Re: Comments on Louis' History of Trotskyism and Vladimir is not been candid!

[m-14970@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Hugh Rodwell)]

Zeynep, forgetting to change the name of the thread, but otherwise raising
the level of discourse, as usual, writes:

>".. Proletarian revolutions, like those of the 19th century, criticise
>themselves constantly, interrupt themselves continually in their own course,
>come back to the apparently accomplished in order to begin it afresh, deride
>with unmerciful thoroughness the inadequecies, weaknesses and paltrinesses
>of their first attempts, seem to throw down their adversary only in order
>that he may draw new strength from the earth and rise again, more gigantic,
>before them, recoil ever and anon from the indefinite prodigiousness of
>their own aims, until
>a situation has been created which makes all turning back impossible, and
>the conditions themselves cry out:
>        Hic Rhodus, hic salta!
>        Here is the rose, here dance!"
>
>(Marx, somewhere in 18th Brumaire)
>
>Which is, imo, at least, if not more, as courageous and revolutionary as
>"assuming the revolution's 'horror's without cowardly reservations".

The passage comes right at the start, four or five pages into the work.
It's still in Hegel mode, as the following note from the Progress
Publishers edition shows:

        Hic Rhodus, hic salta! (Here is Rhodes, leap here!) -- These words
(from
        Aesop's fable the Swaggerer), addressed to a swaggerer claiming that he
        had made a remarkable leap in Rhodes, mean 'show right here what
you can
        do!'

        Here is the rose, here dance! -- this paraphrase of the preceding
        quotation is used by Hegel in the preface to his work Grundlinien der
        Philosophie des Rechts (Principles of the Philosophy of Right. In
Greek
        Rhodes, the name of the island, means also 'rose'.

The problem with 'assuming horrors without cowardly reservations' is that
it psychologizes the whole relationship of revolutionaries to the tasks of
making a revolution. This is very counterproductive, as Adolfo's
contributions make abundantly clear.

More on the subsidiary, derivative  character of psychological judgements
such as courage, cowardice, loyalty etc some other time. The primary thing
is understanding what has to be done, and doing it.

Cheers,

Hugh




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