Paul
On Apr 26, 2005, at 6:40 PM, frank theriault wrote:
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
