Censorship on Marxists.org

[tolstoyevski]

Hello Comrades,

I visited the marxists.org, the widest Marxism archive on the net in order to check the literature on Fascism. I clicked the "Subject" link, and what did I see: The works of Georgi Dimitrov is not included under the topic of "Marxists on Fascism" (http://marxists.org/subject/fascism/index.htm)

I wrote a short email in order to inform the manager of the archive, Andy Blunden, for a long time ago, but he didn't reply. And now I wrote a second e-mail.

Comrades, this is called censorship. Of course you can reach the writings of Dimitrov from other links in the site, but the name and body of work of Dimitrov should be included in the list called "Marxists on Fascism".

Dimitrov was a Marxist, his theses influenced the communist movement and class struggle and his theories are judged by history. What the editors of marxists.org do is not ethical and is discriminatory. They should change the topic as "Trotskiests on Fascism" if they want to build a separate archive on Fascism.

This gives an example of the Trotskiest attitude toward non-Trotskiests.

[Pirate Utopian]

Oh noez, oprezion!
The hell with Dimitrov.
Who cares about some list on a website?, if you know how to reach the files you want the site has done it's work.

[Yehuda Stern]

Antonio Gramsci was a non-Trotskyist (a Stalinist, to be precise) and he's on there. So it's certainly not an example of anyone's attitude towards non-Trotskyists, especially considering the fact that none of the admins of Marxist.com, as far as I know, are Trotskyists.

It's mostly an expression of the simple fact that very few Comintern hacks wrote anything worthwhile about anything, and that the authors of the website rightly don't consider it correct to include them anywhere in the Marxist milieu. The writings of some of them can be found in the Reference Archive, under Comintern, when those writings are of some historical interest.

[Janine Melnitz]

(a Stalinist, to be precise)
I lol'd

Come on dudes, no intellectually honest person, after even just a glance at the glossary on that site, could deny that it's heavily skewed toward Trot analysis. That's okay, I guess, but yeah: why not include Dimitrov? They have Churchill for fuck's sake.

[Yehuda Stern]

You "lol'd"? About what, that Gramsci was a Stalinist? Then it would be pretty hard for you to explain why in the faction fight in the Comintern, Gramsci sided with Stalin against Trotsky, and expelled the centrists (Bordigists) from his own party.

Anyway, everyone here would probably agree that there's no skew, just that most of the non-Comintern groups which considered themselves Marxist in the 20th century also considered themselves Trotskyist. It would be as smart to say that the Comintern Reference Archive is biased towards Stalinists...

Why include Churchill and not Dimitrov? Because Churchill, as reactionary as he were, wrote things of historical importance and interest, which are relevant to the study of Marxism, while Dimitrov did not.

[The Author]

This gives an example of the Trotskiest attitude toward non-Trotskiests. I agree with you that there is a sense of bias on Marxists.org and that there tends to be warped coverage of the Marxists in question. For instance,


At first, some in the group (from ETOL) suggested the name Marx/Engels, Lenin, Trotsky Internet Archive (MELT). After a good deal of discussion however, it was decided to drop this name and instead call the revived organization the Marxists Internet Archive; intending a more encompassing purpose with an organizational structure that was committed to being completely open and democratic.

The Marxists Internet Archive (marxists.org) was created in July 1998, built through the efforts of Jørn Andersen, Brian Basgen, Chris Croome; Alphonsos Pangas, and David Walters. After a great deal of transition work, one of the first things MIA did in advance of our old organisation was create a History Archive (http://www.marxists.org/history/index.htm) (holding Soviet History), and later separated Marxists from Reference Writers (http://www.marxists.org/reference/index.htm), by placing Stalinists in the Reference archive.
http://www.marxists.org/admin/intro/index.htm

Although the coverage of Marxists.org of "Stalinists" is improving, much more work needs to be done, in my opinion. Also, if Marxists.org wants to uphold "democracy," it should remove "Stalinism" from the category of the reference archive, and properly integrate it into the other Marxist subject sections, in order to provide a different point of view, and therefore a more neutral point of view for the entire website as a whole.

[Wanted Man]

Well, I think marxists.org is a good resource. But yeah, you also get the whole religious dogmatic experience in one package: there is the canon of "good" writers, and then there are the non-canonical evildoers who must be moved to the "reference"... Still, the works of Stalin, Mao, etc. are easy to find. That's better than many other sites like it, which only carry the works that are approved by whichever sect is behind it.

Their "marxists on fascism" section seems awfully limited, anyway. It's probably not so much that they deliberately omitted Dimitrov, but rather that they only included a few authors in the first place.

Anyway, if you don't want to use the MIA, there's also: http://marx2mao.com/

[tolstoyevski]

The editor of "Marxists on Fascism" page on Marxists.org replied my email and said that Dimitrov is not included in the list, because he didn't know about him and his writings.

I apologize for my accusations of censorship towards marxists.org.

Dimitrov is now in the list. But bad news, due to copyright problems, Gramsci's writings can no longer be found on marxists.org.

http://marxists.org/subject/fascism/index.htm

http://marxists.org/archive/gramsci/index.htm

[Dean]

Hello Comrades,

I visited the marxists.org, the widest Marxism archive on the net in order to check the literature on Fascism. I clicked the "Subject" link, and what did I see: The works of Georgi Dimitrov is not included under the topic of "Marxists on Fascism" (http://marxists.org/subject/fascism/index.htm)

I wrote a short email in order to inform the manager of the archive, Andy Blunden, for a long time ago, but he didn't reply. And now I wrote a second e-mail.

Comrades, this is called censorship. Of course you can reach the writings of Dimitrov from other links in the site, but the name and body of work of Dimitrov should be included in the list called "Marxists on Fascism".

Dimitrov was a Marxist, his theses influenced the communist movement and class struggle and his theories are judged by history. What the editors of marxists.org do is not ethical and is discriminatory. They should change the topic as "Trotskiests on Fascism" if they want to build a separate archive on Fascism.

This gives an example of the Trotskiest attitude toward non-Trotskiests.

This isn't censorship, its omission. They include 3 such works in their Georgi Dimitrov Archive (http://marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/index.htm)

http://marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/unity.htm

http://marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/09_25.htm

http://marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1937/war.htm

[Janine Melnitz]

You "lol'd"? About what, that Gramsci was a Stalinist?
Cripes you're dense. I lol'd at exactly what I quoted: "a Stalinist, to be precise". As if there were any "precision" in that designation.


Why include Churchill and not Dimitrov? Because Churchill, as reactionary as he were, wrote things of historical importance and interest, which are relevant to the study of Marxism, while Dimitrov did not.
According to...? It's fine, in fact it's necessary, to have theoretical biases, but being blind to them is indicative of stupidity.

Anyway glad to hear they put Dimitrov up; the MIA really is a great site, and my impression has always been that it's run by nice folks.

[Yehuda Stern]

Cripes you're dense. I lol'd at exactly what I quoted: "a Stalinist, to be precise". As if there were any "precision" in that designation.

I might be dense, but you're goddamn ignorant if you think that non-Trotskyist automatically means Stalinist.


According to...? It's fine, in fact it's necessary, to have theoretical biases, but being blind to them is indicative of stupidity.

I am the last one to claim that the MIA admins have no biases. In fact, I have no interest in serving as a lawyer for the MIA at all. But the biases they have are least of all pro-Trotsky. Most of the admins of the MIA are people who have either repudiated Trotskyism outright or have some respect for some of Trotsky's work.
Now that that's clear, perhaps next time that you try to look smart, you will check first that you have an idea of what you're talking about.


That the Bordigists were the centrists is a novel assertion. In fact they opposed Trotsky from the left.

They claimed to - then again, many people claim many things.

[Janine Melnitz]

According to...? It's fine, in fact it's necessary, to have theoretical biases, but being blind to them is indicative of stupidity.
I am the last one to claim that the MIA admins have no biases.
In this thread, you were actually the first:

Anyway, everyone here would probably agree that there's no skew
In any case, I wasn't talking about the MIA admins, but about your treating Dimitrov's "historical importance" or lack thereof as a neutral and obvious fact.

As for the admins, you're right that I have no idea what they call themselves; I, myself, didn't call them anything. I called the analysis in their glossary Trotskyist; you maintain that it is "anti-Stalinist" instead, which is kind of funny since "Stalinism", while admittedly a word used by non-Trots, remains a thoroughly Trotskyist concept. Look at the entry for it (http://marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/t.htm#stalinism) in MIA's glossary; now I have no idea what "camp" Scott Cooper is in, but the entry itself can be fairly called Trotskyist regardless of its author's orientation, given that every point it makes is lifted straight from Trotsky's writings.

[Yehuda Stern]

In this thread, you were actually the first:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yehuda Stern http://www.revleft.com/vb/../revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/../showthread.php?p=1367758#post1367758)
Anyway, everyone here would probably agree that there's no skew


No skew in the selection of authors, which I still think there isn't. In the opinions of the MIA staff, of course there is, as there is in just about everyone's views.


you maintain that it is "anti-Stalinist" instead, which is kind of funny since "Stalinism", while admittedly a word used by non-Trots, remains a thoroughly Trotskyist concept.

I never maintained that anything but most of the groups that considered themselves Marxist was anti-Stalinist, including the analysis of the MIA staff. In fact, I'd imagine most of them have a pro-Stalinist analysis, as exemplified in their support for Castroism and Guevaraism. At any rate, Stalinism was a concept first referred to by Trotsky, but today many non-Trotskyist groups see themselves as anti-Stalinist, even many that I would include in the Stalinist milieu (Titoists, all sorts of M-Ls and some supporters of Castro).

So, my next advice would be to reply to what I say as against what you would like to think I said.