I am deeply suspicious of "Single Person" or "Great Leader" or "Great Despot" theories of culpability or praise for whole historical processes or even particular events. Since I first started serious examinations of historical events, when I was around 13 years old, I have believed that if any one force could be described as a "motive force" of history, or even of particular events, it would be "class struggle" as defined and carried out under concrete conditions. I was once at a rally and met a creature who told me "I am a communist." I asked him why, and he said because "communists know how to take care of Jews and I hate Jews." I recoiled, wanting to punch the piece of anti-Semitic shit out, but instead I talked with him further. It turned out he was mentally derranged and had no idea that, given his anti-Semitic hate and fantasies, which he laid at the door of his family having been impoverished after his father was 'fired by a Jew', those he had the most in common with, fascists, would probably kill him for even saying he was a "communist" and further were saying that communism was a "Jewish Conspiracy." All of this is a bit roundabout way of saying that all movements, and the policies and actions carried out by them, are made up of real people who join the movements and originate/implement their policies and actions for various, often contradictory, often self-serving, often hidden reasons. We then are stuck with anyalyzing policies not simply in terms of who carried them out, their openly stated versus hidden motives, how and against/for whom they were carried out and with what predicted/unpredicted consequences, but also under what concrete conditions, under what constraints, given what precedents, given what perceived or actual survival imperatives, given what information and certainties/uncertainties, arrayed against what forces and force capabilities/intentions etc... I have no doubt that in the Cultural Revolution in China all sorts of opportunists and individuals with hidden agenda (perhaps seeking revenge on someone who married another that the one seeking revenge had his eye on or revenge for a family dispute etc...) participated in crimes cloaking them under the banners of communism or "smashing bourgois weeds". Any such mass campaings will draw some creatures seeking to use campaigns and "sacred causes" for some nefarious puproses. But I do believe that the Cultural Revolution was made necessary, and probably did not go far enough and long enough in some terms, by the extent, capabilities and intentions of imperialist encirclement and the social systems engineering/outright warfare intentions of destroying emerging socialism in China. For any crimes and "excesses", I lay the blame on the imperialists and their repeated encirclement machinations and intentions; I do not lay the blame--or credit--for the whole Cultural Revolution, the Chinese Revolution, the Long March or whatever--and any crimes, mistakes or "excesses" during or flowing from them--at the feet of one person, Chairman Mao Zedong. I feel the same when I hear all the successes or failures of the Vietnamese Revolution placed on the shoulders of Ho Chi Minh or of other successful and unsuccessful revolutions laid at the feet of any one person or even small groups of persons--Stalin, Kim Il Sung, Enver Hoxha... I am furthered tempered and humbled when expressing my own opinions, by some small appreciation of the myriad and horrible sacrifices made by revolutionaries; by an appreciation of my own relative comfort and safety relative to that faced by those revolutionaries; by an appreciation of the fact that social systems engineering and imperialist machinations are specifically designed to produce destabilization and chaos and all of the self-impeaching crimes and excesses that invariably accompany societies under siege; by an appreciation of the undercertainties and lack of precedents faced by those revolutionaries under various conditions; by some appreciation of the ugly natures/capabilities of those forces against which revolutionaries were arrayed and further by some appreciation of possible horrible consequences of failure to deal effectively with the forces of reaction; by an apppreciation of the fact that no one person or even a group of persons can be aware of and effectively control all the condtions and individuals in a battle or whole movement; by some appreciation of the fact that much of the information available to me--even from "revolutionary sources" --is highly filtered and shaped by a variety of sources for a variety of motives; and by some appreciation of my own failures to match words and deeds, my own personal failings, and my own reactions/instincts toward "payback" or very serious struggle in very serious ways against reactionaries from whom I or my family or others have suffered. So when I see all this stuff, with excruciating--but "cherry-picked"--data, opinion, sources etc about what Stalin or Mao or whomever "did" or "didn't" do, I just have to plead for a dialaectical materialist view of history. Yes, lessons must be learned, and applied, but really, where does all of this go except to produce more of the same tired and old and unproductive factions and sterile debates. I can just imagine if on some Reservation, or in some labor struggle I started in with Mao or Stalin or Trotsky or whomever and what they did or didn't do whatever... He and he alone did or didn't... He and he alone is "responsible' for...(credit or blame) I just want you to know that I am not a Stalinist, or Stalin was a Great and much-maligned leader, or I am a Maoist, or... According to chairman Mao or Trotsky or Stalin, a parallel situtation should be handled like this....At Browning, people would just look and say what the fuck are you talking about? Talk to me about something that matters in my life or fuck off... Twice I visited Marx's grave at Highgate and each time I was struck by the wisdom that someone had to use, for the inscription summing up the essence of Marx's life and work, his 11th Thesis on Feuerbach: "The Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it." Workers of all countries unite! On the other hand, I wish there had been room on the tombstone for Marx's letter to Arnold Ruge in 1841 (I believe the date is correct but am not sure): "If the construction of the future for all time is not our task, all the more certain is what me must accomplish in the present; I mean, the ruthless criticism of everything that exists; the criticism being ruthless in the sense that it neither fears its own results, nor fears conflict with the powers that be." (quotation from memory so please excuse any errors). Just some thoughts to provoke thought. Jim Craven James Craven Clark College, 1800 E. McLoughlin Blvd. Vancouver, WA. 98663 (360) 992-2283; Fax: (360) 992-2863 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.home.earthlink.net/~blkfoot5/ *My Employer Has No Association With My Private/Protected Opinion*
