[PEN-L:9544] RE:

["Craven, Jim" <jcraven@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thank you for your comments and insights. Yes I do believe your insights are
worth being considered by others so I am posting them.

Ni-Kso-Ko-Wa

Jim Craven


-----Original Message-----
From: Macdonald Stainsby [mailto:mstainsby@xxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, July 22, 1999 4:21 PM
To: jcraven@xxxxxxxxx
Subject:



        I have a very similar instinct about such matters to you- as is why
I felt it neccessay to compliment you on putting things so succinctly. Your
explanation of both how anti- Marxist it truly is to ascribe the Hollywood
style individualism to faults within revolutions is a neccessity for us all.

I never once heard Marx say that Blanqui "betrayed" the Commune, although he

was bitterly explicit about his perception of the PC's demerits.
Commendations to you, for if others are going to say Mao is at fault for
creating famine in the Great Leap Forward (Mao alone, of course!), why will
they not hand him the mantle of being the one and only person who created
the largest scale socialist revolution in history? There are many examples
of the outcome of this twisted logic. Your clear understanding of
revolutionary excesses is welcome, especially since I, like yourself, have
not been directly involved.
      I have noticed that this is, for lack of a better description, a very
first world and white phenomenon (I am both). It is no accident that these
who can make no revolutions can actually pretend that they are "above" in
some kind of "pick and choose" way. It is to socialism as Social democracy
is to capitalism- an imaginary third way. Of course we must remain critical,

and neither of us wish to "defend" Pol Pot, I assume. But it really takes
the cake when I hear, for but one example, of how "evil" the Communist Party

Of Peru (aka Shining Path) is. As if they have some magic plan, and want to
tell the starving Peruvians to wait until they "understand". In fact, the
whole PCP is very much in line with what you refer to. They are an explosive

reaction to the betrayals, right and left, of all involved within Peru. It
is hardly surprising that the most impoverished and lied to (not to mention
repressed) peasants and indigenous people's would react in what they
perceive as "hard line" and uncompromising a fashion. What is truly
disgusting is people who can sit about lecturing them from glass houses and
Ivory Towers.

A much longer rant than I meant, you can repost this if you think it's
important.

Mac, from the other Vancouver.


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