[Marxism] Banal Platitudes and Marxism-Clulesslism

["Jurriaan Bendien" <andromeda246@xxxxxxxxx>]

CB: Quotes from Marx, Engels and Lenin would be articulation of a guide to
action ,not a dogma, wouldn't it ? Engels explicitly characterized Marx and
Engels theory in this way in contrast with dogma.

I have no objection to quotes, I am looking at the intent and how they're
used. I think you have to place the text in the context within which it was
written and deconstruct it.

Why did Stalin see fit to pronounce on these philosophical-theoretical
issues at all? Essentially, because Marxism-Leninist ideology functioned as
a means of legitimating and unifying the party-state, and because the party
bureaucracy sought to lay down the law for the intellectuals and the
schools.

It was a political intervention, where the highest authority in the
bureaucratic hierarchy pronounced a verdict about what people should
believe. It's not unlike an ecclesiastical canon in the catholic church
(bear in mind that the Russian republics up to that time comprised mainly
deeply religious people).

The statements themselves are so general, that they can be interpreted in
numerous ways, and really don't provide much guidance - but the bureaucracy
adjudicated on the correct interpretation of the text, it was also in charge
of what might be quoted or not quoted legitimately.

Stalin just asserted his world authority in defining what Marxism is about,
and the pamphet is written in such a way, that the communist movement could
hardly disagree with it. It was the culmination of the bureaucratic
ossification of Marxist thought.

If you deconstruct the text, I think you have to pay attention to the
"silences" in the text, i.e. what is left unsaid. That is really what is
most significant about it.

I rather like Trotsky's quip: "every petty bureaucrat thinks he's standing
on the shoulders of Karl Marx directing the course of history".

Die I lacked a call Ma tear I all ism. His store I call Ma tear I all ism.
Yea.

Jurriaan


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