Re: Forwarded from Jurriaan Bendien

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>> lnp3@xxxxxxxxx 12/29/00 06:19PM >>>
On 28 December Charles Brown queried in response to a comment of mine on
historical inevitability as follows:

So , were Marx and Engels Stalinists when they said in _The Manifesto of
the Communist Party_"What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all,
are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are
equally inevitable. "

My answer is, no. Rhetorical flourishes about the inevitability of
proletarian redemption are not a uniquely Stalinist trait, and can be found
in many socialist currents.

(((((((((

CB: Here's what you had said:

>>> j.bendien@xxxxxxxxxx 12/27/00 08:28PM >>>

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According to the Stalinist interpretation of historical materialism (to
which Althusser incidentally still to a great extent subscribes, with his
"process without a subject"), history is determined by iron laws impervious
to the intervention of individuals and groups. Thus, for instance,
socialism is portrayed as the inevitable successor of capitalism, a product
of historical laws working themselves out with iron necessity in a sequence
of steps or stages.

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CB:  I then said:

So , were Marx and Engels Stalinists when they said in _The Manifesto of the 
Communist
Party_

"What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. 
Its
fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable. "

**********

So, are you telling me you meant to say you share what you call the Stalinist
interpretation of historical materialism on this issue ? or what ?

Charles Brown