Re: [Marxism] Bureaucracy and Revolutions (part a)

[Shane Mage <shmage@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On May 24, 2009, at 1:10 PM, Waistline2@xxxxxxx wrote:
>
> When Lenin wrote that electrification of Russia plus Soviet Power =  
> (is)
> communism, he was wrong practically and theoretically.

It is silly to treat a phrase in an article intended to emphasize that  
under NEP electrification of the whole country was the USSR's highest  
priority (which was why Trotsky was put in charge of electrification  
when he stepped down from the Commissariat for War) as some sort of  
theoretical pronouncement. What should be emphasized is the contrast  
of the Lenin-Trotsky policy to the outlook embodied in the phrase that  
Stalin pronounced to the Central Committee when he was denouncing the  
Opposition as superindustrializers: "Russia needs Dnieperstroy like  
the muzhik needs a gramophone"  (sure, Stalin reversed course on  
industrialization--but his contempt for the muzhik, as for the soviets  
themselves, only became even more monstrous).



Shane Mage

> This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it
> always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,
> kindling in measures and going out in measures."
>
> Herakleitos of Ephesos

________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: 
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40archives.econ.utah.edu