Editor’s Prefatory Note:
Karl Marx: rarely read and less understood, but vehemently hated by millions. Whence this animosity?
The Greanville Post does not wish to engage in yet another polemic on Marxism, the “evils of Stalinism,” or communism in general, but a few points need to be made in our view to make this essay as clear and effective as it deserves.
It scarcely needs saying that we find this article provocative, powerful, and useful, hence our publishing it. Berman—a “Marxian humanist” associated with “democratic socialist” circles such as Dissent Magazine— is a well established academic and political scientist. The text, however, presents us with a subtle problem common in democratic socialist commentary which we think important enough to mention: In his presentation Berman—perhaps accidentally— perpetuates the notion that the regimes in the former Soviet Union and China under Mao, as well as elsewhere (i.e., Cuba) were “[fully mature] Communist systems”, which, of course, they weren’t. In our view, such regimes, up until the moment they were dissolved or drastically altered to favor market ”solutions” were stunted processes, in large measure for exogenous reasons. This finetuning of the focus is important for reasons I lay out below. Continue reading »
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On Thursday, the worlds most cynical rhetorician will attempt to frame regime change and political assassination as defense of civilians and promotion of democracy. Only Americans will be fooled. President Obama has discarded all but the snakeskin of international law. “The Euro-American imperialists and Arab royal mafiosa hope their joint venture will quarantine or crush the Arab Reawakening outside its (barely and tentatively) ‘liberated’ territory in Egypt and Tunisia.” Continue reading »
