Re: need for apology ?

["Macdonald Stainsby" <mstainsby@xxxxxxxxxx>]

> It's like saying we shouldn't discuss instances of political repression in
> Cuba on the list, "because it might harm Castro's position".
>

If you answered thew question "what is Castroism?" with: "Anything bad on the 
left".
then you wold have the same idea. What is close to anti-communism is the 
wholesale
labelling of all episodes in existing socialist states that were bad as 
"Stalinist
perversion" and all that works/ed as Marxist.

One can talk about the purges and many other grave distortions of the ideals of 
the
Russian Revolution without sectarian shorthand labels. I have noticed on this 
list a
tendency to call this "Stalinism" Actually existing socialism. If actually 
existing
socialism is too positive, still others call it "actually existing socialism".

Whatever...it just means you can make the same point without gettting anybody's 
back
twisted in a knot.

Macdonald