RE: [Marxism] Challenge to Lenin & Trotsky experts

["Joaquin Bustelo" <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Steve Masterson wrote: 

  I put this challenge or question on the Green-Left list of 900
  members several days ago. Not one comrade could meet
  the challenge. Let us see if the Marxism list can do any better.
   
  I am contending that the essence of Karl Marx's work was not
  properly understood by any of his followers.
   
  " . the alteration of men [Menschen = humans] on a mass scale, an
alteration which can only take place in a practical movement, a revolution;
the revolution is needed, not only because the ruling class cannot be
overthrown in any other way, but also because the class overthrowing it can
only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself of all the muck of ages and
become fitted to found society anew." (Karl Marx - MECW, vol 5, p 53). 

*  *  *

Response one: Listen to Fidel's speeches. Especially the ones in recent
years about the battle of ideas.

*  *  *

Two: I could paste the entire pamphlet, but I'll stick with just this:

"There is the danger that the forest will not be seen for the trees. The
pipe dream that socialism can be achieved with the help of the dull
instruments left to us by capitalism (the commodity as the economic cell,
profitability, individual material interest as a lever, etc.) can lead into
a blind alley. When you wind up there after having traveled a long distance
with many crossroads, it is hard to figure out just where you took the wrong
turn. Meanwhile, the economic foundation that has been laid has done its
work of undermining the development of consciousness. To build communism it
is necessary, simultaneous with the new material foundations, to build the
new man and woman."

[another excerpt]

"This institutionalization of the revolution has not yet been achieved. We
are looking for something new that will permit a complete identification
between the government and the community in its entirety, something
appropriate to the special conditions of the building of socialism, while
avoiding at all costs transplanting the commonplaces of bourgeois democracy
- such as legislative chambers, for example - into the society in formation.


"Some experiments aimed at the gradual institutionalization of the
revolution have been made, but without undue haste. The greatest brake has
been our fear lest any appearance of formality might separate us from the
masses and from the individual, which might make us lose sight of the
ultimate and most important revolutionary aspiration: to see human beings
liberated from their alienation."

Ernesto Che Guevara
"Socialism and Man in Cuba"

*  *  *

Three: This is at a much more concrete and immediate level

"Our state apparatus is so deplorable, not to say wretched, that we must
first think very carefully how to combat its defects, bearing in mind that
these defects are rooted in the past, which, although it has been
overthrown, has not yet been overcome, has not yet reached the stage of a
culture, that has receded into the distant past. I say culture deliberately,
because in these matters we can only regard as achieved what has become part
and parcel of our culture, of our social life, our habits. We might say that
the good in our social system has not been properly studied, understood, and
taken to heart; it has been hastily grasped at; it has not been verified or
tested, corroborated by experience, and not made durable, etc. Of course, it
could not be otherwise in a revolutionary epoch, when development proceeded
at such break-neck speed that in a matter of five years we passed from
tsarism to the Soviet system.

"It is time we did something about it. We must show sound scepticism for too
rapid progress, for boastfulness, etc. We must give thought to testing the
steps forward we proclaim every hour, take every minute and then prove every
second that they are flimsy, superficial and misunderstood. The most harmful
thing here would be haste. The most harmful thing would be to rely on the
assumption that we know at least something, or that we have any considerable
number of elements necessary for the building of a really new state
apparatus, one really worthy to be called socialist, Soviet, etc.

"No, we are ridiculously deficient of such an apparatus, and even of the
elements of it, and we must remember that we should not stint time on
building it, and that it will take many, many years.

"What elements have we for building this apparatus? Only two. First, the
workers who are absorbed in the struggle of socialism. These elements are
not sufficient educated. They would like to build a better apparatus for us,
but they do not know how. They cannot build one. They have not yet developed
the culture required for this; and it is culture that is required. Nothing
will be achieved in this by doing things in a rush, by assault, by vim or
vigour, or in general, by any of the best human qualities. Secondly, we have
elements of knowledge, education and training, but they are ridiculously
inadequate compared with all other countries."

V.I. Lenin
"Better Fewer but Better"

*  *  *

Now a question for Masterson:

Why the fetishism with the quotes?


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