[Marxism] Deutscher Prize: Who Moderates the Moderator?

["Brian Kelly" <b.kelly@xxxxxxxxx>]

A regular reader of this list but not someone who has posted to it in the
past, I feel compelled to respond to the moderator’s inappropriate and
highly personal comments about Kevin Murphy’s fine and important study,
“Revolution and Counterrevolution in a Moscow Metal Factory,” [HYPERLINK
"http://www.berghahnbooks.com/title.php?rowtag=MurphyRevolution"http://www.b
erghahnbooks.com/title.php?rowtag=MurphyRevolution] being awarded the
Deutscher Prize. Obviously there is a long history of antagonism between
Murphy and Louis Proyect that most of us are unaware of, but if this site is
going to boast of being an open and non-sectarian forum for discussion on
the Left, the moderator should in my opinion try harder to contain his
personal animosity and avoid the kind of ‘rancid postings’ that he claims to
deplore. Murphy’s book, according to one of the leading historians of soviet
labour history, is “an impeccably researched case study of the vicissitudes
of workers’ politics on the shop floor, which charts the rise and fall of
worker activism [through three successive periods].…” His publisher,
Berghahn, describes it as a study “based on exhaustive research in four
factory-specific archives [and] unquestionably the most thorough
investigation to date on working-class life during the revolutionary era.”
Neither of these exaggerate the importance or the originality of Murphy’s
work, in my view: it is the first archival-driven study to present a direct
challenge to Cold War historiography on the October Revolution and to
confirm the revolutionary marxist account of the triumph of Stalinism, and
thus a book of no small importance, I would suggest, for readers of this
list and for marxist historiography generally. 

 

I cannot comment on the discussion that Proyect cites in support of his
assertion that Murphy is a ‘right-wing social democrat,’ but having known
the author for nearly thirty years I can tell you that while he can be a
cantankerous bastard at times, the moderator’s characterization of Murphy’s
politics is smear, and in my view nastily executed at that.  Having observed
over a long period of time the completely uncritical veneration of the
Castro regime prevalent on this list, including a recent post explaining how
wonderfully the regime had explained to ordinary Cubans its decision to
raise the price of (intermittently available) electricity, I can easily see
how an extended argument between the moderator and a critic of Cuban state
capitalism could degenerate quickly into mud-slinging on both sides.  

 

Murphy’s study represents an important achievement for marxist
historiography, and will be the object of determined attack from within the
ranks of smug professionals anxious to exorcise the ghost of the October
Revolution in a context where marxism is again gaining a hearing among a new
generation of activists. Louis is entitled to carry on whatever argument he
wants to pursue with Murphy elsewhere, but that does not diminish the
importance of Kevin’s work for marxist historiography, an achievement
appropriately recognized by the Deutscher committee.  

 

 

Brian Kelly

 

Deutscher Prize recipient 2002:

Race, Class and Power in the Alabama Coalfields, 1908-1921

 

 

 


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