[Marxism] Re: Another Chavez or another Lula?

[Brian Shannon <brian_shannon@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

>On Jan 5, 2006, at 10:38 AM, Mehmet Cagatay wrote:
>But Mr. Rubinelli, I suppose Mr. Lippmann did not accuse
you Bolivians about making early judgments on Morales, but
rather the non-Bolivians who daydream a victorious revolution
or denounce Morales as a capitalist in essential, without a
contact to the conditions of Bolivia.


Marx wrote about the whole world, including conditions in China,  
Russia, India, and the United States, none of which he ever visited.  
Subsequent knowledge corrected some of what he wrote, but doesn't  
invalidate his insights for the time. Nor has anyone thought it  
correct to say that he should have simply shut up.

Engels wrote some of the articles for him. Engels also gave advice to  
American socialists and wrote about early humans, whom he did not  
know either. Had he waited, he would have been dead. Subsequent  
writers have damned or praised him, but none have claimed that he  
simply should have shut up.

Leaders of the 3rd International, during the early years, gave some  
good advice and some that was not so good. The greatest criticism of  
them is not that they advised, but that they ordered. In fact, the  
whole structure of the 3rd Intl was inimical to independent acting.  
However, surely no one thinks that the comments made by Marxists on  
an internet list in the U.S., who haven't even created a viable party  
of their own, are going to affect the Latin American revolution  
except in the mildest and most sympathetic way.

My objection to some aspects of this debate is only partially with  
the ones who claim that we should brand all the PRESENT leaders of  
the Latin American masses as those who should be emulated and  
praised. Some of those in sycophantic solidarity with what exists  
NOW, insist that it is alright to comment on Latin America, but only  
if you do it to applause. In fact, the more effusive the praise the  
more strident the attack on those who say let's look more deeply,  
let's see what will happen next, let's try to understand what  
revolutionists probably have to do in this and similar situations.

What good is it to simply praise? It doesn't help the present state  
leaders in the Americas. They don't need it. It doesn't help the  
urban and agricultural workers. Those revolutionists who simply want  
to praise help no one. We may as well be like our opponents in the  
past who sat around singing kum-bay-ah.

We should look on exciting developments that have unfolded in Latin  
America as opportunities for revolutionists to develop and/or  
strengthen their own movements, which will have to replace the  
present capitalist states and its leaders in struggle.

I say this without at all denigrating the personal view and courage  
of such leaders as Chavez, Lula, Morales, etc. Where they will  
personally end up is not historically important, but that the  
governments and state structures that they now head will have to be  
overthrown in order for these nations to overcome underdevelopment  
and enslavement to imperialism is absolutely unquestionable. If not,  
the years that Fred, Joaquin, others and I have spent studying the  
theories and practice of Marx, Lenin, and Trotsky have been a chimera— 
which I don't believe.

Nor do I believe that the pragmatic lessons of Guatemala, Cuba,  
Algeria, Nicaragua, and Chile contradict this.

Brian Shannon

 
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