[PEN-L:32451] Re: Re: Re: Rx6: Joanne- re 2WW - I almost forgot

[Waistline2@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 11/20/02 5:11:02 PM Pacific Standard Time, michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:

> What is this strange fascination with Stalin?
> -- 
> Michael Perelman
> Economics Department
> California State University
> Chico, CA 95929
>
> Tel. 530-898-5321
> E-Mail michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx




To a not small degree it is I that periodically challenge those who raise the issue of the Stalin period. My reasoning is not to bore the readers but to examine the economic framework under which Soviet socialism operated and its law of value or the value form. 

Then the is the matter of the codification of materialist dialectics and how this conception of process was articulated by a previous generation of Marxist in power. It is true that I am fascinated with the Stalin period but have never had a desire to study his personal life. 

Part of my personal intellectual growth was in connection with large scale industrial production during that era of American history when the auto industry was still the classical arena of technological advance. On the level of theory, my framework of Marxism expresses having lived a 30 year period of a massive change in the organic composition of capital - the increasing use of advancing robotics as a machine operator, assembler and union rep. 

The frustration was witnessing this change and not being able to unravel its internal logic for the better part of twenty years. This led to studying some writings on tools development and usage within Soviet society and intensive and extensive evolution of machinery. It was exceptionally fascinating. The impulse to revolutionize industrial production under capital is driven by competition in the marketplace and this revolutionizing takes place very different under Soviet socialism. 

I always understood that robotics replaced human being and had read the better part of Stalin's 13 volumes at an early age. Most of his writings have to do with industrialization of the country as opposed to political struggle, but most folks don't know that. 

This question of the Soviet Union and Stalin has occupied a portion of my daily thinking for 31 years. Not just the internal party struggle, which was ultra complex. It is quite easy to understand a physical reaction resulting from a physical attack. This same "action" and "reaction" becomes much more complex in the social arena when a particular political policy or act may not have any direct result until many years later. 

Now it is true that I am a Stalin man in the same way that a person might be a Thomas Jefferson kind of democrat, which does not mean they support implementing slavery. The point is that I began to grasp what was being described by the Marxist in power once I made a leap outside of all the ideological categories. 

The Marxist in the Soviet Union were not communist in the sense of the logic of economic development. They were ideological communist based on reading books and a political desire. Actually, the previous generation of Marxist in America were not communist or even revolutionary except in the purely ideological sense. One can only be revolutionary when conditions have ripened for revolution. Historically, the previous generations could only be industrial reformers because of the time framework and evolutionary development in the material power of the productive forces. Joining a political group or espousing a particular doctrine does not make revolutionaries. Fighting the good fight does not make one revolutionary or progressive today either, and this includes me first and foremost. 

Sir, the fascination is the unfolding of the value form and defining what is meant by the revolution in the material power of the productive forces. Forget Stalin and call it the Stalin - stallin, Period of time. The "stall" is the recognition that "something is rotten in Rome," and the leap is not possible based on electromechanical means of production. 

Hey, the American peoples are very far advanced from the "stallin period" of time. 

The communist class has arisen but ideology confuses matters. Here is an example. Comrade Stalin said the American workers could best gauge the advance of Soviet society. 

Check this out for a minute: I am not "the American worker" but rather a black worker that is in  a "revolutionary position" and all such other crap. 

The "stallin (Stalin) period is fascinating because if you check it out it's like the catch 22 proposition. 

Mr. Michael Perelman, my commitment is to be interesting and thought provoking. And to remain several steps ahead of the ideologues. 

Can I get an honorary degree in self study for unraveling the value form? I want this for me and hard thinking.