advisers was his sister Anna. In Moscow after the revolution, Lenin and
Krupskaya lived in two small rooms, simply furnished, with piles of books scattered
about and pot-plants. Lenin always jumps out to greet visitors to his office,
smiling and shaking hands warmly. When you are seated he draws up another chair
leans forward and begins to talk as if there was nothing else to do in the
world...Loves to tell and to hear stories.   About Kamenev, Bryant said: he has the
genial manners of an American small-town politician. He [Kamenev] is with Zinoviev,
and these are the weakest members of Lenin's government; he still has middle class
consciousness.

Zinoviev : short, heavily-built, flabby; strongly sectarian, vain- 'the most
photographed man in Russia'. Kamenev guilty of petty corruption- eg giving away
sable-fur coats (state property) to beautiful women: both Kamenev and Zinoviev are
tolerated because of the sheer shortage of talent.

Pyotr Stuchka - a Latvian, close friend of Lenin, and his adviser. Drafted the First
Soviet constitution. Drafted the First laws on marriage, sex equality etc; aged 70,
felt he was too old and conservative, so invited 5 young women revolutionists to his
office and they drafted the (very liberated!) laws on marriage. He said 'for
centuries, women have been oppressed, they have been the victims of prejudice,
superstition and the selfish desires of men'- now the new marriage laws should even
give them 'an advantage over men' to compensate.

Rykov - serene, good-humoured, though terribly persecuted before revolution (7 years
in Siberian solitary (!) confinement): 'resembles Lenin', and his natural successor.
Dzerzhinsky: tall, noticeably delicate, slender white hands, long straight nose,
pale countenance and the drooping eyelids of the over-bred and super-refined; health
wrecked by 11 years in a Warsaw prison, where he learnt a habit of self-effacement,
even abasement, he is totally devoted to Lenin. Dzerzhinsky  is incorruptible, and
is determined to save revolution by the Red Terror and Cheka if necessary.

Bill Shatov: the anarchist who returned from the States and joined the Bolshevik
revolution, becoming Piter's Chief of Police. Now violently opposed to the
Anarchists, during a spate of serious robberies, Shatov arrested every so-called
Anarchist, holding them 2 weeks without trial- during which not a single robbery
took place! At the trial he released all the anarchists who actually knew something
about the subject [ie, anarchist philosophy]- the rest were charged. Shatov said
that anyway anarchists are the most difficult of 

[L-I] Notes from Louise Bryant Six Red Months in Russia

[Mark Jones]

Notes from Louise Bryant Six Red Months in Russia [written 1917].

Bryant was the political co-worker and lover of John Reed. In this little memoir she
gives her thumbnail impressions about Lenin, the Bolsheviks and the early days of
Soviet Power.


The workingmen demand, above all, frankness and the unpowdered truth. An address by
Lenin is, therefore, as direct, unsentimental and full of facts as a statement to a
board of directors by an exec of an American corporation. ..The Russians of today...
are close to the earth and striving for the stars. Lenins calm, majestic as a
Chinese Buddhas. The Lenins ... had become accustomed to privations long before the
revolution, had lived in the meanest quarters of every city they visited, occupy as
a rule only one room, where they ate, slept, studied and carried on their
revolutionary work. Lenin more interested in America than in any other country. We
must make friends with America- for the thousanss of tractors,  railway  engines,
cars etc we need. Lenin will flay an opponent in debate and walk out of the hall
arm-in-arm with him. Every man in Lenins cabinet, except Trotsky and Chicherin had
worked with him +20 years- they are his disciples.  Us editors always asked Louise
Bryant to get Lenin to keep a diary. Non vanity- Lenin in real distress when he
had to sit for Clair Sheridan to do his bust. Angelica Balabanova  said
revolutionaries should not waster their time in such a way; but Lenin only sat for a
few hrs , and worked through. After the revolution Lenin only had time to attend
the theatre once- he went to see Yelena Suchachova in 12th Night.

Lenin also went in for hunting and horseback riding. 6 months after October Lenin
said if they crush us now they can never efface the fact that  have been. The idea
will go on. During the Civil-War when Red-Army morale fell very low and even the
trusted Lettish sharpshooters guarding the Kremlin grew discouraged- the enemy was
at the gates of Peter. They began to drink the wine in the Kremlin cellars. One
night Lenin came down to barracks and, wordlessly, felt in the soldiers pockets,
finding several vodka bottles he smashed them on the cobblestones, still without a
word. The soldiers were so shamed they never drank on duty again.  Bryant talks of
the legendary significance which the blockade bestowed on Lenin. One of his best
friends and advisers was his sister Anna. In Moscow after the revolution, Lenin and
Krupskaya lived in two small rooms, simply furnished, with piles of books scattered
about and pot-plants. Lenin always jumps out to greet visitors to his office,
smiling and shaking hands warmly. When you are seated he draws up another chair
leans forward and begins to talk as if there was nothing else to do in the
world...Loves to tell and to hear stories.   About Kamenev, Bryant said: he has the
genial manners of an American small-town politician. He [Kamenev] is with Zinoviev,
and these are the weakest members of Lenins government; he still has middle class
consciousness.

Zinoviev : short, heavily-built, flabby; strongly sectarian, vain- the most
photographed man in Russia. Kamenev guilty of petty corruption- eg giving away
sable-fur coats (state property) to beautiful women: both Kamenev and Zinoviev are
tolerated because of the sheer shortage of talent.

Pyotr Stuchka - a Latvian, close friend of Lenin, and his adviser. Drafted the First
Soviet constitution. Drafted the First laws on marriage, sex equality etc; aged 70,
felt he was too old and conservative, so invited 5 young women revolutionists to his
office and they drafted the (very liberated!) laws on marriage. He said for
centuries, women have been oppressed, they have been the victims of prejudice,
superstition and the selfish desires of men- now the new marriage laws should even
give them an advantage over men to compensate.

Rykov - serene, good-humoured, though terribly persecuted before revolution (7 years
in Siberian solitary (!) confinement): resembles Lenin, and his natural successor.
Dzerzhinsky: tall, noticeably delicate, slender white hands, long straight nose,
pale countenance and the drooping eyelids of the over-bred and super-refined; health
wrecked by 11 years in a Warsaw prison, where he learnt a habit of self-effacement,
even abasement, he is totally devoted to Lenin. Dzerzhinsky  is incorruptible, and
is determined to save revolution by the Red Terror and Cheka if necessary.

Bill Shatov: the anarchist who returned from the States and joined the Bolshevik
revolution, becoming Piters Chief of Police. Now violently opposed to the
Anarchists, during a spate of serious robberies, Shatov arrested every so-called
Anarchist, holding them 2 weeks without trial- during which not a single robbery
took place! At the trial he released all the anarchists who actually knew something
about the subject [ie, anarchist philosophy]- the rest were charged. Shatov said
that anyway anarchists are the most difficult of all groups

FW: [L-I] Program, Organization, Conjuncture

[Mark Jones]

-Original Message-
From: Mark Jones [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: 13 January 2001 12:37
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [L-I] Program, Organization, Conjuncture

[[typos corrected]

> A revolutionary organization with a clear program has yet to come
> into being in my corner of the planet.  What of yours?  In the
> absence of a revolutionary party active within a mass movement, into
> what should one assimilate?  We have to build it, first of all.
>
> Now, why don't you lay out your analysis of the present conjuncture,
> now that you are here?  That should be a good point of departure.
>

Ah, I see you are indeed working on the uroborus principle of circularity. You can't
build a party without a theory, and you can't have a theory without first having a
party seems to be your position. IMO what you have to do is (a) make some kind of
analysis of the global conjuncture; (b) persuade other people of it and (c) organise
around it.

If you want to know where I think (a) is at, check out the crashlist website and
archive. There is a good resume of where (a) is,  written by Stan Goff.

You have already long ago rejected my version of (a). You still think in terms of
socialist construction, social meliorism, bettering the human condition,
emancipation, more dignity for labour, worldwide social justice etc. These ideas are
completely reactionary in the circumstances, they are a brake on the *revolutionary*
movement because they do not address the nature of the historical impasse which
capitaism has now dragged humankind into; your ideas are a century out of date and
belong with the progressivism of 'storming the heavens' bolshevism and 19th century
social optimism generally. What we *ought* to do is confront people with the bitter
truth about the fate of biodiversity which exterminist capital has brought us all
to.

One of the latest and most pitiful incarnations of this idea, which attempts the
impossible squaring of eco-doom with  social progress circles (impossible even for
an uroborus) is the latest effort by Foster to ground Marxism in epicurus. In
england you can buy at harrod's an upmarket raspberry jam called Epicurus. I would
rather spend my money that way, on the whole.

Mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Program, Organization, Conjuncture

[Mark Jones]

> A revolutionary organization with a clear program has yet to come
> into being in my corner of the planet.  What of yours?  In the
> absence of a revolutionary party active within a mass movement, into
> what should one assimilate?  We have to build it, first of all.
>
> Now, why don't you lay out your analysis of the present conjuncture,
> now that you are here?  That should be a good point of departure.
>

Ah, I see you are indeed working on the uroborus principle of circularity. You can't
build a party without a theory, and you can't have a theory without first having a
party seems to be your position. IMO what you have to do is (a) make some kind of
analysis of the global conjuncture; (b) persuade other people of it and (c) organise
around it.

If you want to know where I think (a) is at, check out the crashlist website and
archive. There is a good resume of where (a) is,  written by Stan Goff.

You have already long ago rejected my version of (a). You still think in terms of
socialist construction, social meliorism, bettering the human condition,
emancipation, more dignity for labour, worldwide social justice etc. These ideas are
completely reactionary in the circumstances, they are a brake on the *revolutionary*
movement because they do not address the nature of the historical impasse which
capitaism has now draghged humankind into; your ideas are a century out of date and
belong with the progressivism of 'storming the heavens' bolshevism and 19th century
social optimism generally. What we *ought* to do is construct people with the bitter
truth about the fate of biodiversity which exterminist capital has brought us all
to.

One of the latest and most pitiful incarnations of this idea, which attempts the
impossible squaring of eco-doom with  social progress circles (impossible even for
an uroborus) is the latest effort by Foster to ground Marxism in epicurus. In
england you can buy at harrod's an upmarket raspberry jam called Epicurus. I would
rather spend my money that way, on the whole.

Mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Re: my participation on L-I

[Mark Jones]

>
> Fire away.
>
> Yoshie

I'm on the following lists: this, Lou's, deep-eco, wsn and the crashlist. For the
past couple of weeks I've been scanning the archives of other lists, and I haven't
felt the urge to join or participate in them. I may rejoin Rob's list or perhaps
he'll be good enough to do it for me and save me the bother, altho I would prefer
not to discuss Bhaskar unless someone can first identify for me the name of one
practising and fairly well thought of scientist in any major discipline like
physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy etc, or sub-division thereof, who even knows
of the existence of Roy Bhaskar let alone thinks him of any worth whatsoever.

That's all I'm doing right now and even that is too much. This means, as far as I
can see, that unless you contribute to l-i more it is not likely we are going to be
discussing anything much. I'm already doing more than I meant to anyway. This does
not mean that I do not like to talk with you or don't respect your mind. But I'm not
initiating anything right now, so you better unpack your own torpedos (not Russian
ones, I hope, which are designed on the uroborus principle).

Mark





___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] unsuscribe

[Mark Jones]

thanks for being with us, I've put your crashlist sub on hold

best wishes

Mark
venceremos!

> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of
> Julio FernandezBaraibar
> Sent: 13 January 2001 11:47
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: [L-I] unsuscribe
>
>
> Dear and admired comrade Mark:
> Life is not so easy here.
> I don't have phone line for the last three months, because the fucking
> spanish company wants me to pay them a $ 500 bill, which I have not.
> Due to this situation, I am forced to receive my emails at the house of
> different friends. Of course, this is very annoying, as everybody can
> understand.
> Anyway I am solving my temporary lack of cash, because some Gods have
> remembered me and I begun to work in the official radio station of the
> Buenos Aires City.  That means that soon I will get enough resources to fix
> this financial disagreement between me and the antique colonial power.
> Dear Mark and everybody else: My retirement of the list is not only, but
> VERY TEMPORARY, in order not to bother my tolerant friends.
> In a few weeks, my argentinian voice will be back with a fistfull of truths.
> Greetings in the millenium of the socialist revolution.
> Julio FB
>
>
> ___
> Leninist-International mailing list
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
> http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
>


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

[L-I] (no subject)

[Mark Jones]

Yoshie wrote:

>>Lenin's criticism of Economism (socialism conflated with
trade-unionism) still stands, and if the criticism of Economism is
what Lou means by "centrism," a "swamp," etc., I cannot agree more.
I like Lenin's remark on effacing "all distinctions as between
workers and intellectuals, not to speak of distinctions of trade and
profession" in "the organization of revolutionaries" as well.<<

Effacing distinctions in a manner which preserves the *revolutionary* nature of the
organisation entails submerging pre-existing differences of outlook, social origin,
location within the division of labour etc, within an *agreed programme* under the
sign of an *agreed theorisation of the conjuncture*. I see no reason to suppose, to
judge from her other writings, that such a  process of assimilation into a
revolutionary organisation/process, forms any part of Yoshie's agenda, private or
public.

Mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

[L-I] (no subject)

[Mark Jones]

>  >from a self-declared and unashamed centrist, but one who desperately wants
>  >to break out of this morass -
>  >- Steve Myers.

Steve, I think it'll be much better for all concerned if you stay right where you
are.

Mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] unsuscribe

[Mark Jones]

I hope my goold old cyber-friend Julio Fernandez Baraibar is not really going to be
permitted to unsub. Julio, stay at your post!

Mark

> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of
> Julio FernandezBaraibar
> Sent: 13 January 2001 09:39
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: [L-I] unsuscribe
>
>
>
>
>
> ___
> Leninist-International mailing list
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
> http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
>


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

[L-I] my participation on L-I

[Mark Jones]

Mac has subbed me here *involuntarily*. This seems to be a change in Mac's previous
policy of making a virtue out of the crassly petit-bourgeois individualistic method
of letting people decide for themselves. As a good proletarian Soldier Schweik of
our movement, I am of course happy to go where I'm sent (within reason).

His reasons, as supplied to me are, (a) The ends justify the means, and (b) there
has to be at least one list where you, Louis and Yoshie all co-exist.

I am not sure about co-existing with Yoshie, since she has moved dramatically to the
right, on the evidence of postings I have seen of hers to counter-revolutionary fora
such as LBO and Pen-l, and what's more she shows clear signs of pomposity. However,
I'm prepared to make a go of it despite that.

As far as L-I is concerned, I have to honestly say that I am not as proud to be
associated with it as I once was, and I frankly think that the present team of
moderators (Yoshie Furuhashi (from Japan), Macdonald Stainsby (Canada) and Mine
Aysen Doyran
(Turkey) ) have made a hash of things. The list seems to have no direction at all
and there is a good deal of hopeless sectarianism and idiotic flaming. This has got
to stop. In order to avoid all tincture of sectarianism, and to simplify things for
me, from now on I will let you know what to think and you will all agree. Clear?

Second, all flaming is to be rationalised as follows: the only permissible flames
are those which satisfy the concordance of the Medieval Insult Generator. The url
for this is:
http://www.win.bright.net/%7Eblbeast/medieval/insults.html

Finally, if L-I is to continue at all (I see little point in this List at present)
it ought to do what it was set up to do, ie, debate revolutionary theory. There
ought to be a whole let less flim-flam, crossposting, idiotic news items of the
'from the frontlines' type, and a whole lot less Talin-Srotsky baggage.

I hope that's all clear enough.

Mark Jones


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Cuba

[Mark Jones]

Nestor Miguel Gorojovsky dijo:

>> In the end, the result of all this is either deserved and navel-
> gazing loneliness for the Left, or tremendous defeats (such as in
> Bolivia, 1972) for the masses.
>
> Anton, I am seriously afraid that you do not have the slightest idea
> of what does the word "dialectic" mean.

Oh, come on. He doesn't even know what 'navel' means. The rest of us know
it's an orange. For Wonsi it's just a black hole.

Mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] What to do if the KLA and NATO fight

[Mark Jones]

 Nestor Miguel  dijo (apropos Wonsi):

> A hug,

 A fucking bear hug, I hope.

Mark

___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] (Fwd) [Fwd: Kursk hit by British submarine (part2)]

[Mark Jones]

I just had a look at this site: http://www.redstar.ru/kursk5.html

This is the online version of Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star), the armed forces
newspaper published by the Russian Defence ministry. Today's issue (25/08)
also discusses Kursk. The line seems to be that there was an *accidental*
collision with a Nato submarine, but that such accidents are likely to
happen in the Barents Sea, because it is crowded with Nato ships and subs,
which are not just monitoring but trying to blockade the Russian navy,
basically to prevent a Russian naval presence from developing in the
Mediterranean, which might help counterbalance Nato strength in the Balkans.
So the Russian take on the geopolitics is that Nato wants a free hand in the
Balkans. Which is all true, but doesn't quite read like WW3 is about to
begin. If Russian top military brass hadn't spent the better part of the
past decade looting the reserves of the former Soviet armed forces for
personal gain, to the point where there are documented stories of Russian
naval officers selling off the airconditioning life support systems of
*their own* submarines, one might take thenm more seriously.

Indicentally, the Kursk, which was launched in 1994, has only ever put to
sea once before. On this occasion it apparently put to sea with vital
equipment, including emergency batteries, missing.

Mark

> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of
> Nestor Miguel Gorojovsky
> Sent: 24 August 2000 01:20
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: [L-I] (Fwd) [Fwd: Kursk hit by British submarine (part2)]
>
>
> No comments. If the message below is accurate, then we are facing
> very very serious problems. Please an expert to cast some light!
>
>


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Conference: Towards a politics of truth: The retrieval of Lenin

[Mark Jones]

> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of
> Nestor Miguel Gorojovsky

> 
> Maybe, but I think Johannes was right in posting the announcement.


I agree, and I told him so offlist.

Mark 

___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Conference: Towards a politics of truth: The retrieval of Lenin

[Mark Jones]

Oh, come on, Johannes. This is just yet-more careerist bullshit by that
prize asshole,  Salvoj Zilzek. Why the fuck didn't they post it here in the
first place? I'll tell you why. Because even Slajov Zilzek doesn't have
*that* much balls. There are people here, after all, who do know Lenin, and
what's more, have read Saljov's crapulent output too.

Mark

> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of
> Johannes Schneider
> Sent: 22 August 2000 16:40
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: [L-I] Conference: Towards a politics of truth: The retrieval of
> Lenin
>
>
> Since this list is devoted to V.I. Lenin I would like to listers about the
> following conference:
>
> Internationale Konferenz der Studiengruppe 'Antinomien der postmodernen
> Vernunft'
> am Kulturwissenschaftlichen Institut in Essen, wissenschaftliche Leitung:
> Prof. Dr. Slavoj Zizek
> 2. - 4. Feb 2001
>
> Gibt es eine Politik der Wahrheit - nach Lenin?
> Towards a politics of truth: The retrieval of Lenin
>
> The aim of the conference is not only to resurrect Lenin's legacy against
> his liberal detractors, but, primarily, to inquire into the
> possibilities of
> REPEATING Lenin's gesture under the conditions of global capitalism. The
> question we will address is not: What did Lenin really do?, but, rather:
> What is to be done today, against the global Empire? So while the
> conference, of course, will be an open forum of debate, it will serve as a
> gathering place to those who reject the liberal democratic
> capitalist order
> in all its dimensions, from global market-capitalism to the ideology of
> "human rights," as the ultimate horizon of socio-political imagination.
>
> List of confirmed participants:
>
> Alain Badiou
> Daniel Bensaid
> Sebastian Budgen
> Alex Callinicos
> Fredric Jameson
> Eustache Kouvelakis
> Sylvain Lazarus
> Domenico Losurdo
> Toni Negri
> Robert Pfaller
> Slavoj Zizek
> Alenka Zupancic
>
> More details at:
>
> http://www.kwinrw.de/lenin/
>
>
>
> ___
> Leninist-International mailing list
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
> http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
>


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Moderator's note on the Kossovo debate

[Mark Jones]

I asked people on the Crashlist to quit talking about Yugo a little while
back, because I couldn't find a way to anchor this debate to the Crashlist
topic, but if Jared is not welcome on L-I (I'm sure he is, really) he is
more than welcome on the Crashlist; and in fact, Yugo matters terribly, and
has global significance in all kinds of ways. I'd be glad to see some debate
about the geopolitics of Nato, its strategic reach in the Balkans, and the
very-related question of energy politics. I hope this doesn't look like I'm
shilling for the crashlist; I think L-I has a fantastically important role
to play, not least in the clarification of theory. But somehow we haven't
quite found the ways of *centralising* or *focussing* debate about the
Balkans/Yugoslavia; we need to do more stuff on Nato + geopolitics.

Mark

> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: 15 August 2000 23:00
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: [L-I] Moderator's note on the Kossovo debate
>
>
> Dear friends,
>
> This argument about Kosovo isnot in a vacuum, in life or on this
> list.  There
> was a long back and forth argument between me and Schneider
> readable on the
> LI archives.  In it, I presented much evidcence, and some useful
> reference
> material.
>
> Besides the LI archives, where one can read the extensive debate
> between me
> and Schneider, which I won'd duplicate, here is some original
> material for
> those who want to learn more about the situation:
>
> On whether Serbia has encouraged nationalist divisions or seen them as a
> danger, people should study Milosevich's speech in Kosovo field at
> http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/milosaid.html
>
> and read the interview with Tika Jankovich and Petar Makara., 'A
> nightmare
> with the best intentions' about what it was like being a Serb in
> the 70s and
> 80s, at http://www.emperors-clothes.com/interviews/tika.htm
>
> The interview and Milosevic's speech together give some idea of what many
> Serbs are thinking.
>
> On the ties between the US and the KLA, see for instance:
>
> 'The Cat is Out of the Bag" at
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/ciaaided.htm

(The above deals partly with William Walker, whose jobs was setting up
liaison with the KLA during the OSCE verification mission to Kosovo in fall
'98.  On William Walker's death squad credentials see 'Meet Mr. Massacre' at
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/analysis/meetmr.htm

On the history and present practice of fascism in Kosovo, see for instance:

History: George Thompson's 'The roots of Kosovo fascism' at
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/thompson/rootsof.htm

On the KLA as fascist: :
1) 'Driven from Kosovo: Jewish Leader Blames NATO - Interview With Cedda
Prlincevic' at http://www.emperors-clothes.com/interviews/prlincevic.htm

2) "Save the Families - Women of Orahovac Speak" at
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/misc/savethe.htm

3) "UN appoints alleged war criminal in Kosovo" by Michel Chossudovsky at
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/chuss/unandthe.htm

Follow the suggested links at the end of each article.  All together, there
must be over a hundred articles on Emperors Clothes - www.tenc.net -- that
deal with what has happened since NATO took over Kosovo.  I will now post
three articles -- two that deal with life in Kosovo today and one interview
with a magnificent Albanian.

Best regards, Jared Israel

___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Information about the "Crashlist"

[Mark Jones]

I hope the problem's been dealt with now. I expected lots of freeloaders who
enjoyed the pure academic housestyle of the old Crashlist, would quit when the new
list started, and they have, so good riddance. What's interesting is that plenty
of new people have  joined. We'll see if the new list can find its place in the
world or not!

Mark

> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: 01 August 2000 05:26
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: [L-I] Information about the "Crashlist"
>
>
> Please do something with the unsubs.  I am so tired of deleted their e mail.
> Make it easier for them to unsub without sending us all a copy.
>
> ___
> Leninist-International mailing list
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
> http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
>


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Bosnia- Where Are The Radical Leftists and Liberals Now?

[Mark Jones]

Speaking as an alleged Stalinist and the original founder of L-I, I am glad to see
that the non-sectarian, open list I wanted to create exists and is being developed
by the new management. It's obvious that when you speak of Stalin[ism] you haven't
much of clue what you are on about, but I'm glad you are free to speak here,
anyway.

Mark Jones
PS If you want to know what *I* think about Stalin, check out this:
http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base/Stalin_WW2.htm

for more go too: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base/

> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of
> A.Wosni
> Sent: 31 July 2000 12:16
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: [L-I] Bosnia- Where Are The Radical Leftists and Liberals
> Now?
>
>
> How can you know that the argument has gone down when you stopped reading
> afterthe first sentence? What would be thebasis for a 'non-sectarian'
> discussion
> if those who see the word 'Stalinist' stop reading and those who see the word
> 'socialist' in respect to the stalinist statified capitalist states do so too?
> Does 'non-sectarian' mean that every participant stays neutral on basic
> controversial issues? If this is so, what does that have to do with the legacy
> of Lenin?
> A.Holberg
>
> Carrol Cox schrieb:
> >
> >
> > "A.Wosni" wrote:
> >
> > > The crux with the Stalinoide (or outright Stalinist) 'antiimperialists' is
> >  that
> > > they only seem to be able to think in terms of 'the enemy of my enemy is my
> > > friend'.
> >
> > It has become pretty obvious that arguments which begin by throwing around
> >  the term
> > "stalinist" have no direction to go but down. (And it does not matter whether
> >  the
> > term is used positively or negatively, it is an almost infallible sign of
> >  being dead
> > above the shoulders.) One might as well argue about Guelfs and Ghibelines.
> >  When the
> > term appears in a post I stop reading and delete.
> >
> > Carrol
> >
> >
> >
> > ___
> > Leninist-International mailing list
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
>
>
> ___
> Leninist-International mailing list
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
>


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Re: On Static notions of class, gender, imperialism, etc.

[Mark Jones]

> >Let's not forget that both Turkey and Japan were imperialist nations in
> >their heyday -- I'm getting a little tired of "white feminist" bashing
> >on the list.
> >
> >katha
>

What she means is "white American patriotic feminist" bashing. Doesn't this
just illustrate the complete pointlessness of debating people like Pollitt:
the only question is, how on earth have we collectively sunk so low that
someone with this kind of abject chauvinist politics and absurd,
mystificatory "feminism", can cheerfully inhabit a list called 'marxism
feminism" without any obvious sense of irony or contradiction? But when I
tried to argue along these lines on m-fem, the only response I got was to be
told to shut up by the moderators, Carrol Cox and Malgosia Askanas (the
latter's  connection to Marxism is still more tenuous than Pollitt's).

What is the point of these circular discussions? It is a medieval definition
of Hell, the endless repetition of tasks which have lost all meaning.

Mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Re: Allied bombins durin WWII (was: Re: Land, Bread and Sex!)

[Mark Jones]

We are waiting to hear from Prof Perelman, no?

Mark

> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of
> Johannes Schneider
> Sent: 20 July 2000 19:39
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; L-i
> Subject: [L-I] Re: Allied bombins durin WWII (was: Re: Land, Bread and
> Sex!)
>
>
> I stated
>
> > I am not saying there was a conspiracy, but it is surprising
> that Ford in
> > Cologne was not bombed and the report explictly remarks it.
> >
>
> I have to be more precise: According to the US report Ford was
> not attacked
> in the last second half of 1944, when German military truck production was
> singled out as a target.
>
> But Ford in Cologne was bombed on other occasions. It is not
> cleare whether
> they were singled out as a target or whether it was a sort of 'colateral
> dammage'. Anyway after the war they were compensated by the US governemnt
> for the dammage.
>
> Johannes
>
>
> ___
> Leninist-International mailing list
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
>


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Re: Allied bombins durin WWII (was: Re: Land, Bread and Sex!)

[Mark Jones]

Johannes, this is helpful. Your remarks have been serious thru out and
worthy of debate.

In the popular mood of the time, it would have been impossible for the
Brit/US govt's to systematically avoid hitting factories in order to favour
Brit/US capitalists who happened to own them; it would have been a source of
immense national scandal, especially in Britain.

mark

> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of
> Johannes Schneider
> Sent: 20 July 2000 13:37
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: [L-I] Re: Allied bombins durin WWII (was: Re: Land, Bread
> and Sex!)
>
>
> E.C.Apling wrote
>
>
> >
> > Actually, I think much of the bombing WAS aimed at facvtories
> and railway
> > yards - it is just that the aim of pilots was VERY bad.
> >
>
> No, not on factories, at least in the case of the British RAF. Read:
>
> THE UNITED STATES STRATEGIC BOMBING SURVEY
> Summary Report
> (European War)
> September 30, 1945
>
> http://www.anesi.com/ussbs02.htm
>
> About the British RAF the report remarks:
>
> The pioneer in the air war against Germany was the RAF. The RAF
> experimented
> briefly in 1940 with daylight attacks on industrial targets in Germany but
> abandoned the effort when losses proved unbearably heavy. Thereafter, it
> attempted to find and attack such targets as oil, aluminum and aircraft
> plants at night. This effort too was abandoned; with available
> techniques it
> was not possible to locate the targets often enough. Then the RAF
> began its
> famous raids on German urban and industrial centers. On the night
> of May 30,
> 1942, it mounted its first "thousand plane" raid against Cologne and two
> nights later struck Essen with almost equal force. On three nights in late
> July and early August 1943 it struck Hamburg in perhaps the most
> devastating
> single city attack of the war -- about one third of the houses of the city
> were destroyed and German estimates show 60,000 to 100,000 people
> killed. No
> subsequent city raid shook Germany as did that on Hamburg; documents show
> that German officials were thoroughly alarmed and there is some indication
> >from interrogation of high officials that Hitler himself thought that
> further attacks of similar weight might force Germany out of the war. The
> RAF proceeded to destroy one major urban center after another.
> Except in the
> extreme eastern part of the Reich, there is no major city that
> does not bear
> the mark of these attacks. In the latter half of 1944, aided by new
> navigational techniques, the RAF returned with part of its force to an
> attack on industrial targets. These attacks were notably successful but it
> is with the attacks on urban areas that the RAF is most prominently
> identified.
>
> Later on the report writes:
>
> Many more German industries were hit mostly in the course of the city
> attacks of the RAF, but some as secondary targets of daylight
> attacks, or in
> spill-overs from the primary target. Industries so attacked
> included optical
> plants, power plants, plants making electrical equipment, machine tool
> plants, and a large number of civilian industries.
>
> So its obvious primary attacks were on the cities.
>
> Johannes
>
>
> ___
> Leninist-International mailing list
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
>


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Spivak & Marxism-Feminism (was Re: And another thing)

[Mark Jones]

Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:

> Third-World nationalism often mobilizes the idea of the nation  that
> masks class & gender oppressions

Isn't this a bit circular? I don't mean to be frivolous. And nationalist
discourse that hopes to succeed must sublimate class etc oppressions by
means of/via narratives of solidarity which actually do serve to make 'the
nation' more successful in competition with other nations. That living
standards are actually raised (in some cases) within national contects and
through the mobilising power of nationalist rhetoric, is a true fact and not
just another mystification.


Mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

RE: [L-I] Spivak & Marxism-Feminism (was Re: And another thing)

[Mark Jones]

Yoshie  wrote:
>
> I'd say that
> Marxism-Feminism (coupled with fight against imperialism, it goes
> without saying) is necessary to avoid the problem that Spivak points
> out.

Are you inviting Doug/Katha to this fight as participants or just
participant-observers?

Mark


___
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international