Re: The misuse of the word 'Stalinist' gets really irritating Archived Message
Posted by brooks on September 8, 2020, 1:20 am, in reply to "The misuse of the word 'Stalinist' gets really irritating"
There's always been a strain of Leninist authoritarian ideology on the left, and Gowans, much of whose work i respect, is in that tradition, which I don't respect. Just because some brutal thug is an official enemy and therefore spun as the epitome of evil by the western doctrinal system, doesn't mean he didn't commit horrible atrocities. Any state can say its crimes are committed in "times of exceptional circumstances" when their society is "under threat from within and without." For Gowans the end justifies the means. I can see his argument but don't agree. It's not a self-evident truth. John Pilger has spent most of his life fighting the crimes of his own state; he's not the "liberal/pseudo left"; he knows the history of Stalin's crimes against Russian dissidents and is saying ours are comparable. Nothing "childish" about it.
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