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Tom Cod | 1 Feb 02:11
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Kaiser Workers on Strike in California

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http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20120131/WIRE/120139930/1350?Title=Kaiser-workers-strike-in-Santa-Rosa-throughout-California

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Tom Cod | 1 Feb 02:54
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Re: Kautsky the "Renegade"

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I think you are avoiding the primary issue which was Kautsky's
denunciation of the Bolsheviks, echoing the liberals, as people who
had foisted a dictatorship of themselves over the Russian people, most
glaringly evidenced to Kautsky by the dispersal of the Constituent
Assembly (facilitated by the Kronstadt sailors).  This was brought up
by Kautsky in pamphlets like "The Dictatorship of the Proletariat"
which he considered an unfortunate term that the Bolsheviks were using
to pervert Marx from his essentially humanitarian character.
Moreover, these polemics were issued in 1918-19 at the height of the
Civil War.  No matter that the liberals and social democrats of the
Constituent Assembly who threw their lot in with The White Movement
were themselves brutally repressed by the proto fascists around
Kolchak that gained hegemony in that camp and who began a vicious
counter-revolutionary White Terror that foreshadowed the Nazi
intervention twenty years later.  In essence, while Kautsky was very
circumspect in these writings, in essence his views were akin to those
expressed by Edmund Burke in his condescending sermon to the Jacobins
125 years earlier.  Kautsky's views were later aptly summed up as
follows:

"The Bolsheviki under Lenin’s leadership, however, succeeded in
capturing control of the armed forces in Petrograd and later in Moscow
and thus laid the foundation for a new dictatorship in place of the
old Czarist dictatorship." - Marxism and Bolshevism: Democracy and
Dictatorship (1934)
(Continue reading)

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MICHAEL YATES | 1 Feb 02:58
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Paul Le Blanc on Pham Binh's critique of Tony Cliff's book on Lenin

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I read Paul's critique of Pham Binh's essay with interest. It appeared to be a thoughtful piece. Shouldn't
those on this list knowledgeable about the subject comment on what Paul said as opposed to what has been
said so far under this subject line? Paul is a historian, someone who has written about and taught about
Lenin for a very long time. His remarks in this piece show that he is a person who knows how to do historical
research and how to try to apply what he has learned to political practice. He's not an amateur. So I'd like
to hear what others have to say about his arguments, and with the same seriousness and comradely spirit he
shows.  Paul says, "For example, we are told that Cliff’s work on Lenin “was the first book-length
political biography of Lenin written by a Marxist,” which ignores the invaluable contribution of the
early 1930s by Nadezhda Krupskaya, Lenin’s comrade, co-thinker and companion, who focused
systematically on his political thought and practice – Reminiscences of Lenin.  Actually, if
Krupskaya’s substantial volume is taken together with Leon Trotsky’s The Young Lenin and Moshe
Lewin’s Lenin’s Last Struggle (both of which also precede Cliff’s work), we have a comprehensive
account of Lenin’s political life.  There is also Marcel Liebman’s important work, Leninism Under
Lenin, an English translation (from the 1973 French edition) appearing first in 1975." This seems to be a
pretty sharp criticism of Pham Binh. Something like if I had said that Keynes was the first economist to
discuss the possibility and consequences of a shortfall of aggregate demand.      		 	   		  
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Louis Proyect | 1 Feb 03:21
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Re: Paul Le Blanc on Pham Binh's critique of Tony Cliff's book on Lenin

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On 1/31/12 8:58 PM, MICHAEL YATES wrote:
>
> I read Paul's critique of Pham Binh's essay with interest. It
> appeared to be a thoughtful piece. Shouldn't those on this list
> knowledgeable about the subject comment on what Paul said as opposed
> to what has been said so far under this subject line? Paul is a
> historian, someone who has written about and taught about Lenin for a
> very long time.

Binh has a reply to Paul that will be appearing before long, focusing on 
the historical questions under dispute.

I haven't had any exchanges with Paul in over a decade but comrades can 
read them here:

http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/american_left/leblanc_wald_review.htm

http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/american_left/reply_to_leblanc.htm

http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/american_left/wald_mclemee_lovell.htm

Paul has been moving away from the ortho-Cannonist organizational 
concepts that he defended when these pieces were written but is 
reluctant to completely give up the idea that building small propaganda 
groups based on the Cliff-Cannon-Zinoviev model is the way to go. Back 
in the early 80s he was part of a small group of ex-SWP'ers who kept
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Tom Cod | 1 Feb 04:15
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Right Wing Launches Red Baiting Attack on Pham Binh

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the following article has been published on a number of right wing
sites, the one below is from Andrew Breitbart's blog:

http://biggovernment.com/tloudon/2011/12/20/o-w-s-activist-police-rank-and-file-are-professional-class-traitors-but-we-should-attempt-to-use-them-against-the-1ers/

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Einde O'Callaghan | 1 Feb 08:59
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Re: Paul Le Blanc on Pham Binh's critique of Tony Cliff's book on Lenin

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On 31.01.2012 18:00, Angelus Novus wrote:
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>
>
> David Walters wrote:
>
>> Jame's book poorly written but politically interesting book, _World Revolution_ is here:
>
> My absolute favorite work of James' is his series of lectures _Modern Politics_, and I would absolutely
love to transcribe this for the Marxists Internet Archive, but I have no idea who owns the rights since
Martin Glaberman passed away.
>
Please do - we'll try to sort out any copyright issues.

Einde O'Callaghan (MIA)

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Angelus Novus | 1 Feb 11:23
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Paul Le Blanc on Pham Binh's critique of Tony Cliff's book on Lenin

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Louis wrote:

> They [the ISO] are a work in progress.

FWIW, their co-thinkers in Germany, around the journal Marx21 <http://www.marx21.de/> play a very
positive and constructive role in DIE LINKE.  

They actually take it seriously as a primary instrument for political activity, rather than regarding it
as a big fat juicy target for "entryism".

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Angelus Novus | 1 Feb 11:36
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Paul Le Blanc on Pham Binh's critique of Tony Cliff's book on Lenin

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Michael Yates wrote:

>  Shouldn't those on this list knowledgeable about the subject comment on what Paul said as opposed to what
has been said so far under this 
subject line?

For all I know Paul Le Blanc's factual criticisms of Pham Binh's article are correct.  But other than that,
he actually seems to agree with Pham on the essentials:

"There we find a criticism of Cliff’s problematical emphasis on Lenin’s 
presumed method of “bending the stick” (defined as one-sidedly 
distorting reality in order to emphasize what is deemed the “necessary” 
political point).  I agree with Pham that Lenin’s revolutionary method 
was better than that, striving to keep “the whole process of development in mind instead of isolating its
individual elements.”   This does not 
mean that Lenin was always successful in this."

And also this:

"There are genuine strengths, for example, in his discussion of what 
“democratic centralism” actually meant, strengths consistent with some 
of what Cliff says (as Pham acknowledges) and with the extended 
discussion offered in Lenin and the Revolutionary Party.  It is 
an approach for dynamically combining freedom of expression and unity in action, taking decision-making
seriously so that decisions are actually carried out and tested in practice.  As Pham notes, this concept
is not unique to Lenin – the very term was put forward by the Mensheviks."
(Continue reading)

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Lenin's Tomb | 1 Feb 12:03

Re: Paul Le Blanc on Pham Binh's critique of Tony Cliff's book on Lenin

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On 01/02/2012 10:36, Angelus Novus wrote:
> I took those to be the two main points of Pham's article, and Le Blanc 
> seems to agree with them.  I'm not sure if the factual points dealt 
> with are so essential to the main thrust of Pham's argument. 

I think the criticisms are more substantive than you are allowing.  As I 
see it, Binh's article has two remits.  The first is to reformulate our 
understanding of Leninism, in a way that could potentially be useful.  
The second is to categorically junk Cliff and his contribution to 
socialist strategy, which is of dubious value.  It is on the second that 
Le Blanc, himself hardly a Cliffite, is most critical.  For here, Binh 
tends to arrive at summary, polemical judgements, that don't serve the 
first purpose of the article well.  There is also a certain rebarbative 
tone that Binh always adopts when dealing with rivals on the far left, 
specifically those influenced by Cliff, but which always comes a cropper 
when accompanied by a howler or two.

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Louis Proyect | 1 Feb 14:38
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Banned from Socialist Unity

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http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2012/02/01/banned-from-socialist-unity/

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