6473: response on "marxist-leninism" (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Neil Elliott <ee4@uswest.net>

MarkGill is distressed to hear anyone (Stanley Goff most recently)
use "marxist/leninist terminology" to explain poverty anywhere in the
world, "even after its failure has become clear to the entire world."

Sorry, Mr. Gill, but I'm not as enchanted by the ruling ideological
constraints of U.S. culture (where a supposedly "Free" Market is
absolute). Basic concepts like IMPERIALISM and CLASS WARFARE
go very, very far to explain a hell of a lot of human history, and are
indispensable for understanding Haitian history. Their explanatory
value alone justifies their use. As for their supposed "failure," I take

it you mean to refer to the collapse of the Soviet Union and its network

of satellites, but I wonder what that has to do with Marxist
historiography.

We could of course throw names and ideological barbs at each other
a long while. Wouldn't it be more useful on the list to simply explore
the explanatory value of the concepts? Does anyone imagine, for example,

that U.S. attempts at controlling political and economic realities in
other
people's countries--a long-standing policy that was frankly called
"imperialism" by American Senators in the 19th century and is still
called "imperialism" by everyone except the doctrinally constrained
in our own country--that this policy is not a very significant factor in

current Haitian history?

Neil Elliott