On 4/26/05, Jostein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> Quoting Paul Stenquist <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>
> > American Marxist phobia is actually more a thing of the fifties and
> > sixties. It's really quite dead. However, there are little pockets of
> > folks with rather extreme views who keep it alive in bits and pieces,
> > here and there. That's probably true of any system of beliefs anywhere
> > in the world.
>
> Sadly, yes. I'd even opt for leaving out the "probably". :-(
>
> What puzzles me in this particular case is just the anachronistic nature of
> the
> phobia... :-)
>
Okay, I know I shouldn't, but I'll wade in on this discussion (I've
been resisting so far...).
What one has to remember, is that the Red Scare in the 50's and 60's
was a fear of Russia and it's satellite states ("The Soviet Block",
the "Iron Curtain", whatever you want to call it). I guess one could
throw the People's Republic of China in there, but realistically, they
weren't a threat.
Soviet Russia called itself Communist. It called itself Marxist and
Marxist-Leninist. It was none of those things. There was a Marxist
or Communist revolution there in 1917, but it didn't take long before
it stalled. I don't remember much about Marxism, but I seem to recall
that it's only workable if it's a world-wide phenomenon. Once Lenin
died and Trotsky was ousted by Stalin, the counter-revolution was
complete. With Trotsky out of the picture, Stalin turned inward, and
decided to build Russia's economy rather than export the revolution.
Russia was a centralist state-capitalist dictatorship. It remained so
until dismantled in the late 1980's.
The cold war had little to do with political ideologies, it had to do
with military domination and spheres of influence and keeping the
military-industrial machine in high-gear after WWII. What better way
than to continue with an arms race? The US also knew that the Russian
economy wasn't nearly as strong as it seemed, and that by engaging in
an arms race it would bankrupt Russia.
But, after years and years of equating Marxism and Communism with the
Russian system, and after years of being told it was evil, many in the
West have come to loathe the words, without really knowing much about
the political philosophy.
Old habits die hard. I disagree with Paul WRT to the Red Scare being
over in the US. We've seen some of it here in this discussion.
Words like Marxist and Socialist and even Liberal are currently used
as epithets in the current political climate on the US.
Anyway, I'm not espousing any views here (or trying not to), but
rather provide a brief history lesson WRT Jostein's question. Hope I
haven't trampled on anyone's feathers.
cheers,
frank
--
"Sharpness is a bourgeois concept." -Henri Cartier-Bresson
