TJ Clark: For A Left With No Future

[blake 3:17]

I found this article very thought provoking. It's quite difficult, and jumps around a bit. I just quoted a bit of the beginning; the best stuff is in the body of the essay.


T. J. CLARK

FOR A LEFT WITH NO FUTURE

Left intellectuals, like most intellectuals, are not good at politics; especially if we mean by the latter, as I shall be arguing we should, the everyday detail, drudgery and charm of performance. Intellectuals get the fingering wrong. Up on stage they play too many wrong notes. But one thing they may be good for: sticking to the concert-hall analogy, they are sometimes the bassists in the back row whose groaning establishes the key of politics for a moment, and even points to a possible new one. And it can happen, though occasionally, that the survival of a tradition of thought and action depends on this—on politics being transposed to a new key. This seems to me true of the left in our time.

These notes are addressed essentially (regrettably) to the left in the old capitalist heartland—the left in Europe. [3] Perhaps they will resonate elsewhere. They have nothing to say about capitalism’s long-term invulnerability, and pass no judgement—what fool would try to in present circumstances?—on the sureness of its management of its global dependencies, or the effectiveness of its military humanism. The only verdict presupposed in what follows is a negative one on the capacity of the left—the actually existing left, as we used to say—to offer a perspective in which capitalism’s failures, and its own, might make sense. By ‘perspective’ I mean a rhetoric, a tonality, an imagery, an argument, and a temporality.

By ‘left’ I mean a root-and-branch opposition to capitalism. But such an opposition has nothing to gain, I shall argue, from a series of overweening and fantastical predictions about capitalism’s coming to an end. Roots and branches are things in the present. The deeper a political movement’s spadework, the more complete its focus on the here and now. No doubt there is an alternative to the present order of things. Yet nothing follows from this—nothing deserving the name political. Left politics is immobilized, it seems to me, at the level of theory and therefore of practice, by the idea that it should spend its time turning over the entrails of the present for signs of catastrophe and salvation. Better an infinite irony at prescrai and maruflicchio—a peasant irony, with an earned contempt for futurity—than a politics premised, yet again, on some terracotta multitude waiting to march out of the emperor’s tomb.

♦

Is this pessimism? Well, yes. But what other tonality seems possible in the face of the past ten years? How are we meant to understand the arrival of real ruination in the order of global finance (‘This sucker could go down’, as George Bush told his cabinet in September 2008) and the almost complete failure of left responses to it to resonate beyond the ranks of the faithful? Or to put the question another way: if the past decade is not proof that there are no circumstances capable of reviving the left in its nineteenth and twentieth-century form, then what would proof be like?

http://www.newleftreview.org/II/74/t-j-clark-for-a-left-with-no-future

[Lynx]

This piece reads like it was written with a bottle of bourbon in one hand and a revolver in the other.

Compare the circumstances of the past decade with the conditions people had to endure during the Great Depression or the Russian Revolution. Not only is there less suffering but we have a greater capacity to provide the necessities of life. Our infrastructure and lines of production are more efficient than they have ever been.

If they had been destroyed by war or natural disaster that would pose a problem. But that did not happen, they are intact. The workers who have the knowledge and skill to operate them are available.

The crisis today is all about debt, financial instability, lack of money, and other accounting bullshit. Too many people, including those on the left, believe it is a problem, when it isn't. Rebuilding devastated infrastructure is a problem, one that requires time and effort. Writing off debt is a cinch by comparison. Waiting for the write off to occur 'naturally' is prolonging this crisis.

If there is no future for the left, then reforms to capitalism have no future. Revolutions don't occur when enough people are fed, clothed and housed. The left has fought for these concessions in the past. If they are rolled back, then deprivation will return, and with it, the possibility of revolt.

By that measure, you can view the absence of the left as a curse or a blessing.

[Die Neue Zeit]

If there is no future for the left, then reforms to capitalism have no future. Revolutions don't occur when enough people are fed, clothed and housed. The left has fought for these concessions in the past. If they are rolled back, then deprivation will return, and with it, the possibility of revolt.

By that measure, you can view the absence of the left as a curse or a blessing.

Actually, comrade, I have written repeatedly that revolutions don't occur in worst-case deprivation scenarios. You should read The Anatomy of Revolution.

Revolutions occur when people's conscious hopes for radical reform are dashed.

[Lynx]

Actually, comrade, I have written repeatedly that revolutions don't occur in worst-case deprivation scenarios. You should read The Anatomy of Revolution.

Revolutions occur when people's conscious hopes for radical reform are dashed.
Not all worst-case scenarios will lead to revolt, or even be successful.
Hopes for radical reform were dashed with the discrediting of alternatives to capitalism. Hopes were dashed by the election of Obama and will be dashed again by elections in Europe. Nice theory, but where is the evidence?

[Mr. Natural]

I agree with Lynx that we currently have powerful socio-economic institutions that could serve socialism well. Most unfortunately, though, their current organization imprisons humanity mentally and physically as it destroys the ecological relations that maintain life on Earth.

As the left has failed to address this situation, I suppose I also agree with T.J. Clark in some ways, despite his/her hyper-academic prose.

DNZ wrote, "Revolutions occur when people's conscious hopes for radical reform are dashed." That's true, but I'm not aware of any popular hopes for radical reform or revolution at present. Capitalism is a system, and with globalization its institutions and values now envelop humanity. This is a mental as well as physical imprisonment. The system of capitalism is opposed to the system of life and capitalism has now constructed the arena within which humanity lives and thinks.

This is not an unsolvable problem, but it sure requires some fresh looks at our situation. The old Marxist classics can only take us so far. Where is a modern Marxism that employs the new sciences of the organization of life on Earth to organize human life on Earth?

So I'm in agreement with T.J. Clark's statement, "Left politics is immobilized ...at the level of theory and therefore of practice..." This seems obviously true.

My red-green best.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Not all worst-case scenarios will lead to revolt, or even be successful.
Hopes for radical reform were dashed with the discrediting of alternatives to capitalism. Hopes were dashed by the election of Obama and will be dashed again by elections in Europe. Nice theory, but where is the evidence?

Comrade, I italicized "conscious" in that last sentence. There were hopes for radical reform, but most hopes have been muddled so far.

"Conscious hopes" would be something like mass awareness and support for ELR, but with all this policy literacy hitting an establishment brick wall. There's also the more bastardized "conscious hope for reforms" without the "radical," which would mean Bastard Keynesianism, but that's another story.

[bcbm]

This piece reads like it was written with a bottle of bourbon in one hand and a revolver in the other.

is there another way to write?

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Comrade, I italicized "conscious" in that last sentence. There were hopes for radical reform, but most hopes have been muddled so far.

"Conscious hopes" would be something like mass awareness and support for ELR, but with all this policy literacy hitting an establishment brick wall. There's also the more bastardized "conscious hope for reforms" without the "radical," which would mean Bastard Keynesianism, but that's another story.

I ordered "Class Consciousness and History" - Georg Lukacs. I hope to understand more of the human mind.

[Lynx]

Is there an example of "conscious hopes" among the mass of people sparking a revolution?

[Ross Wolfe]

Some of you might be interested in article I wrote, "Memories of the Future," recalling a time when there actually was still a future. It engages with a number of recent writings on the subject by Franco "Bifo" Berardi, Slavoj Žižek, T.J. Clark, Owen Hatherley, Chris Cutrone, Max Ajl, Asad Haider, Salar Mohandesi, Ben Lear, and Malcolm Harris, which have been published by AK PRess, Zero Books, Jacobin, New Left Review, and others. Just thought some of you might want to check it out.

[A Marxist Historian]

I found this article very thought provoking. It's quite difficult, and jumps around a bit. I just quoted a bit of the beginning; the best stuff is in the body of the essay.

http://www.newleftreview.org/II/74/t-j-clark-for-a-left-with-no-future

There is nothing new under the sun, said the prophet in Ecclesiastes. This piece is an example of that. Insofar as the author is in favor of anything, he has revived Eduard Bernstein's more than a century old bromide, "the movement is everything, the final goal is nothing."

Yes, the left is screwed up, and failed miserably to speak effectively to the Great Collapse. But why that is is obvious.

It's because of the collapse of the USSR twenty years ago, which has demoralized the left, set back the labor movement, and strengthened the capitalists worldwide, simply because it was the greatest defeat the left and labor movements have ever suffered, bar none. Worse even that Hitler's victory in Germany, which was reversed by the Soviet army during WWII. That kind of disaster takes quite a while to recover from.

Unless and until the left comes to an understanding of what went wrong in the Soviet Union, stops trying to pretend the Soviet experience never happened, stops either trying to go back to the "good old days" of Mao or Brezhnev or pretending that the USSR was "state capitalist" or something similar, no leftist will ever to be able to give an honest answer when a worker says, well, your ideas were tried in Russia and they didn't work.

In short, the left will be reborn as Marxist, Leninist AND TROTSKYIST, or will never be reborn at all.

Those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them, as the philosopher Santayana said so long ago.

-M.H.-

[robbo203]

Unless and until the left comes to an understanding of what went wrong in the Soviet Union, stops trying to pretend the Soviet experience never happened, stops either trying to go back to the "good old days" of Mao or Brezhnev or pretending that the USSR was "state capitalist" or something similar, no leftist will ever to be able to give an honest answer when a worker says, well, your ideas were tried in Russia and they didn't work.
-

The exact opposite is true. The Left stands no chance of revivial unless and until it unambiguously disassociates itself from soviet state capitalism and makes it absolutely clear that that had nothing to do with socialism

[A Marxist Historian]

The exact opposite is true. The Left stands no chance of revivial unless and until it unambiguously disassociates itself from soviet state capitalism and makes it absolutely clear that that had nothing to do with socialism

That is in fact exactly what most of the left did when the USSR collapsed. How well did that work? Extremely poorly.

Why? Because the working class of the world knows better than that.

Trying to claim that the USSR had nothing to do with socialism, and then running around calling for nationalizing industry, taking over the banks, free medical and health care, ending unemployment and homelessness, in short all of the things done in the USSR, just makes leftists look like hypocrites, fools and untrustworthy maneuverers, all too likely to be no different from a Brezhnev or whatnot if they end up in power, to intelligent workers.

-M.H.-

[robbo203]

That is in fact exactly what most of the left did when the USSR collapsed. How well did that work? Extremely poorly.

Why? Because the working class of the world knows better than that.

Trying to claim that the USSR had nothing to do with socialism, and then running around calling for nationalizing industry, taking over the banks, free medical and health care, ending unemployment and homelessness, in short all of the things done in the USSR, just makes leftists look like hypocrites, fools and untrustworthy maneuverers, all too likely to be no different from a Brezhnev or whatnot if they end up in power, to intelligent workers.

-M.H.-


Youve proved my point. Many, if not most, on the left still vaguely think "socialism" has something to do with the state and the policy of nationalisation. Since that is precisely what the Soviet model entailed it follows by extension that far from unambiguously disassociating themselves from soviet state capitalism and making it absolutely clear that that had nothing to do with socialism, most on the Left saw the collapse of the Soviet Union as a defeat for "socialism" in some sense. And the "working class of the world" that you speak of likewise saw that event in these terms.


A more effective response from the Left would have have been to say emphatically that socialism was not defeated with the collapse of the Soviet Union since that had nothing whatsoever to do with socialism to begin with but rather was a system of state-run capitalism to which socialists are opposed - as indeed they are to any other variant of capitalism as well.

[Positivist]

I agree with M.H. here, we need to give a more solid answer on why the Soviet experiment failed than "it wasn't real communism" and for those of us interested in free healthcare, full employment, and an end to homelessness, and recognize that nationalizations by a workers state are instrumental to achieving this, that explanation better cover where the USSR didn't fail.

[A Marxist Historian]

Youve proved my point. Many, if not most, on the left still vaguely think "socialism" has something to do with the state and the policy of nationalisation. Since that is precisely what the Soviet model entailed it follows by extension that far from unambiguously disassociating themselves from soviet state capitalism and making it absolutely clear that that had nothing to do with socialism, most on the Left saw the collapse of the Soviet Union as a defeat for "socialism" in some sense. And the "working class of the world" that you speak of likewise saw that event in these terms.

So then, your position is that workers are too stupid to understand your state capitalist wisdom?

By the way, nationalization in and of itself is not socialist, as any Britisher should know. It depends on for whose benefit nationalization takes place. Thus in England, nationalizing steel was for the benefit of British steel magnates going broke, who laughed all the way to the bank given the hefty compensation payments they received.

In the USSR on the other hand nationalization was for the benefit of society in general and the working class in particular, enabling free medicine, education, ending homelessness and unemployment, all those things you, unlike the working class, dismiss as irrelevant and unimportant



A more effective response from the Left would have have been to say emphatically that socialism was not defeated with the collapse of the Soviet Union since that had nothing whatsoever to do with socialism to begin with but rather was a system of state-run capitalism to which socialists are opposed - as indeed they are to any other variant of capitalism as well.

You live in England, right? That was exactly the analysis of what was then and is now one of your larger socialistic organizations, the Cliffites. And they thought that this would bring them converts by leaps and bounds.

But even they figured out after a while that somehow or other that wasn't the case, and after an initial bubble, they've been in steady decline ever since, though still bigger than most Brit left groups. Why exactly, that they haven't figured out yet, but I have done so for any Cliffites reading this exchange, I hope they will be grateful.

-M.H.-

[Grenzer]

In the USSR on the other hand nationalization was for the benefit of society in general and the working class in particular, enabling free medicine, education, ending homelessness and unemployment, all those things you, unlike the working class, dismiss as irrelevant and unimportant

What hypocritical drivel. All these things are important and worthy of defense surely; even when they aren't there apparently, such as in the case of capitalist(oh, excuse me, the "Workers' state")China. In addition, your point is entirely disingenuous. Everyone should already know that the dominant ideas of any epoch are that of the ruling class, so that workers may from time to time have entirely the wrong idea is in no way indicative of their intelligence.



You live in England, right? That was exactly the analysis of what was then and is now one of your larger socialistic organizations, the Cliffites. And they thought that this would bring them converts by leaps and bounds.

But even they figured out after a while that somehow or other that wasn't the case, and after an initial bubble, they've been in steady decline ever since, though still bigger than most Brit left groups. Why exactly, that they haven't figured out yet, but I have done so for any Cliffites reading this exchange, I hope they will be grateful.

You truly are ignorant if you think you can paint the SPGB as being something similar to the SWP simply because they recognize the Soviet Union and its satellites as state capitalist. You have a long history of ridiculously attempting to paint a connection between two entirely different viewpoints where no such connection exists(I.E. capitalists claim China is capitalist, and various Marxists claim China is capitalist, therefore the various Marxists must be capitalists). It's rather childish and should be beyond you, but you've repeatedly shown yourself incapable of participating in an honest debate without resorting to making snide insinuations, sophomoric mud slinging, flaming, and straw manning.

It also seems more than a bit amusing that a NAMBLA loving sectarian like yourself would accuse another group of fading into irrelevancy: look in the mirror. It's difficult to think of any group of pretentious petit-bourgeois pseudo-radicals more out of touch with workers than the loons who cry in support of North Korean's nuclear buildup.

[A Marxist Historian]

What hypocritical drivel. All these things are important and worthy of defense surely; even when they aren't there apparently, such as in the case of capitalist(oh, excuse me, the "Workers' state")China. In addition, your point is entirely disingenuous. Everyone should already know that the dominant ideas of any epoch are that of the ruling class, so that workers may from time to time have entirely the wrong idea is in no way indicative of their intelligence.

You say they are worthy of defense? Well, that's nice. But when it comes time to defend such gains, whether in the Soviet Union or Cuba or anywhere else, folk like you are nowhere to be seen.

So then, that the Soviet Union was a workers state was the dominating idea of the ruling class? Er, not exactly, the dominating idea of the ruling class was that it was an evil totalitarian state, an "evil Empire" as Ronald Reagan put it, an idea which people like you, under the influence of bourgeois ideology, partake of as well, clearly.

And I hope you are not seriously claiming that the idea that China is a deformed workers state is the dominating idea of the ruling classes! Indeed, the knee-jerk rejection of this solidly based concept here on Revleft has 100% to do with the influence of Western bourgeois public opinion.



You truly are ignorant if you think you can paint the SPGB as being something similar to the SWP simply because they recognize the Soviet Union and its satellites as state capitalist. You have a long history of ridiculously attempting to paint a connection between two entirely different viewpoints where no such connection exists(I.E. capitalists claim China is capitalist, and various Marxists claim China is capitalist, therefore the various Marxists must be capitalists). It's rather childish and should be beyond you, but you've repeatedly shown yourself incapable of participating in an honest debate without resorting to making snide insinuations, sophomoric mud slinging, flaming, and straw manning.

A truly idiotic statement.

The statement I critiqued could have been made word for word without changing a comma or a period by any Cliffite. Nor, may I point out, did I allege Robbo was a Cliffite, I simply stated, absolutely correctly, that the ideas he had put forward in that paragraph which I suppose you share (if not, you are being even more dishonest here than you already are), had already been tried out by the Cliffites.



It also seems more than a bit amusing that a NAMBLA loving sectarian like yourself would accuse another group of fading into irrelevancy: look in the mirror. It's difficult to think of any group of pretentious petit-bourgeois pseudo-radicals more out of touch with workers than the loons who cry in support of North Korean's nuclear buildup.

And you have the brass to accuse me of "snide insinuations, sophomoric mud slinging, flaming, and straw manning"? You should be ashamed of yourself. Unfortunately, you aren't.

-M.H.-

[blake 3:17]

While I agree with MH on USSR, I think Nietzche's notion of ressentiment is applicable. So what if the USSR fell apart? So what if Mandela and Lula betrayed the working classes? Get going! Do something!

[A Marxist Historian]

While I agree with MH on USSR, I think Nietzche's notion of ressentiment is applicable. So what if the USSR fell apart? So what if Mandela and Lula betrayed the working classes? Get going! Do something!

Nietsche was a protofascist scumbag, but yeah, the question is when you get right down to it what to do now.

Which is why I've spent so much time here arguing about China and Cuba, where it ain't water under the bridge yet.

Cuba is not a terribly important country in the greater scheme of things, but China sure as hell is. What happens in China may well turn out to be what determines the future of the human race.

-M.H.-

[Positivist]

M.H. a NAMBLA lover? Where the hell did that come from?

[blake 3:17]

Nietsche was a protofascist scumbag, but yeah, the question is when you get right down to it what to do now.

Which is why I've spent so much time here arguing about China and Cuba, where it ain't water under the bridge yet.

Cuba is not a terribly important country in the greater scheme of things, but China sure as hell is. What happens in China may well turn out to be what determines the future of the human race.

-M.H.-

The value in Clark's essay is pointing to fighting back regardless of the conjuncture.

I disagree with you on Cuba. It's the one modern revolution which has both defended itself against imperialism and managed to self correct itself, eg. it's abolition of the death penalty. In terms of contemporary geopolitics, it has been crucial to the formation of the ALBA bloc.

As for Nietzche, his answers are far less valuable than the questions he asked. He and the fairly oddball tradition that has followed him creates for Marxists a partieal possibility of developing a mature and effective revolutionary politics.

[A Marxist Historian]

The value in Clark's essay is pointing to fighting back regardless of the conjuncture.

I disagree with you on Cuba. It's the one modern revolution which has both defended itself against imperialism and managed to self correct itself, eg. it's abolition of the death penalty. In terms of contemporary geopolitics, it has been crucial to the formation of the ALBA bloc.

As for Nietzche, his answers are far less valuable than the questions he asked. He and the fairly oddball tradition that has followed him creates for Marxists a partieal possibility of developing a mature and effective revolutionary politics.

NIetzchean Marxism is the ideal basis for ... actual social-fascism. Third Positionists are natural Nietsche fans, and I'll betcha most of 'em are, the intelligent ones anyway.

You should look at Arno Mayer's book, The Persistence of the Old Regime, which does a brilliant job of nailing what Nietzcheanism, the purest ideology of late nineteenth century reaction, was all about. The fact that he was neither an anti-Semite nor a German nationalist has confused people about what he really stood for. Nietscheanism was in many ways the ideological basis of fascism.

-M.H.-

[Generalist]

Please stop repeating your mantra that Nietzsche was a fascist. Would you be so kind to treat him as a philosopher, which he claims to be and every other philosopher in the twentieth century. Not a politician, talking about ordinary, everyday things. You may not be a philosopher and not understand what he said, but that is no reason to classify him so quickly. Better thinkers than you were Nietzschean, so don't jump the gun too quickly.

[Jimmie Higgins]

M.H. a NAMBLA lover? Where the hell did that come from?

Yeah, agreed.

Ghost Bebel, please keep things relevant and on track as this discussion continues.

[Mr. Natural]

Generalist, I agree with the overall sense of your post, and my brief encounters with Nietzsche tell me that he is a more important philosopher than is usually understood today, but I will also add that we all have the potential to be better thinkers than Nietzsche, for we have Marxism and the new sciences of the organization of life and society at hand and mind.

Nietzsche an environmentalist?? Here is Arran Gare in Postmodernism and the Environmental Process (1995): "The importance of Nietzsche for the environmental movement has been pointed out by Max Hallman. Nietzsche railed against Christianity for radically divorcing human beings from the natural world, and for radically divorcing one aspect of human existence, the soul or spirit, from another aspect, the body or flesh, and for holding the latter in contempt."

Nietzsche also railed against Hegel for devaluing the real, material world, which Hegel did. But Hegel and his philosophy of internal relations and dialectical categories also revealed that life and society are systemic processes with generative organizational relations. They are. The young Marx recognized this, and after the brainstorms subsided, birthed the materialist dialectic. The book to read on this is Bertell Ollman's Dance of the Dialectic (2003).

My red-green best.

[A Marxist Historian]

Please stop repeating your mantra that Nietzsche was a fascist. Would you be so kind to treat him as a philosopher, which he claims to be and every other philosopher in the twentieth century. Not a politician, talking about ordinary, everyday things. You may not be a philosopher and not understand what he said, but that is no reason to classify him so quickly. Better thinkers than you were Nietzschean, so don't jump the gun too quickly.

No, I don't think kindness is appropriate for an ultra-reactionary like Nietsche, who wrote in his letters to other "better thinkers" like Dostoyevsky that all socialists and anarchists should be killed, and that the lower classes should be kept in subjection.

And who saw Tsarist Russia as the ideal model for government.

He did not include such ideas openly in his philosophical writings, you have to read between the lines, but you don't have to read too far. Your elitist reference to how "better thinkers" loved Nietsche shows that N truly had his influence on you. You too are an elitist.

Until you have at least read Arno Mayer's very well known book, highly respected among historians, everything you have to say on the subject just reflects your own ignorance.

-M.H.-

[Sea]

While I agree that the USSR is a major elephant in the room, the problem I have with MH's position on facing up to it is that it assumes that the failures of the Soviet Union are inherent not to a specific attempt to implement socialism, but rather to socialism itself.

[A Marxist Historian]

While I agree that the USSR is a major elephant in the room, the problem I have with MH's position on facing up to it is that it assumes that the failures of the Soviet Union are inherent not to a specific attempt to implement socialism, but rather to socialism itself.

Au contraire. The failurs of the USSR have nothing to do with socialism, but everything to do with Stalinism. Which is precisely why the Stalin-Trotsky debate is unavoidable and necessary, and lurks in the background of all serious debate about what to do.

Santayana was right. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Without a full understanding of how and why the Russian Revolution went through its bureaucratic degeneration into Stalinism, future revolutionary victories will either be transitory or likely follow the same course. Even if, or rather especially if, the revolutionary leadership proclaims to the world its utter disinterest in such old debates.

-M.H.-

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

I would say the vast majority of humanity has moved past the Stalin-Trotsky debate, satisfied to leave the question unresolved. It lurks in the background for a tiny minority that will never again be in a position to repeat their history. 1917 isn't coming back.

[A Marxist Historian]

I would say the vast majority of humanity has moved past the Stalin-Trotsky debate, satisfied to leave the question unresolved. It lurks in the background for a tiny minority that will never again be in a position to repeat their history. 1917 isn't coming back.

If 1917 isn't coming back, then Fukuyama was right when he said that the collapse of the USSR was "the end of history" and capitalism is our destiny. Which nowadays is a statement with a much more ominous ring than Fukuyama intended.

Me, I don't think so.

1917 was the only successful workers revolution in history. No more 1917s means no more workers revolutions, which, the way things are going, looks like it means the human race is toast.

Any successful workers revolution that does not instantly spread to the entire planet, which is almost inconceivable, will automatically face the same conditions that generated the Stalin/Trotsky debate. And it will be repeated, whether the debaters are even aware of this or not, or even remember the names.

Why? Because as Marx and Lenin and Trotsky all believed, unlike Stalin, you can't build socialism in one country. That does not change and will not change. So any attempts to do so, under any labels, socialist, communist, anarchist, "Trotskyist," post-modernist, horizontal democracyist, whatever, would inevitably lead either to collapse or to a new variant of Stalinism all over again.

-M.H.-

[Sea]

Au contraire. The failurs of the USSR have nothing to do with socialism, but everything to do with Stalinism. Which is precisely why the Stalin-Trotsky debate is unavoidable and necessary, and lurks in the background of all serious debate about what to do.

Santayana was right. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Without a full understanding of how and why the Russian Revolution went through its bureaucratic degeneration into Stalinism, future revolutionary victories will either be transitory or likely follow the same course. Even if, or rather especially if, the revolutionary leadership proclaims to the world its utter disinterest in such old debates.

-M.H.-This gave me the impression that you were saying the problems of the Soviet Union were inherent to socialism even when not completely botched:
That is in fact exactly what most of the left did when the USSR collapsed. How well did that work? Extremely poorly.

Why? Because the working class of the world knows better than that.

Trying to claim that the USSR had nothing to do with socialism, and then running around calling for nationalizing industry, taking over the banks, free medical and health care, ending unemployment and homelessness, in short all of the things done in the USSR, just makes leftists look like hypocrites, fools and untrustworthy maneuverers, all too likely to be no different from a Brezhnev or whatnot if they end up in power, to intelligent workers.

-M.H.-At least for me, distancing onesself from the USSR ultimately boils down to pointing out that its failures have nothing to do with socialism, but everything to do with Stalinism as you put it. Not that complete blame belongs to Stalin's policies, but you know what I mean.

[A Marxist Historian]

This gave me the impression that you were saying the problems of the Soviet Union were inherent to socialism even when not completely botched:At least for me, distancing onesself from the USSR ultimately boils down to pointing out that its failures have nothing to do with socialism, but everything to do with Stalinism as you put it. Not that complete blame belongs to Stalin's policies, but you know what I mean.

But the USSR was not born Stalinist. It went Stalinist through a process of bureaucratic degeneration, in the course of which almost all the original revolutionaries were exterminated.

Real revolutionaries have to be Leninists and Trotskyists just as much as they have to be Marxists. In the past, now, and in the future as well.

Unless and until you have another successful proletarian revolution following a different path. I don't think that's too likely however. Leninism, Trotskyism and Stalinism are not just ideologies, but political phenomena solidly based in the social and material circumstances of capitalism in its final imperialist phase.

So, until either we get rid of capitalism or capitalism gets rid of us, meaning the human race, these are the ideological paradigms we are stuck in, like it or not, if we want to get out of this mess in one piece.

Right now we're in a very reactionary period, with a worldwide general attitude that "communism is dead." So a desire to forget about Lenin and Trotsky and Stalin is only natural. But that also means forgetting about revolution and believing that capitalism is normal, natural and eternal. A suicidal conception.

-M.H.-