Re: Re: Milosevic out?

[Jim Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I wrote:
> >On the drunkenness of the anti-Milosevic forces: we should remember after
> >the October revolution, Lenin and Trotsky found themselves dealing with the
> >mass drunkenness of the victorious workers in Petrograd. I would guess that
> >all revolutions involving mass mobilizations (as opposed to putsches,
> >guerilla wars, etc.) include alcohol. Booze gives people the courage to
> >rebel against the established authority, to go beyond the normal bounds of
> >politics. It also is encouraged by the moment of liberation itself, as
> >people celebrate their victories, however temporary.

Louis responds:
> The Russian Revolution was the product of the most advanced thinking in
> capitalist society. Every step in the direction toward seizing power was
> decided on the basis of calm reflection of the relationship of forces, etc.

I disagree. Lenin's opinions changed several times during the years
building up to 1917, while the opinions of his party changed several times
within that year. Mass uprisings in both the city and the countryside
changed the balance of forces, driving these changes. In many ways, the
Bolshevik party were a "dependent variable" rather than the "independent
variable" of the Anarchist putsch myth (these bad guys grabbed power) or
the "Leninist" view that a small group of strong heads can engineer a
revolution.

In any event, mass drunkenness was part of the process.

> The anti-Milosevic mobs were more like those that overthrew Mossadegh or
> Allende.

Please don't equate Milosevic, a total opportunist and rapid nationalist
(though he and his wife mouth socialist rhetoric when it's convenient),
with Allende, a socialist leader. It dirties the latter's memory.

> Please let's not dignify a rightwing attack on a parliament that was
> elected without any "massive" voter fraud according to an op-ed piece in
> the NY Times this week written by a Woodrow Wilson scholar.

I wasn't talking about that specific event; rather, the point is that
drunkenness is an irrelevant charge unless put into a larger
political-economic context. But I have no doubt that the pro-Milosevic
parliament could have been elected without massive voter fraud. After all,
Kostunica and most of the opposition, like Milosevic is Serb nationalist,
while the grass-roots campaign against Milosevic probably fell for the
US/NATO propaganda that One Evil Man was the source of Serbia's problems
and so didn't vote against his parliamentary candidates. (They're not
against his political party as much as him.)

BTW, I think that the phrase "right-wing" is singularly unenlightening in
this context. The mass, popular battle against a failed political boss
might be seen as left-wing, while it might be seen as "right-wing" because
it speeds up Serbia's subordination to the international Powers that Be.
Similarly, the event could be seen as "revolutionary" (good) since, for a
few months perhaps, the new government will have to respond more to the
organized power of workers and peasants (rather than the co-opted power of
workers' and peasants' organizations within the old system), but
"counterrevolutionary" (bad) because Serbia will go the way of Romania or
some such.

BTW, Louis what was your position on the popular overthrow of Ceaucescu
(sp??) of Romania? was his regime socialist, so that the overthrow was
reactionary? or what?

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine