Re: Regarding Louis Proyect

Marv:

William Chase is a pure academic, one well versed in both the history of the CPSU(B) and an avowed critic of Stalin. Here is ihs piece, retrieved from his academic site (See pdf attached). He worked closely with Arch Getty - who recently died, and Chase was one of his eulogists. It not published in a broadly available English language . It was publihsed in Otechestvennaia istoriia, 4 (July/August 1995),
76-102. Since it is on the academic site of Chase, in English - I hardly think that Chase has repudiated it.
More on motives, and what has happened to the book itself - is speculation.

I also attach an article on the "Assassination of Trotsky" by Bland from 1994. It is related to the primary work done on aspects of this by Chase but not yet published. ->
https://www.marxists.org/archive/bland/1994/02/death-trotsky.pdf

Marv - most  Trotskyists - or near-Trotskyists - do not ask such questions. You have to explain at some stage after all this kerfuffle has settled, why you have chosen to do so. Most current day Marxists dismiss any criticism of Trotsky. But many academics who are anti-Marxist students of Russian history (I do not mean ex-CIA currents like Robert Conquest) have noted significant problems of Trotsky.

It is simply that the mythology about Stalin has completely clouded any clear understanding of what was achieved in the USSR. This mythology did not arise by chance. Marxists claim their heritage gives them a right to the appellation of being scientists. That means they should aspire to dealing and explaining apparent contradictions. Most Marxists have no such interest in that more difficult step. Those who believe/believed that ’socialism in one country’ was not only possible, but doable, and did so - have been/are willing to tackle those contradictions. Others find a more convenient story to adopt.

Hari


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