Re: Output Falling in Oil-Rich Mexico, and Politics Get the Blame

[Julio Huato <juliohuato@xxxxxxxxx>]

I wrote:

> But, to paraphrase Zinoviev, you cannot educate the masses with your
> agitation and you cannot agitate the masses with your propaganda.
> It's like two parallel lines.  They go on without touching each other.

Carrol commented:

> I'm not familiar with the original you paraphrase,

Well, first, to clarify.  I messed it up.  I didn't mean to say that
agitation and propaganda should be like two parallel lines.  I meant
that this is an unhealthy disconnect I observe in the U.S. between
class grassroots organizing and radical propaganda groups.

With regards to the original phrasing, I was referring to Zinoviev's
exchanges with Europeans leftists at the time he presided the
Executive Committee of the III International in (if I remember
correctly) 1919.  All these documents may be on the online archives.

At the time, as a result of the war and the Soviet victory, the
positions among leftists in Europe were all mixed up.  Lots of
political reshuffling.  Zinoviev was trying to advice them how to sort
things out.  I was just trying to paraphrase from memory something he
said about the distinct roles of tactics (parliamentarism) and
strategy  (Soviet democracy) in the political struggle.