Re: Posting for Marxism Forum

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Warren, I am posting this on your behalf but urge you to post directly to
the list in the future. This is done by sending your messages to the
address "marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx".

At 06:48 AM 11/2/99 -0500, you wrote:
>Dear Louis,
>
>I would like the following to be posted on the Marxism Forum, if that is
>acceptable. I am, as you probably know, a new subscriber and so I'm not
>sure this is the proper way to post messages. In any event, I hope this
>request is not inconveniencing you. Her is the message I would like posted,
>if possible:
>
>-------------------------------
>
>I am investigating, for academic purposes, what role "ideology" played in
>the formulation of Soviet foreign policy in the post-WW II era. Both in
>secondary literature and in newly-available Russian archival material, I
>have encountered frequent references to Stalin's "Leninist" obsessions, to
>"Marxist dogma" and to "Marxism-Leninism".  I have also seen allegations by
>prominent scholars that Malenkov's reaction to the first US hydrogen bomb
>test represented "heresy" in that departed from the "orthodox" Marxist
>assumption that any war with the Capitalist Camp would result in its
>destruction and therefore be of benefit to Socialism.
>
>For example, in a 10 March 1994 paper presented to the Norwegian Nobel
>Institute, Yuri N.Smirnov and Vladislav M. Zubok discussed Moscow's entry
>into the hydrogen bomb age.  Smirnov is Leading Researcher at the Russian
>Research Center Kurchatov Institute, and Zubok is a noted Russian historian
>specializing in the Cold War, currently at the US National Security
>Archives in Washington, DC.
>
>There is, in this paper, considerable discussion of the ideological dilemma
>America's first hydrogen bomb test created for the Kremlin. The authors
>allege that Stalin "left to his successors his orthodox vision of
>international affairs, based on Leninist theory.........." Later, the paper
>refers to Malenkov's public pronouncement that "other means" would have to
>be found to deal with the West, in light of the obvious fact that "war
>between the USSR and the United States .........would mean the end of world
>civilization."
>
>As factual history has shown us, Malenkov was attacked (and brought down)
>by others in the Kremlin for having departed from what the Smirnov/Zubok
>paper calls the "orthodox Marxist-Leninist ideology, which 'scientifically'
>ordained socialism's triumph in any future conflict."  The paper proceeds
>to remind that Malenkov was, in the interests of good socialist
>self-criticism, forced to face the public once again and recant, claiming
>that what he really meant to say that any attempt by the Capitalist Camp to
>use thermonuclear weapons against the Soviet Union would result in their
>being crushed by the same weapons. Malenkov's remarks were termed "heresy."
>
>Again, I refer to the Smirnov/Zubok paper only as one example of the broad
>use in secondary literature and archival material of the terms "Marxism",
>"Leninism", "Marxism-Leninism", "orthodox", "heresy" etc, in references to
>ideological motivation and discussion within the Kremlin, as it wrestled
>with the necessity to deal with the West following World War II and into
>the nuclear age.
>
>I would welcome any comments and suggestions Forum members might have on
>this apparently loose employment of labels intended to describe the
>ideology that drove Soviet foreign policy formulation during that period of
>time.  Were the ideological commitments in the Kremlin extensions of
>"Marxism", adapted to the changing world, or did they represent dramatic
>departures from "Marxism".  Did "orthodox Marxism"  assume that war between
>the Capitalist and Communist camps was eventually inevitable? Was
>Malenkov's warning about the devastating consequences of thermonuclear
>weapons really "heresy"? If so, heresy to what? How would you describe and
>define the ideology that lay behind Soviet policy formulation after 1945?
>
>ENDNOTE:  I have not included footnotes in this message simply because my
>software makes this awkward, however I would be pleased to supply citations
>for the above quotes, should anyone be interested.
>
>Thank you.
>
>Warren Williams
>History department
>University of Wales
>E-mail: RANGERWILL@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>

Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)