indeed, probably I was rather inaccurate here; I first wrote only the name of Lenin. but I didn't wanted my comment been interpreted as a personalised attack against Leninists, so I added to the list the names of Marx (who I surely remember was very hard against his opponents, but I don't remember if and when this happened in puublished writings) and Rosa Luxemburg (who, according to my memory, did not enetered into the 'public vilification' of opponents. so I welcome the informations by Jurriaan. rb At 6:26 -0400 10-05-2002, gerald_a_levy wrote: >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Jurriaan Bendien" <j.bendien@wolmail.nl> >Sent: Friday, May 10, 2002 5:06 AM >Subject: Personalised attacks > > > Actually, I would say the majority of Marx's "personalised" attacks were > made in writings which he didn't publish for all and sundry to read. And of > course an enormous amount of Marx's writings were unpublished in his > lifetime. It is one thing to tell friends or associates in a private note > or personal communication what you really think of so-and-so, it is another > to pretend this is doing politics or a scholarly debate. > > I think the "Marxist" tradition of public villification really starts with > Lenin (and in Russian culture at the time, swearing was an accepted > custom). Trotsky did rather better. "Like Lessing", Bernard Shaw wrote of > Trotsky, "when he cuts off his opponents head, he holds it up to show that > there are no brains in it; but he spares his victim's private character... > He leaves [his victim] without a rag of political credit; but he leaves him > with his honour intact." (The Nation, London, 7 January 1922; quoted by > Isaac Deutscher, The Prophet Armed, p. viii). This is perhaps not true of > all Trotsky's writings, but does well describe his general orientation in > most of his writings and speeches. > > Jurriaan -- Riccardo Bellofiore Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche Via dei Caniana 2 I-24127 Bergamo, Italy e-mail: bellofio@unibg.it, bellofio@cisi.unito.it direct +39-035-277545 secretary +39-035 277501 fax: +39 035 277549 homepage: http://www.unibg.it/dse/homebellofiore.htm
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