Marxist Lotta Speaks at Stanford
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Marxist political economist Raymond Lotta gave a speech on why “Socialism is much better than Capitalism, And Communism will be a far better world” at Stanford on May 8 as part of a nation-wide tour of college campuses in an effort to get people to consider a Communist solution to the world’s problems.
Lotta began his speech by enumerating these problems: “the last 150 years have seen unparalleled violence, destruction, and suffering, two world wars, colonial wars, genocide, and horrific economic crises… polarized between rich and poor: the three richest Americans control assets whose value is greater than the combined GDP of the poorest 45 countries in the world. Close to 1 billion people are hungry and malnourished, but enough food can be produced and distributed at the current level of global technology to provide for everyone on this planet… 40 million people are afflicted with AIDS while pharmaceutical companies assert their rights to intellectual property…” and so on. These, Mr. Lotta claimed, are questions that Communism promises to solve.
Mr. Lotta spent much of his talk attacking supposed misperceptions and myths about Communism. He defended the high number of people indirectly killed by Mao and Stalin’s industrial and agricultural policies by noting the tremendous growth in population and life expectancy brought on by industrialization. He praised the increased access to education, abolishment of feudal social relations, and higher status of women that Communism in Russia and China brought about.
Mr. Lotta was also perfectly willing to dole out criticism where he felt criticism was due. He draw a sharp line between Stalin, who he felt practiced too much central control, and Mao, whom he praised for his consultation of the people and institution of public and popular discussion of matters of state and society. Though Lotta did criticize Stalin for his paranoia and quickness to kill dissidents, he believed both Stalin’s purges and Mao’s Cultural Revolution were necessary for reforming their political situations and eliminating reactionaries who posed a real and present danger to the revolution.
Ultimately, however, Mr. Lotta called both the Soviet Union and Communist China failed revolutions. He faulted Soviet and Chinese nomenclature for slowly resurrecting competition and the market after Stalin and Mao passed away, respectively culminating in Gorbachev’s perestroika and Deng Xiaoping’s “It’s great to be rich!” This temporary victory for Capitalism has induced blind triumphalism and an unwillingness to tackle to world’s problems.
Mr. Lotta cited the scholarship of Bob Avakian, Chairman of the U.S. Revolutionary Communist Party, in drawing out what he considered one of both Stalin and Mao’s greatest failures: an inability to deal with dissent and criticism. Instead, Lotta argued, Communist society must not only allow but foster criticism both of the government’s specific actions and of the entire Communist enterprise. This is necessary for reaffirming the convictions of Communists and addressing legitimate grievances as they may occur. Nonetheless, Mr. Lotta does not allow for a full market place of ideas: this criticism should only be free so long as it does not threaten to undermine the actual revolution.
Unfortunately, not everyone has been as sanguine about engaging Communists like Lotta. When Lotta kicked off its tour at UCLA in October of 2005, the President of the UCLA Republicans attacked two departments at UCLA for sponsoring his lecture: “Academic freedom will not be served until these two centers either regain a sense of legitimacy, or risk being replaced by departments that do not dedicate themselves to historical revisionism and ideological hegemony.”
Being a Communist is very much out of vogue today. In many circles, simply admitting to being one has the same effect on one’s intellectual credibility as espousing white supremacy or believing in God. Even in once heavily Marxist history or political science departments, the Marxists are few, far between, and approaching retirement. In its place only nihilist post-modernism and wayward post-structuralism is found.
Though most Western societies don’t place any formal constraints on expressing Communist views, society today hardly embodies the ideals of John Stuart Mill’s marketplace of ideas, which requires not only the freedom to espouse diverse views, but a willingness to engage with them.
This failure occurs in a world where Communism remains relevant. Venezuela and Bolivia are dabbling with socialism. Russians yearn for a return to the security of Soviet times. A loss of government support for China’s peasantry threatens unrest. A Marxist analysis of world trade, or of race relations in this country, or of outsourcing to China, can yield serious contributions to debate on these matters.
