Post by Francis Duckett on Mar 24, 2005 12:45:59 GMT
" The eminent neurologist Chritopher Palli who has died at the age of 81was also the principal writer, translatorand thinker for the libertarian socialist Solidarity group which was most influential in the during the 1960s and early 1970s.As a neurologist , his concept of and criteria for brainstem death have been internationally adopted; and his entry on death for the Encyclopedia Britannica is a masterpiece of historical and medical summary.
Solidarity displayed an irreverent,humerous iconoclasm towards left orthodoxies.It also provided translations of the works of Paul Cardan a founding editor of Socialisme Ou Barbarie, which had developed a critiqe of Bolshevism.
Pallis had been writing as,"Martin Granger" but in 1961 he was exposed by the pressas a hammersmith hospital consultant in neurology. Thereafter his political writings and translations were anonymous or signed "Maurice Brinton". A substantial selection For Workers Power, (2004 ) was published only on the understanding that his identity was not revealed."
One of his pamphlets The Irrational in Politics (1970)explores the role of sexual epression and authoritarian conditioning in generating conformity. He convinccingly identified 1960s sexual permissiveness as a breakthrough in the "undermining of tradition" and terminating a vicious cycle.
Pallis's political chef d'oeuvre is the Bolsheviks and Workers Control 1917 1921: The State and Counter Revolution (1970). It traces the obliteration of the Russian factory Committees of 1917-18 so that by 19121 factories and trade unions had been subordinated to the new Bolshevik state and party.
"In 1917 it had been proclaimed that 'every cook should learn to govern the State,"' he comments from Lenin"By 1921 the state was clearly powerful enough to govern every cook!" In this necessary and unprecedented analysis Pallis wrote that,"the basis question,who manages production after the overthrow of the bourgeoisie? should therefore now become the centre of any serious discussion about socialism. Today the old equation (liqidation of the bourgeoisie equals workers state) popularised by countless Leninists, Stalinists and Trotskyists is just not good enough..
Taken from the Obituary Column of the Guardian 24.3.05. Reduced in size and without permission.
The original was written by David Goodway and Paul Lewis.
Christopher Agamemnon Pallis. Neurologist and Libertarion Socialist. Born 4.12.23. died 10.3.05.
Spoke in Burnley at the Red Lion for Burnley Anarchist Group which was affiliated with Solidarity. Approx 1963.
Solidarity displayed an irreverent,humerous iconoclasm towards left orthodoxies.It also provided translations of the works of Paul Cardan a founding editor of Socialisme Ou Barbarie, which had developed a critiqe of Bolshevism.
Pallis had been writing as,"Martin Granger" but in 1961 he was exposed by the pressas a hammersmith hospital consultant in neurology. Thereafter his political writings and translations were anonymous or signed "Maurice Brinton". A substantial selection For Workers Power, (2004 ) was published only on the understanding that his identity was not revealed."
One of his pamphlets The Irrational in Politics (1970)explores the role of sexual epression and authoritarian conditioning in generating conformity. He convinccingly identified 1960s sexual permissiveness as a breakthrough in the "undermining of tradition" and terminating a vicious cycle.
Pallis's political chef d'oeuvre is the Bolsheviks and Workers Control 1917 1921: The State and Counter Revolution (1970). It traces the obliteration of the Russian factory Committees of 1917-18 so that by 19121 factories and trade unions had been subordinated to the new Bolshevik state and party.
"In 1917 it had been proclaimed that 'every cook should learn to govern the State,"' he comments from Lenin"By 1921 the state was clearly powerful enough to govern every cook!" In this necessary and unprecedented analysis Pallis wrote that,"the basis question,who manages production after the overthrow of the bourgeoisie? should therefore now become the centre of any serious discussion about socialism. Today the old equation (liqidation of the bourgeoisie equals workers state) popularised by countless Leninists, Stalinists and Trotskyists is just not good enough..
Taken from the Obituary Column of the Guardian 24.3.05. Reduced in size and without permission.
The original was written by David Goodway and Paul Lewis.
Christopher Agamemnon Pallis. Neurologist and Libertarion Socialist. Born 4.12.23. died 10.3.05.
Spoke in Burnley at the Red Lion for Burnley Anarchist Group which was affiliated with Solidarity. Approx 1963.
