Re: [Marxism] ISO's conference.

[Sam B <sam.b.ann.arbor@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 9:15 PM, John <johnedmundson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Actually I'm unconvinced that the questions around the SU are important
> in any sense that they are held to be in these groups.
>
> In terms of the US, or the West generally, how are they useful?
>
> Does the West have a problem of mass illiteracy, leading to a risk of
> dependence on the old bureaucracy in a post-revolutionary future?
>
> In other words, does the West face material conditions even remotely
> similar to those faced by the Bolsheviks?

The questions are important even to the West. Why?

History has shown that revolutions do happen in peasant societies
(China, Vietnam, Nepal) which are not very unlike Russia in 1917.

When they happen, the West has to decide how to orient themselves to
those revolutions, what position to take, etc.

Your positions on the SU's trajectory are going to color what position
you take on what's now happening in Nepal, for example. (For instance,
one way to look at Nepal is that 2006 was Nepal's 1905, and 2009
was/is Nepal's 1917...)

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