Theory is grey ... was: Re: M-TH: PANIC LEFT-7

[Jorn Andersen]

At 09:32 11-04-97 +0200, Hugh Rodwell wrote:
>Utica Rose wrote:
>
>>rhetorical overkill is to violence as theory is to life -- a very pale
>>premonition. wasnt it lenin who said that theory is grey, life is green ?
>
>
>	Grau, teurer Freund, ist all' Theorie, und nur das Business ist gruen.
>	(Grey, dear friend, is all theory, and only business is green)
>
>This is a parody of Mephistopheles in Goethe's Faust:
>
>	Grau, teurer Freund ist alle Theorie
>	Und gruen des Lebens goldner Baum.
>	[Grey, dear friend, is all theory
>	and green the golden tree of life.]
>
>
>I'm pretty sure it was Marx in a letter to Engels complaining about his
>constant shortage of funds, but I can't find the reference off-hand.
>
>Maybe Lenin was just quoting Goethe straight off ("life" not the ironic
>"business"), but there's no reference to it (under Goethe) in his Collected
>Works.



See: _Letters on Tactics_, Lenin: Collected Works, vol. 24 p. 45 (Moscow
1964).

"Theory, my friend, is grey, but green is the eternal tree of life."
(When he was fighting *for* permanent revolution, *against* "old=
 bolshevism".

>Cheers,

Jorn



--
J=F8rn Andersen
Hedebygade 17, 2. tv., DK-1754  K=F8benhavn V

Tlf. +45-33250818
E-mail: jorn.andersen at vip.cybercity.dk
IS-WWW: http://www2.dk-online.dk/users/is-dk/
--------------------



     --- from list marxism-thaxis at lists.village.virginia.edu ---