Re: [A-List] Eric Hobsbawm on the legacy of perestroika

[Douglas Chalmers <d.chalmers@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Chris and all,

I'm afraid I don't find the case proven against Hobsbawn as a
neo-liberal. I also think that comrades like Chris are wrong if they
are implying that there has not been a change in the type of nuclear
confrontation that now faces us, post the collapse of the classical
'cold war' , although I agree that Hobsbawm should have mentioned
issues such as the situation facing north Korea and the like.  However,
in the context of the speech and the context within which it is given,
I think I see the point Hobsbawm is trying to make.

With regard to the phrase 'significant bloodshed', I also think I
understood what Hobsbawm meant. Having read materials he has written on
for instance the massacre of half a million communists under Sukarno in
the mid 60's, I think the point being made was that from a perspective
of viewing some of these  atrocities of the cold war period there was a
difference in scale.

I'm not quite sure, Michael the point being made about Hobsbawm living
in the UK which has sanctioned the first strike of nuclear weapons.
Hobsbawm, like I would imagine all British communists of his generation
would clearly be against the first use of nuclear weapons (or indeed
any use of them)

Douglas


On 11 Mar 2005, at 13:19, Michael Keaney wrote:

> Chris Black writes:
>
> Hobsbawm reveals his neo-liberal cards clearly with this piece. "A
> lasting
> admiration for Gorbachev". Enough said. But he borders on the
> delusional
> when he states that the world "might stil be living under the shadow of
> nuclear war". Tell that to North Korea, Iran, Syria or any number of
> other
> countries including Russia and China. What utter and juvenile nonsense.
> And the "transition...proceeded without signicant bloodshed"? It seems
> the
> murder of three thousand communist deputies and supporters in the Duma
> who
> fought floor to floor against Yeltsin's counter-revolutionaries in 1993
> and who died to the last man and woman mean nothing.
>
> -----
>
> Hobsbawm resides in the country whose present defence minister is on
> record
> as opening up the possibility for the first-strike use of nuclear
> weapons:
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1883258.stm
>
> And then there's John Bolton, who has been busy ripping to shreds any
> non-proliferation treaty that he can get his hands on:
>
> http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/2005-March/033346.html
>
> Meanwhile, to Chris's list could be added the hundreds of thousands who
> perished as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the chaos
> into
> which Russia was plunged thanks to combined efforts of Yeltsin's team,
> Western advisers, their state/capital backers, and thieving oligarchs:
>
> 1998 - World Health Organization: Health status of the Russian
> population
>
> "There has been a dramatic rise in mortality, which is both
> unprecedented in
> a twentieth century industrial nation and exceptionally costly in human
> terms. Since 1990 Russian male life expectancy at birth has declined by
> seven years and in 1994 was 57.3, on a par with Pakistan.
> Female life expectancy has been less profoundly affected but across the
> population as a whole 1 000 000 extra Russian deaths have occurred
> since the
> creation of the Russian Federation, which would not have occurred had
> the
> age and sex specific death rates for 1991 been maintained. While death
> rates
> now appear to have stabilized, the gap with the West remains
> catastrophic
> and a possible block to the reform process.
> [...]
> Children's nutritional status is more worrying with an increase in the
> prevalence of stunting; an indicator of chronic malnutrition; among
> children
> of two and under. This problem appears to have doubled between
> September
> 1992 and August 1993 and to remain high. At the outset of the survey
> 6.9% of
> infants from 0-24 months were stunted compared to 12.8% in December
> 1994.
> Children from 25 months to 6 years old showed less evidence of an
> increase
> in stunting
> although levels were higher at the outset with 9% falling into this
> category
> in 1992 and 10.4% in 1994. Other child health indicators are as
> distressing
> with up to 12% of the country's classified invalids being children.
> [...]
> Women's health, while it has been less affected in terms of mortality,
> is
> also severely compromised, particularly in relation to reproductive
> health.
> Maternal death rates are 51.6 per 100,000 live births (1993)14, five
> to ten
> times international levels, with particularly high rural rates. A high
> percentage of maternal deaths are due to abortion complications
> (29.4%),
> haemorrhagia (13.8%) and toxaemia (12%) of which 60% are believed to be
> avoidable. Access to birth control is still a major issue and abortion,
> following clandestine traditions established during the pro-natalist
> policy
> of the Stalinist era, remains the major form of contraception."
>
> See http://www.ecoi.net/doc/en/RU/content/9/1260-1274
Dr. Douglas Chalmers
Division of Economics and Enterprise
Glasgow Caledonian University
70 Cowcaddens Road
Glasgow G4 OBA
Scotland

Tel 	0141 331 3350
Fax 	0141 331 3293

http://www.cbs.gcal.ac.uk/content/eae/eae_staff_dchalmers.asp

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