In 1974, the great Polish intellectual Leszek Kolakowski (1927-2009) published “My Correct Views on Everything, A Rejoinder to Edward Thompson’s ‘Open Letter to Leszek Kolakowski’”. Kolakowski is best known for Main Currents of Marxism, his huge survey of Marxism from its neo-Platonic and Hegelian roots through Marx and his immediate followers to the post-Russian-Revolution Marxist […]
Kolakowski on Leftist responsibility Read More »
Hollywood screenwriter Anna Louise Strong was basically a Communist propagandist. When in 1956 Khrushchev “revealed” Stalin’s crimes, Strong suffered a mental breakdown over the “betrayal.” Later she confessed: “We knew all these things for twenty-five years, and I kept silent for the cause of socialism. What am I supposed to say?” (Which I connect to
On honesty, Stalin’s killings, and Western intellectuals (anecdote) Read More »
Following up on a series of recent posts on Marxism and its fellow travelers (Engels, Mao, Guzmán, Hobsbawm), a question about whether Marxism’s brutal history is a built-in consequence of its principles or an accidental by-product of well-intentioned theory. So a series of quotations from some principal figures: Marx in 1848: “there is only one
Marxists and violence Read More »