Text 2472, 104 rader
Skriven 2004-09-20 09:04:32 av Stephen Hayes (5:7106/20.0)
Ärende: Re: if leftists hated capitalism and US so much, how come they didn't
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* Forwarded (from: LIBRARY_FMY) by Stephen Hayes using timEd/2 1.10.y2k.
* Originally from Dan Clore (8:8/2002) to All.
* Original dated: Sat Sep 18, 07:48

From: Dan Clore <clore@columbia-center.org>

Goy Liath wrote:

> eastern bloc intellectuals tried to escape from leftwing tyranny and
> find haven in the west.
> in the west, guys like sartre and chomsky claimed that though
> communist nations weren't perfect, they were a lesser evil than US and
> capitalist west; also, that communism was on the right side of
> history.

This totally misrepresents Chomsky. Try something like this, 
instead:

Socialism, real and fake

by Noam Chomsky

One can debate the meaning of the term "socialism," but if 
it means anything, it means control of production by the 
workers themselves, not owners and managers who rule them 
and control all decisions, whether in capitalist enterprises 
or an absolutist state.

To refer to the Soviet Union as socialist is an interesting 
case of doctrinal doublespeak. The Bolshevik coup of October 
1917 placed state power in the hands of Lenin and Trotsky, 
who moved quickly to dismantle the incipient socialist 
institutions that had grown up during the popular revolution 
of the preceding months -- the factory councils, the 
Soviets, in fact any organ of popular control -- and to 
convert the workforce into what they called a "labor army" 
under the command of the leader. In any meaningful sense of 
the term "socialism," the Bolsheviks moved at once to 
destroy its existing elements. No socialist deviation has 
been permitted since.

These developments came as no surprise to leading Marxist 
intellectuals, who had criticized Lenin's doctrines for 
years (as had Trotsky) because they would centralize 
authority in the hands of the vanguard Party and its 
leaders. In fact, decades earlier, the anarchist thinker 
Bakunin had predicted that the emerging intellectual class 
would follow one of two paths: either they would try to 
exploit popular struggles to take state power themselves, 
becoming a brutal and oppressive Red bureaucracy; or they 
would become the managers and ideologists of the state 
capitalist societies, if popular revolution failed. It was a 
perceptive insight, on both counts.

The world's two major propaganda systems did not agree on 
much, but they did agree on using the term socialism to 
refer to the immediate destruction of every element of 
socialism by the Bolsheviks. That's not too surprising. The 
Bolsheviks called their system socialist so as to exploit 
the moral prestige of socialism.

The West adopted the same usage for the opposite reason: to 
defame the feared libertarian ideals by associating them 
with the Bolshevik dungeon, to undermine the popular belief 
that there really might be progress towards a more just 
society with democratic control over its basic institutions 
and concern for human needs and rights.

If socialism is the tyranny of Lenin and Stalin, then sane 
people will say: *not for me*. And if that's the only 
alternative to corporate state capitalism, then many will 
submit to its authoritarian structures as the only 
reasonable choice.

With the collapse of the Soviet system, there's an 
opportunity to revive the lively and vigorous libertarian 
socialist thought that was not able to withstand the 
doctrinal and repressive assaults of the major systems of 
power. How large a hope that is, we cannot know. But at 
least one roadblock has been removed. In that sense, the 
disappearance of the Soviet Union is a small victory for 
socialism, much as the defeat of the fascist powers was.

-- 
Dan Clore

My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
http://www.wildsidepress.com/index2.htm
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1587154838/thedanclorenecro
Lord Weyerdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo

"It's a political statement -- or, rather, an
*anti*-political statement. The symbol for *anarchy*!"
-- Batman, explaining the circle-A graffiti, in
_Detective Comics_ #608

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