Re: AUT: Argentina: Diary of a Revolution

["Nate Holdren" <nateholdren@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Scott-
You said

> > It is sad that we have to have a debate on this list
> > over whether it is possible or even desirable to make
> > revolution in Argentina in the short-term.


Some of us on this list don't think of revolution in the same way you do.
I'm not entirely opposed to the idea of seizing state power, but I don't see
seizing state power as synonymous with revolution. Instead I'd say it's (at
best) one of those 'left reforms' that you're unhappy about. I'm much more
interested in thinking (and acting) revolution as excersizing power instead
of taking it.
This rests in part on a fairly unsophisticated dis-satisfaction with what I
see as a useless model of revolution and 'revolutionary' organizations. It
also rests in part on reading work by John Holloway, Harry Cleaver, and
others, much of which is quite dense and I admit I don't fully understand,
but which lends some theoretical support to this position and provides me
with the beginning of an understanding as to why a state centered model of
revolution (and revolutionary activity and organization) is not going to
have the result that I want.

If you'd like to discuss some of that material onlist at least I for one
would be interested, much more so than fighting about issues that won't be
resolved by people with such very different starting points (like you a
vanguardist and me a perhaps confused non-vanguardist).

I know this probably makes me a Menshevik or a Kautskyite or some other
ghost from yesteryear that I haven't read about, but so be it.

I'm going to end this email with a quote from Harald's post that I think
bears repeating.

>I might end by saying that I veiw what we have seen in Argentina
>as one of the most promising developments we have seen
>in the post-world War II period. Hopefully it will also be
>contagious. In all circumstances all teh concrete expereriences
>made are very valuable ( and far more interesting than talking
>about Menseheviks in relation to contemporary reality.)

cheers,
Nate

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