[Marxism] Critical support

["Nestor Gorojovsky" <nestorgoro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2007 17:21:17 +0200
> From: Einde O'Callaghan <einde@xxxxxx>
> Subject: Re: [Marxism] "While we trade abstractions, people are
> dying?" (was,
>  me bear-proof?)

Dear Einde, the Soviet Union was not a semicolony. Zimbabwe is. I am 
as keen of the Old Man as you are, but I do not forget that he 
understood that between a semicolony and an imperialist nation, the 
duty of any radical was with the semicolony.

Critical support, under such a condition, implies remembering that 
'critical' is ADJECTIVE to 'support'.  Trotsky did _not_ choose the 
term "supportive criticism", much less the term "unsupportive 
criticism". So that if one stands with LDT, then must support Mugabe 
and criticize him (if one can do so) by generating a bolder and more 
coherent alternative to offer to the Z. masses.

If you can't do the second, there are many things you can do. But you 
shouldn't quote LDT to that effect.

Best,

> 
> Reading some of the criticisms of the criticisms of Mugabe, I'm sadly
> reminded of the arguments I often heard about Russia from die-hard
> Stalinists. Their position was basically that any criticism of the
> Soviet Union objectively supported the position of the Western
> imperialists. This seemed to me at the time - and still does - to be
> simply a mirror image of the argument that "my enemy's enemy is my
> friend" - and is just as false.
> 
> I was reminded of this today while reading some of Trotsky's comments
> after the victory of the Nazis in Germany:
> 
> "The so-called friends of the Soviet Union (left democrats, pacifists,
> Brandlerites, and the like) repeat the argument of the Comintern
> functionaries that the struggle against the Stalinist bureaucracy,
> i.e., first of all criticism of its false policies, 'helps the
> counter-revolution.' This is the standpoint of the political lackeys
> of the bureaucracy, but never that of revolutionists. The Soviet Union
> both internally and externally can be defended only by means of a
> correct policy. All other considerations are either secondary or
> simply lying phrases." (Trotsky: "To Build Communist Parties and an
> International Anew",
> <http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1930-ger/330715.htm>)
> 
> I realise that not all people on this list identify with the
> Trotskyist tradition in any sense, but some of those who have argued
> for uncritical support for Mugabe do come from this tradition. Perhaps
> they should remember some of the better aspects of the tradition
> before the epigones got their hands on it. Who the epigones are/were I
> leave up to you - it will probably depend on the particular tendency
> or tendencies you were politicised in.
> 
> Einde O'Callaghan
> 
> 
> 



Este correo lo ha enviado
Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
nestorgoro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[No necesariamente es su autor]
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"La patria tiene que ser la dignidad arriba y el regocijo abajo".
Aparicio Saravia
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