Re: [Marxism] Russia & USA

["Nestor Gorojovsky" <nestorgoro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Respuesta a: Re: [Marxism] Russia & USA
Remitido por: Louis Proyect
Fecha: Jueves 20 de Enero de 2005 
Hora: 16:50
*****

> 
> >b) As the US was expanding, it employed mass killing and
> >deportation to clear the land of natives, while the
> >Russian elite incorporated local elites into itself and
> >assimilated the natives. This is why there is a Tatarstan,
> >Tajikistan, Bashkiria, Chuvashia, etc., but no Apachestan
> >or Hopi Autonomous District. Chuvash is a language with a
> >million books. How many people speak Mohican nowadays?"
> >
> >Jurriaan
> 
> How very nice of the Russian elites. Mussolini was not as bad as
> Hitler, as far as that goes.
> 


I think that Louis is unfair here with the Russian ruling classes.  

But at the same time, it should be strictly noted that if these 
ruling classes were able to coopt local leaderships and allow local 
usages to remain, it does not mean that this was more "progressive" 
than the murderous policies of the American ruling classes.

The Russian landlords, State bureaucrats, etc., could spare the 
hunger of land and thirst for energetic resources simply because 
their country was not undergoing the expansion of a full fledged 
capitalist economy.  Trotsky wrote, somewhere, a very illuminating 
sentence on this:  "Russia acquired its space in extension, not in 
depth".  The American bourgeoisie (that is, the US) acquired  its 
space _both_ in extension and in depth.  That is why local 
populations _had_ to be elliminated, their cultures slaughtered, etc.

The cultural results, however, are exactly those that Juriaan points 
out.  Thus, the social and economic backwardness of Russia implied a 
cultural vent for the populations subjected by the Empire.  

Alas,. not all those populations could boast such a benefit.  Take my 
grandpa, old Mr. Gorojovsky, for example, or -I assume- Mr. Proyect 
(Louis's grandpa), both excluded from the ethnographic paradise of 
the Jail of Peoples.  I don't know what was the reason for Mr. 
Proyect's decision to take the boat.  But my own grandfather left 
Russia under the impression of "cultural richness and tolerance" left 
in his mind by the pogrom of Kishiniov.

Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
nestorgoro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 
"Sí, una sola debe ser la patria de los sudamericanos".
Simón Bolívar al gobierno secesionista y disgregador de 
Buenos Aires, 1822
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 



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