Individuals and "Popular Justice"

[glevy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Chris, London wrote:

>a) each historical circumstance was different and must be analysed in its own
> right. Eg collecitivization was done in China with little loss of
> life; the movement to the communises, coupled with the "Great Leap Forward"
> led to a great loss of life in the famine years.

I wrote a lengthy post on the "Cultural Revolution" some time back that
attempted to put the CR in a historical perspective. None of the
supporters of Mao chose to respond to it.

> b) there was a dynamic to events which was to some extent beyond the
> consciousness of any one individual. To ascribe events just to one
> individual is an idealist approach to history.

This is the second time recently that Chris has presented this fallacy.
It may be true that a  perspective which looks at history from the
standpoint of individuals is idealist. It is a fallacy, however, to
conclude that individuals within a specific social formation at a
particular moment in time, subject to the prior existence of certain
state and other social institutions, can't control events to a great
extent. In particular, a perspective that does *not* recognize the role
of Stalin's individual decision-making ignores the totalitarian form of
state rule and the degree to which party and state institutions were
under the control of that individual. Mao and Pol Pot, as well, were not
simply individuals, but were individuals who controlled, in an
authoritarian and undemocratic manner, institutions of the state and the
party.

The question of *how* individuals were able to assume these positions of
power is a historical one. Certainly, there is the tendency by some to
suggest that the social institutions *themselves* are the product of
individual will, rather than social forces. This is one reason why it is
important to distinguish Stalin, the individual, from Stalinism.

> I would be interested in the general direction in which Jerry sees the
> remedy lying.

Workers' democracy.


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