Main NI Index | Main Newspaper Index
Encyclopedia of Trotskyism | Marxists’ Internet Archive
From The New International, Vol. XV No. 6, August 1949, p. 189.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Dear Editor:
The “critical discussion of Ruth Fischer’s book” (Stalin and German Communism) by Jacques in the April issue of The New International is almost a perfect model of the type of discussion of which there has been too much in the revolutionary socialist press. Here is a fairly extensive volume written by an active participant about a varied series of important events in one of the most crucial periods in world history (about which Americans particularly know much too little). There is extreme detail of personages, political problems and differences, possible evaluations. Yet all that Jacques find of worthwhile motivation is the necessity of defending Trotsky against Fischer and, in turn, of taking pot shots at the latter, with special attention to the idea that she is probably only a lately broken member of the Stalin school herself.
Possibly much of this may be valuable, and Jacques is justified in dealing with it. But not an entire article supposedly discussing a book about the many phases of the extended post-war I German revolution. No one is going to learn anything from laborious touches like these: “Ruth Fischer never learned to distinguish between Bolshevism and Stalinism, more specifically between Trotskyism and Stalinism; which is to say, in reality, between revolution and counter-revolution.” And so on and on.
There was a wealth of historical material in the book that could have been discussed. If no one were found competent for this, a simple review would have been sufficient. The strongest obvious criticism this reader could make of the volume was its overemphasis on gossip, much of it unverified. Jacques answers with better, and presumably, verified gossip. Marxists can surely do better than that.
Main NI Index | Main Newspaper Index
Encyclopedia of Trotskyism | Marxists’ Internet Archive
Last updated on 29 September 2018