Monday, September 16, 2019

The Centennial Of Pete Seeger’s Birthday (1919-2014)- From The Archives Of Marxism-*On The Passing Of Folklorist And Ardent Stalinist Irwin Silber- A Short Note

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the late folklorist and political activist Irwin Silber.

Markin comment:

In a recent post linking to a New York Times obituary concerning the passing of Irwin Silber, well- known folklorist and left political activist I made a point, as I have in this headline, of mentioning his ardent and long time Stalinist inclinations. I also noted in the post that if one wanted examples of that political bent then one could Google the Guardian (U.S.) archive for anti-Trotskyist (using the classic giveaway “Trotskyite”) material that he wrote during the 1970s when his Stalinist bent tilted in the direction of the Maoism. As it turns out, at least for now, I have been unable to Google any articles by Silber, or for that matter the Guardian itself. That newspaper ceased publication in the 1990s and, apparently, no one has deemed it necessary, as of yet, to see that the archives enter cyberspace. However, in order to give a flavor of what I am speaking of I have enclosed the link to a twelve-part series run in the Guardian in 1973 (while Silber was on the editorial staff) by Carl Davidson entitled Left in Form, Right in Essence: A Critique of Contemporary Trotskyism. (http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/critiques/guardian/index.htm).

Let’s make something clear on Stalinism, at least what is essential about it for those who stand in the Trotskyist tradition, while we are on the subject. In the United States, at least when anyone utters the epitaph Stalinist (or Stalin) that conjures up the KGB, gulags, Moscow Trials, slave labor camps, the Cold War, totalitarianism, and assorted other negative labels. As Trotskyists, whose forbears lost the political battle to Stalinism in the Soviet Union in the 1920s, we are painfully aware of all of that, including the lost of our historic leader to assassination at the hands of a Stalinist agent in 1940.

But for us, and this is where a bloodline is drawn between the Stalinists and us, including Irwin Silber, it is our perspectives for revolution that distinguish us. In shorthand, does one stand in the tradition of “socialism in one country", or "half a country", or "one island', or whatever political franchise one is craving for and extolling or for international revolution? Does one stand for one-stage workers revolution in the modern age (basically post-1848) or two-stage revolution, first “democratic” (maybe) and then socialist (never, or in the very, very distant future- witness South Africa today for the latest edition). The fight in the international working class movement, at least of its Marxist component, has always, in the end, been fought on that axis. That is the sense is which one Irwin Silber was, from the time he was a pup, an ardent Stalinist.

Note: In the Marxist movement it has always been, or always should have been the case, that in writing political obituaries one should not take a pass on a person’s political life. I have taken my shots at Silber’s politics, and that is that. However, if one reads the whole of the Wikipedia entry one will find that Brother Silber (the brother will be explained presently) wrote a non-political book on the struggles involved with hip and knee replacements. This is one subject on which aging Stalinists and aging Trostkyists can make a principled united front. Hell, we can throw in the anarchists and social democrats as well. That said, back to the political struggles.

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