IMHO, this is one of the most thought-provoking works in the classical
Marxist tradition ever written.  In the best intellectual tradition of
Marx and Engels, the author grappled deeply and seriously with the
existing conditions and ideologies, acknowledging their rationales,
following their logic to the point where they forced him to a deeper
and broader understanding of the issues.  Like Marx's best works, it
shows readers how a an engaged mind, committed to the struggle, sorts
things out.

I read it fresh in 1979, almost as soon as its Spanish version became
available in Mexico.  The first few chapters were divulged first in a
short-lived Marxist journal named Teoría y Política published by a
group of South American exiles.  The entire work followed under
Alfaguara.  I re-read it a few times as an undergrad student in Cuba
and discussed it at length with friends from -- I believe -- at least
four continents, although I can now see how one-sided my concerns
were.  While some friends got really agitated about some of the -- IMO
rather subsidiary -- propositions advanced in the work, some rendered
irrelevant by subsequent developments (the bulk of the work is devoted
to a critique of the Soviet socialist formation), the passages below
taken on their own have maintained a large measure of relevance (not
necessarily validity) all along.

The tension at the center of the quoted section below has been
splitting Marxists since Marx & Engels's times (e.g. the Irish and
Slavic question).  On a formal level, the issue reappeared in the late
19th century/early 20th century chasm between the early
social-democrats (Lenin, Plekhanov, etc.) and the narodniki.  (As
shown below, on this matter, Lenin himself experienced a 180 degree
turn over his political life.  Just keep in mind the early concerns
Lenin had about proving the political relevance of the social
democracy in Russia in the light of Russia's backwardness.  The young
Lenin wasn't emphasizing the lack of capitalist development in Russia,
but precisely the opposite.  Naturally, with his responsibilities as
head of the Soviet state, in the middle of a civil war, after a
devastating world war, things looked quite differently.)  At a deeper
level, though, the controversy had intrinsic intellectual roots in
Russian history (and other "backward" places), dating back to the
conflict between the liberal modernizers and the ancestors of the
populists.  In their historical essays, E.H. Carr and Isaac Deutscher
discussed the matter in some detail.  Rosa Luxemburg clashed with the
Polish, Galician, and Baltic nationalists on this very issue.  Etc.

My decision to post these passages in extenso is, of course, prompted
by the current debate re. the Mousavi-Ahmedinajad conflict.

IMO, the ideological cloak of the anti-imperialist struggle is
secondary.  The key thing is the social character of the movement and
its *objective logic* (if I'm allowed to use that old Hegelian
formula).  It is of course twisted, ironic and shameful, historically
speaking, that the global discredit of Marxism and -- more tragically
and decisively -- the mechanical suppression of Marxists and
socialists in central Asia and the Middle East (including here
repression conducted by the very forces that now appear to lead the
anti-imperialist resistance, blemishes and all) have limited its role
in the local anti-imperialist struggles, which have turned instead to
the ideological straight-jacketed form of political Islam.

However, secondary doesn't mean unimportant.  If the strictures of the
religious integument have dulled beyond a point the anti-imperialism
it portends, all bets are off.  In that case, the triumph of the
popular movement excited by Mir Hossein Mousavi or the aftermath may
turn out to be the necessary precondition for a better political
framework for the anti-imperialist struggle in Iran.  I'd think that
the risk has diminished with time, but history shows (including the
history of Iran!) that even a large nation has difficulty escaping
subordination to imperialism.  It's not clear to me from my distance
and ignorance whether this is already the case in Iran.  It does
disturb me to see the excited support that the Mousavi movement has
elicited among the always suspect Western establishment.  But that's
not decisive.

I have no answer to the vexing question.  The matter is complex.  No
kidding.  The left in, say, the West doesn't need to settle it as a
precondition to unite in the local struggles ahead.  Nothing human
should be alien to us, but too much rancor in disputes that do not
strictly pertain to our present and immediate circumstance strike me
as a cop out.  I'm hoping the quotes below highlight the inherent
difficulty of the questions involved and humble us all a little.  My
mind on this has shifted and will continue to shift.  Back and forth.
And shifts on this tend to be wide pendulum swings, since many
important conclusions follow from each alternative stance.  But, "Only
dead minds don't oscillate," wrote Isaac Deutscher.

For example, during the 1990s, I took some distance from the reasoning
below.  Stuff related to my own personal trajectory, in Mexico in the
early 1990s (after the Soviet Union failed), and then in the U.S.
under Clinton.  At the time, I remember discounting heavily Chomsky's
categorical views on the militaristic slant of U.S. capital with
regards to foreign and domestic policy.  (In fairness, I'm referring
to things Chomsky wrote prompted by the late 1980s Persian Gulf war,
which I read with the benefit of the mid 1990s hindsight.)

Assuming the inherently antagonistic form in which capitalism
dissolves old conditions and introduces new ones, I thought (and still
think) that the "neoliberal" globalization offered Mexico and other
nations in Latin America a mixed bag that included opportunities for
reducing international inequality.  It wasn't automatic, but it was
possible.  In my mind, it was something like a recurrence of the
1850s-1910s expansion of Western capitalism.  In Mexico, in the early
1990s, the whole thing appeared as a *political* swing so strong that
-- in my thinking -- it had exhaust or weaken itself considerably, as
a result of its own inherent contradictions, before the left could
have a *political* clear shot.  That, of course, didn't imply
abandoning all struggles, particular the economic, day-to-day
fork-and-knife fights for marginal improvements in the workers'
working and living conditions, but the *political* scope of the
struggle had to be downgraded or risk a worse backlash.  (Clearly,
Chavez took the exact opposite approach.  He went for the political
jugular in 1992.  At the time and for a good while, his Quixotic
gesture looked foolish to me.  But, as history twists and turns, it
turned out to be a learning experience for him and Venezuela, without
which he and his country wouldn't be were they are now.)

Looking at things from the perspective of the mid 1990s, it seemed to
me that the vitality shown by the U.S. non-military economy and the
whole thrust of the "neoliberal" globalization agenda (as opposed to
the "neoconservatism" of the early 2000s) weren't entirely consistent
with the view of a predominantly militaristic, parasytic U.S. (and, if
I remember well Chomsky's remarks, British) economy.  I remember
thinking (and I believe I may have posted something about it on one of
the usual lists) that we faced a sort of historical bifurcation, where
the world train was being switched from the Lenin Track (1914-1989)
back to the Marx Track (1850s-1914s).

It was either my feverish imagination or the track switch prove not to
be very robust since, with the selection of W and the U.S. reaction to
9/11, the train tripped back to the old Lenin Track.  Anyway, with
time, my views have become more mixed, which doesn't make them very
amenable to a small set of categorical statements.

Still, I can try to schematize my mental framework in a couple of
sweeping statements: At the present time, the biggest danger ahead for
humans doesn't arise from environmental decay or turbulent financial
markets or even nuclear proliferation per se.  These are, no doubt,
serious dangers.  But, ultimately, the biggest source of trouble lies
in the abismal, persistent levels of *inequality*, especially (though
not exclusively) international inequality.  Imperialism, which
continues to provide the current historical form of global capitalism,
is an epi-phenomenon of international inequality. If the available
data are to be trusted, judged according to this rough criteria, the
main forces of progress in the last four or five decades have been
Southeast Asia, China, India, and more recently Russia and some parts
of Latin America.  And the main forces of the historical reaction have
remained virtually the same since colonial times: Western Europe and
its offshots in other continents.

CB

^^^

_The revolutions in Russia and China, in the Balkans and
in Cuba, have probably contributed not less but rather more to the
overall progress than the proletarian revolutions hoped for in the
West could have done_.

Marxism, in other words, set out on a different journey, via Russia to
Asia, Africa and Latin America, a route associated with the names of
Lenin, Mao Tse-Tung, Nkrumah and Castro.  _It represents today
something incomparably greater and more diverse than in the era of
Marx_, and also in regard to its significance for Europe.

On Jun 23, 3:45 pm, Julio Huato <juliohu...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Jun 26, 12:37 am, "cb31...@gmail.com" <cb31...@gmail.com> wrote: