Re: need for apology ?

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jurriaan:
>What Perry Anderson popularised in the Anglo-Saxon world as "Western
>Marxism", from Sartre to Althusser, arose precisely in reaction to Stalin's
>and Mao's peasant ideology. But many Anglo-Saxon academic readers of those
>beautifully designed, overpriced books by NLR/Verso don't understand this,
>they don't understand the context, the meaning, and the overall destructive
>effect of Stalinist "Marxism-Leninism" on Marxist culture, and they don't
>understand the real politics that gave rise to all the sophisticated
>conceptualisations and postmodernist rationalisations.

Actually, I am re-reading Anderson's marvelous book right
now--"Considerations on Western Marxism"--which along with his "On the
Tracks of Historical Materialism" is a must for understanding the political
drift of the left academy.

This might seem like a quibble, but Anderson blames Stalinism only in part.
More importantly, Western Marxism was a response to the *defeat* of the
revolutionary movement throughout Europe which was only partially the fault
of the Stalinized parties. The most momentous defeat in Germany in 1924 was
the product of the Comintern during its "heroic" period. Furthermore, Mao's
peasant ideology hardly enters the picture at all. An entry for Mao is not
even found in the index, while there are dozens of pages referencing
Adorno. This will give you a sense of Anderson's focus.

Of course it is sad that Perry Anderson, who wrote this book while very
close to Ernest Mandel's Fourth International, has succumbed to the very
illness that he was so anxious to cure in this 1974 book. I received the
latest copy of NLR just the other day and tried to figure out why I bother
to subscribe.

There's an excellent piece by Edward Said, but one that has already
appeared in various formats on the Internet. There's an article by Robert
Brenner called "The Boom and the Bubble" which leaves him scratching his
head why the world economy has not collapsed, even after he wrote an
article 2 years ago predicting that it would. Now that the economy appears
to be actually collapsing, we find our good professor once more behind the
curve.

Actually, I know why I continue to subscribe. There's a fascinating
interview with Wang Hui on "A New Left in China". Wang is the editor of
Wushu, a left journal. Here's an excerpt:

Q: How did liberals?still the great majority of Chinese intellectuals?react
to the Balkan War? Presumably the outburst of popular feeling was a
discomfitting phenomenon for them, since it was directed against the very
Western powers to which many looked with boundless admiration?it must have
seemed like an attack on what is in some ways their ideal. But equally it
must have been difficult for them to defend the NATO bombing?

A: The war was a big crisis for them. Whereas we supported the popular
movement against the bombing, they opposed it. Their dislike of the
demonstrations was not based just on their sympathy?which in the
circumstances could not be openly expressed?for the West, or their alarm at
the way the government used them, but also on their long-term attitude to
the Chinese masses. Most liberals view ordinary Chinese benevolently so
long as they are helping to develop the market as consumers. For them the
danger of popular nationalism is that the masses may become not only too
critical of the West, but also too mobilized as citizens?veering away from
the passive role of consumers to the more active one of militants. They are
fearful of popular participation, always remembering its negative examples,
and rarely seeing the positive potential of social movements as a condition
of democracy. Since civil rights themselves are historically anchored
within the structure of the nation-state, the typical narrative of Western
liberalism directly connects nationalism and democracy. But Chinese
liberals never face these connexions. They only believe in the Open Door
and the global system. All China needs to do is to enter the
?mainstream??this is the term they use?and then everything will be okay.
For them, integration into the world system is the only pass to democracy.
This disbelief in the democratic potential of social movements is why more
and more of the younger generation are turning away from them. If you log
onto the internet now, you find a lot of criticisms of them. In that sense
they have become quite isolated, even while they continue to represent the
mainstream in intellectual circles?though even there, an increasing number
of people have become less neutral, as between the Left and the Right.
Fewer now define themselves simply as liberals.


Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/