•

Science & Society, Vol. 82, No. 4, October 2018, 555–567

SYMPOSIUM

IS THE TERM “STALINISM” VALID AND USEFUL

FOR MARXIST ANALYSIS?

INTRODUCTION: This compilation was born in a discussion at the annual Science

& Society Editorial Board meeting in December of 2017. It began as a question of
vocabulary: is the word “Stalinism” appropriate for use in a Marxist journal? Not
surprisingly, this is not simply an issue of vocabulary, but in fact reflects strongly held
beliefs on the part of many Editorial Board members. Again, not surprisingly, there
are serious disagreements.
We decided to turn this discussion into a print symposium. Contributions were
limited to 350 words (most here have kept to that), and it was decided to publish
them in alphabetical order. While it is clear that there are common questions ad-
dressed in these short statements, each should stand on its own. No one, except
myself, had access to the other statements while preparing his/her own. My job
was simply to compile the contributions and put them in order. I was not charged
with responding to the various statements, eliminating all duplication, or finding
common themes.
This could have been a quite unpleasant task; metaphors like “grabbing a tiger
by the tail” or “wrestling alligators” suggest themselves. This, however, was not the
case. However intense the arguments presented here, the contributors maintained
their commitment to comradely discussion. Would that we could help our comrades
elsewhere learn this lesson!

Paul C. Mishler

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Renate Bridenthal
As users of social media well know, single words that bundle a host of
meanings can easily distort a major argument. One of these is “Stalinism,”
usually a term of opprobrium leveled at supporters of one or another aspect
of the changes in the Soviet Union under the leadership of Joseph Stalin
from 1928 to 1953. Most often, as a political charge of wrongdoing, it refers
to the execution of millions of opponents of the regime. Later historians have
found that many denunciations originated locally. Stalinism also applies to the
forced collectivization of agriculture, resistance to which resulted in its first
years to many deaths and contributed to famine. It also refers to the rapid
industrialization ultimately enabled by the ensuing large-scale agricultural
production which raised living standards for a majority of the population.
In general, the common use of “Stalinism” personalizes an era in which
Stalin ultimately made all major ultimate decisions, but not in isolation. It
almost always carries a negative charge that may be used to shut down further
discussion. What is thus obliterated is the international context within which
these changes were made, including the hostility of surrounding capitalist
states, the persistent threat and finally the actualization of war on both the
eastern and western borders of the Soviet Union, a far more massive interven-
tion that those of the 1920s. What also gets lost is the growing support by the
Soviet population for such things as the educational project that brought a
largely illiterate population to literacy, the construction of hospitals, sanato-
riums, schools, concert halls and other cultural institutions, and finally the
victory in World War II.
The era of Stalin’s leadership was more complicated than can be con-
tained in “Stalinism,” a Cold War term meant to repress domestic dissent
against U. S. policies of generalized anti-communism, which not coinciden-
tally included many anti-colonial movements. In that sense it represented
not only ideology, but also reflected global shifts and fights among the great
powers. A world war was avoided then, although many proxy wars took place.
The danger is renewed today; hence the importance of not simplifying com-
plex phenomena with a single term.

rbriden440@gmail.com

Alex Callinicos
Has the word “Stalinism” become so abused in left-wing polemics as to
become unusable? However misused, it is inescapable. While the word has a
particular association with the Trotskyist movement, Marxist intellectuals as
diverse as Edward Thompson, Louis Althusser, Ralph Miliband, and Stuart
Hall all used it. It has tended to serve two functions — first, to acknowledge
that something special and indeed unexpected and unwelcome developed

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 “STALINISM” 557

with the stabilization of the Soviet Union from the 1920s onwards and, sec-
ond, to delimit this phenomenon from some more authentic understanding
of socialism or communism.
So unavoidably “Stalinism” as a concept, when used by Marxists, has a
critical function. But there are many different takes on Stalinism, depend-
ing, for example, on how much one associates it with the period of Stalin’s
personal dominance, from the mid-1920s to 1953, and with the Terror over
which he presided in the second half of the 1930s. But I think Stalin helped
to inaugurate a system that, with some changes, survived him. So here’s my
own attempt at a definition:

By “Stalinism” I mean, not one person’s rule or even a body of beliefs, but the whole
system of social power that crystallized in the USSR in the 1930s, was exported to
Eastern Europe in the second half of the 1940s, and survived till the late 1980s when
it began to collapse, a system characterized by the hierarchically organized control
of all aspects of social life, political, economic, and cultural, by a narrow oligarchy
seated at the apex of the party and state apparatuses, the nomenklatura. (The Revenge
of History, Cambridge: Polity, 1991, 15.)

This is a description rather than an analysis, though no description is

neutral. The whole experience of Stalinism raises many complicated ques-
tions. For a Marxist journal such as Science & Society the most important
is the analytical one of how to situate this system in the history of modes
of production, and more particularly in relation to capitalism and com-
munism. In any case, avoiding the word won’t make the terrible reality it
refers to go away.

alex.callinicos@kcl.ac.uk

Russell Dale
While the term “Stalinism” represents a complex of many matters from
the intense industrialization that started in the 1920s, to Stalin’s critical role
in World War II, to the cult of personality he fostered around himself, and
while the term has been used as an insult as well as a descriptor, it is none-
theless, and for those very reasons, an important and necessary term. The
massive complex of issues and the fact of their intense divisiveness to this
day 65 years since Stalin’s death means that the term and the realities that
underlie it are of real importance, especially for those who believe necessary
the radical transformation of capitalist society into a truly democratic society
based on cooperation. The question cannot be the banishment of the term
and the thought “Stalinism” from discussion, but the meaning of Stalin’s years
in the Soviet Union. Old, and indeed passionate, fights between CP-ers and
Trotskyists need not and should not continue: the negation between these

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 558 SCIENCE & SOCIETY

two poles must be negated by meaningful analysis and action, not contin-
ued and supported by rhetoric that has not been meaningful in practice for
decades at this point. We need to put aside simplistic oppositions and put
our collective years of struggle to use for the new generation that bears a
tremendous burden for humanity in general.

rdale@mail.mayfirst.org

Raju Das
Stalinism is a set of ideas underlying certain political practices, a serious
intellectual category with significance for understanding the class character
of the global periphery and revolutionary prospects there. It should not be
used pejoratively. Hallmarks of Stalinism are authoritarianism, stageism and
nationalism.
Authoritarianism refers to repressive practices within a Communist Party
and within a society it controls, including — during Stalin’s tenure — a co-
ercive approach to the peasant question. In practice, Stalinism meant not
only the murder of revolutionary Marxists worldwide, but also the denial of
workers’ right to free expression.
While many Marxists reject Stalinist authoritarianism, they may still feel
some affinity with the other two hallmarks. Stageism holds that Third World
countries are semi-feudal or not-fully-capitalist, where Marxists should fight
for “democratic revolution” by a coalition of workers, peasants, and sections
of the propertied classes to bring about a developed-democratic capitalism,
and then, after an indefinite period, fight for socialism. Accordingly, many
scholars stress feudalism and imperialism to explain underdevelopment,
downplaying the dominant causal role of capitalism. Stalinism thus repudiates
the Leninist idea that Marxists/communists, as tribunes of the people, must
fight for democratic rights (including land and self-determination of nations)
and for economic concessions as a part of the fight against the capitalist class
relation itself, a fight led by a democratically organized proletarian party.
Nationalism, the third hallmark of Stalinism, repudiates Marxist
internationalism, ignoring the international character of the law of
value. Real socialism cannot be built in one country (despite Stalin’s
proclamation that it could), given uneven development among coun-
tries and their interdependence. Stalin’s nationalism also dilutes the
principle of international worker solidarity, and feeds into compromises
with imperialism.
Stalinism arose in specific circumstances: isolation and encirclement
of the young Soviet state, exhaustion and impoverishment of workers and
peasants, death of many cadre in civil war, limited productive forces, scarcity

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 “STALINISM” 559

of consumer goods requiring police power to ration, and political struggle

against the Left Opposition. If Marxism is the highest expression of work-
ing people’s class consciousness, and Leninist Bolshevism is the highest
expression of Marxism, then Stalinism is arguably the degeneration of both
Bolshevism and Marxism.

rajudas@yorku.ca

Sheila Delany
My perspective as a Trotskyist is that “Stalinism” remains a meaningful
and relevant term. Not simply cult of personality, from which it’s easy to dis-
tance oneself, nor false accusations of treason, assassination of critics, and
the bureaucratism of Stalin and the petty-bourgeois Party layer supporting
him, the term denotes a suite of real positions:
•  Nationalism rather than internationalism, as represented in the
Stalinist slogan “Socialism in one country,” invented by Stalin in 1924.
Marxists, including Engels, recognized this as impossible, given modern
globalist imperialism. The failure of internationalism is also the failure
to support revolutionary movements abroad; this guaranteed defeats in
revolutionary China (1927), France (1936), Spain (1937) and elsewhere,
and ties in with:
•  Collaboration with “progressive” bourgeois rather than political in-
dependence of the workers’ movement and left. The Sanders campaign
represents a current instance. Reforms benefitting working people, women,
and the oppressed are always supportable, but not the careers of bourgeois
politicians. In decades past, this collaboration took the form of CP “popular-
front” coalitions with bourgeois formations requiring sacrifice of radical
program and actions, in contrast to “united front” worker–left coalitions
preserving them. Many are the favors Stalin performed for his bourgeois–
capitalist partners, usually fatal for those struggling against fascism or for
socialism. Maoism repeats this theme; that Mao found no bourgeois party
to ally with in 1949, despite his stated intentions, is due to the fact that the
murderous Kuomintang had already left for Taiwan!
•  Stageism: the belief that a country must go through a period of full
capitalist development before fighting for socialism. In debate within the
Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, the Mensheviks argued this position,
while Lenin argued for proceeding to socialist insurrection. Stalin proposed
unification with the Mensheviks as late as Spring 1917! Lenin came to un-
derstand, as Trotsky had proposed in his 1905 theory of permanent revolu-
tion, that the bourgeoisie cannot complete its democratic tasks; these can
be fulfilled only by revolutionary workers and peasants.

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 560 SCIENCE & SOCIETY

It is not surprising that those who embrace the program of Stalinism

would like to disappear the word. Embarrassment? Shame? But censorship
doesn’t change history.

sdelany@sfu.ca

Steve Ellner
Use of the terms “Stalinism” and “Stalinist” obstructs meaningful discus-
sion. Unlike “Leninism,” “Trotskyism,” “anarchism” and “populism,” “Stalinism”
is invariably employed pejoratively. Furthermore, it lacks multi-dimensional
meanings with ideological content, and can generally be reduced to an almost
singular meaning: excessive centralism, heavy-handed methods and abuse
of power. Why use the word at all, if other commonly-used words convey the
same meaning?
“Stalinism” also impedes productive dialog among progressives. The
issue of bureaucratic overreach and centralism versus rank-and-file decision-
making is important and complex, as Lenin noted in his writing on demo-
cratic centralism. The term conjures up images of crimes against humanity
and thus injects an emotional component that belies complexity and is in
no way constructive.
Even though the word Stalinism is associated with crimes against human-
ity, such mass atrocities have historically mostly occurred under non-leftist
governments and movements, not leftist or allegedly leftist ones, exceptions
being Sendero Luminoso and the Khmer Rouge.
Accusations of Stalinist behavior also ignore context. Leftist leaders may
be guilty of excessive centralism and manipulation, but criticisms along these
lines need to take into account enemy aggressiveness. The overreactions of
leftists to enemy disruption should not necessarily be placed in the same
category as abuses by governments in times of peace and stability. While
not justifying deviations, circumstances need to be brought into the picture.
These considerations help determine when and how to support govern-
ments that engage in undemocratic behavior in the context of neo-fascist or
imperialist threats. Degrees do matter. The condemnation of a government
on grounds of allegedly Stalinist behavior usually ends all debate and rules
out qualified or critical support.
By way of example, social democrats and groups further to the left like
Marea Socialista in Venezuela label President Nicolás Maduro a Stalinist, accuse
him of employing “fascist and Stalinist methods,” and equate his government
with the right-wing opposition. Although Marea’s criticisms contain an impor-
tant element of truth, the context of the ruthless U. S.–supported campaign
against his government and the complexity of designing policies in the face of a
three-fold decline in international oil prices cannot be left out of the equation.

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The Stalinist label precludes serious consideration of these and other key
factors and can thus be considered misleading, and in some cases deceptive.

sellner74@gmail.com

Barbara Foley
In my view, ever since the Cold War the term “Stalinist” has lost its status
as a descriptor possessing anything like objectivity. (By “objectivity” I mean
a generally agreed-upon usage, embraced both by those who identify with
the label and those who are critical of it.) For more than half a century the
term has functioned rhetorically as the negative part of a binary opposition in
which its counterpart is intrinsically valorized. The term’s (ab)use functions
to shut down critical investigation of both the successes and the failures of
20th-century attempts to build egalitarian societies.
One of the main challenges facing the left in our time is to understand,
as fully as we possibly can, what ended up derailing such attempts. What were
the internal contradictions in the left (mainly Communist) parties? What
were the external constraints that they faced? Should we be so fortunate as
to have another shot at constructing post-capitalist societies, what aspects of
past efforts might we build upon? What might we shun?
The term “Stalinist” poisons the well of analysis; for this very reason,
though, it cannot be simply ignored. It has to be deconstructed by means of
open-minded historical investigation. De omnibus dubitandum.
Young people with whom we discuss leftist politics — the standard-­bearers
for the future — are often equally full of hope and cynicism. They know very
little history, and much of what they know — or think they know — is wrong.
Their comprehension of “Stalin” and “Stalinism” often boils down to a few
propositions: that Stalin was a mass murderer, responsible for the deaths of
tens of millions; that leadership of necessity degenerates into dictatorship;
that democratic centralist parties inevitably decline into authoritarianism; that
revolutions eat their children. These young people detest capitalism; but they
wonder whether it is better to stick with the devil we know than, in an attempt
to get rid of hell, invite another devil into our midst.
Historical ground-clearing is the order of the day. Let’s get the brambles
out of the way. Uncritical deployment of “Stalinism” only makes this task
more difficult.

bfoley@newark.rutgers.edu

Julio Huato
The need to revisit earlier Soviet history is not purely speculative. It flows
from the practical demands of the struggle here/now. Much in this history

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 562 SCIENCE & SOCIETY

is unrepeatable. The relevant lessons of the Soviet experience for our here/
now are the general ones.
It is common to frame new disputes in the terms of old ones. But, to
paraphrase Marx in the Brumaire, building socialism needs us to transcend the
prose of the past and invent afresh the poetry of the future. Characterizing
the ideas and political practice of people here/now by reference to Stalin,
by designating them as “Stalinist,” traps the discussion of our outstanding
dilemmas in the frame of the past. (In his biography of Trotksy, Deutscher
discusses the weight that the traditions of the Paris Commune and the 1789
French Revolution had on shaping the late-1920s debates in Soviet Russia; in
particular, the emotions the term “Thermidor” stirred up.) Can we directly
tackle the factually established issues? I allude here to the issues under the
rubrics of (using common descriptors) “personality cult,” “bureaucratic de-
generation” of the Communist movement and the Soviet State, the historical
crisis of the Soviet social formation, etc. by exposing their deeper material and
social roots as well as those attendant factors that, though perhaps not as deep,
continue to pervade our current circumstance.
Are these tragic phenomena inherent in the struggle for socialism in gen-
eral? (I believe the answer is, Yes.) To what extent? (In my view, to a significant
extent. Such is the epochal dialectical drama of the self-liberation of a global
class of direct producers, fragmented, impoverished, and degraded under the
weight of history. Spelling out this argument exceeds the scope of this note.)
To what extent are the said phenomena the product of specific conditions of
“economic backwardness,” “peripheral” status in global capitalist society, impe-
rialist blockade, exhaustion and physical decimation of revolutionaries by civil
wars and foreign invasions, thin or nonexistent precedents of mass democratic
practice, deep-rooted “Oriental” authoritarian and bureaucratic traditions,
and/or the inertia of revolutionary organizational structures configured in
response to repressive autocratic conditions? These questions remain vexing.

juliohuato@gmail.com

David Laibman
There are three things wrong with the “Stalinism” category, all of which
render it incompatible with serious Marxist analysis of the contemporary
world.
First: The term conflates (at least) three different things: a) the extreme
deformation of the Soviet 1930s — the repression, imprisonments, execu-
tions, hyper-extension of the authority of one individual, hyper-politicization
of intellectual and cultural life, and the repercussions of these phenomena
in later decades; b) the social–economic–political system that evolved in the
USSR after World War II; and c) the general line of the Communist Parties

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 “STALINISM” 563

in the 20th century and beyond. This systematic confusion of subject mat-
ters alone makes the “Stalinism” label a hindrance to clarity and progress.
Second: the label is either erroneous or superficial when applied to each
of the three topics above. As a description of the Stalin era, it individualizes
and personalizes a complex reality that has deep material–cultural roots, and
one that has appeared in many other times and places. This is idealist and un-
Marxist. As a name for the social formation of early socialism in the USSR, it
misses all of the essential elements: systemic planning; unprecedented social
equality, security and educational and cultural advancement; and widespread
participation in social and economic management. Finally, as a characteriza-
tion of CP theory, it fails to address the core ingredients in an honest way.
These latter (incomplete list) embrace: the objectivity and concreteness of
revolutionary tasks at any given time and place; the stadiality (stage-related)
quality of social and political progress; the need for coalition relations with
reformist and single-issue movements; opposition to mechanical belief in
the inevitability of fascism and civil war on the road to socialist revolution;
and the centrality of the electoral arena in present-day capitalist societies.
These elements of mature Marxist thought have roots going back to Marx,
Engels, and Lenin; attributing them to “Stalin” is profoundly misleading.
Finally: the term is pejorative (as distinct from being merely “critical”)
in a very precise sense: it violates a basic principle of comradely debate, by
applying a label that is not used by, or acceptable to, those thus labeled.

dlaibman@scienceandsociety.com

Gerald Meyer
The terms “Stalinist” and “Stalinism” originated with Leon Trotsky and
were disseminated by his adherents. They used these neologisms routinely
to negatively characterize Communists and others who supported the Soviet
Union and the world Communist movement. In their original context, they
intended to cordon off the policies of the Soviet government and the world
Communist movement from “authentic” communism, which, they insisted,
were the purview of Trotsky and the Fourth International.
As much else emanating from Trotskyism, use of these terms has drifted
steadily to the right, where increasingly they have been used interchangeably
with “Communist” and “Communism.” This shift discredited these terms
among wide swaths of the population and established them as epithets.
“Stalinist” and “Stalinism” imply either a classical idealist or mechanistic-
materialist explanation for the economic, social, and political outcomes in
the Soviet Union, explanations that are antithetical to Marxism. Their use
has had the effect of scuttling the major thing the left, in the current period,
has to offer: its history.

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“Stalinist” and “Stalinism” are solely pejorative terms: They are used to
pillory those who view the Soviet experience, whose central figure was Joseph
Stalin, as essentially positive. No individual or organization that views the ac-
complishments of Stalin and the Communist movement as basically positive has
ever self-identified as “Stalinist,” or described their belief-system as “Stalinism.”
To the degree that these epithets stick, they become a form of blatant
red-baiting. Baiting is a variety of ad hominem attack that is universally rejected
as rhetorically acceptable. Its effect is divisive: it causes rancor and division
on the left. It aids the enemies of the left.
The imprecision of the terms “Stalinist” and “Stalinism” preclude their
application to scholarship. No two individuals use these terms in quite the
same way. In practice, they are used to mean:“What I don’t like about Stalin
and the 30-odd years that he led the Soviet Union.” When challenged, those
who hurl around these epithets often issue their own disclaimers, such as:
“Not his leadership in industrializing the Soviet Union nor the triumph of the
Red Army over fascism.” This qualification sidelines the more problematic,
albeit necessary, study of the causes and outcomes of these world-shaking
events, such as the collectivization of agriculture and the postwar expansion
of socialism beyond the Soviet Union. The fact that instances can be found
where, from time to time, reputable scholars have used these terms does not
negate this general truth.

geraldjmeyer@aol.com

Paul C. Mishler
One never really knows what the word “Stalinism” means. It is always
a term of insult — no one refers to themselves as “Stalinists” — unlike other
identifiers on the left. It has been adopted by conservatives of both the re-
actionary and liberal varieties. It allows them to shed the skin of the rightly
discredited “Red Scare.” They would like us to believe that they would be fine
with Communism, if it had not “gone bad” with Stalin. There is no evidence
that this is true, and they remain hostile to even the mildest forms of Social
Democracy (such as the Bernie Sanders campaign). When anti-socialists find
a “socialism” they can support, it is toothless or worse.
The Trotskyist tradition is a self-identified revolutionary tendency. But it
is unclear whether the Soviet Union under Trotsky’s leadership would have
been any more “democratic,” given the economic and international condi-
tions the new revolutionary state faced. After all, Trotsky had already shown
himself to be quite firm with those he saw as enemies of the revolution when
he suppressed the anarchist-led Kronstadt revolt in 1921.
“Stalinism” has been used to discredit any socialist-oriented move-
ment that has gained control of the state apparatus. It is not just about

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developments in the Soviet Union. It is also about opposing revolution-

ary efforts in Cuba, Venezuela, and Chile, and hostility towards non-­
insurrectionary socialist movements in Europe. Anti-Stalinism is not just
hostile to self-styled socialist experiments. It is implicitly anti-institutional.
All leadership can be and has been accused of “Stalinism,” in contexts where
the debates over Soviet developments are irrelevant, such as discussions
within the U. S. labor movement.
Perhaps the most important development in the international Com-
munist movement was the strategy of the United and Popular Front to fight
fascism. The “anti-Stalinist” left opposes this strategy. The “Popular Front”
was not a creation of Stalin. Indeed, it came from communists outside of the
Soviet Union. It led to the Communist heroism in the struggles against fas-
cism in both Europe and Asia, and put Communists in the United States in
the forefront of building the labor movement and fighting white supremacy.
Is this what “Stalinism” looks like? Is this what we should oppose?

paulc.mishler@gmail.com

August Nimtz
Revolutions, history teaches, are often followed by counterrevolutions;
think, for example, of the Arab Spring, Egypt specifically. Stalinism is first
and foremost a counterrevolutionary current within the modern workers’
movement. It emerged and congealed in response to the first successful
working-class revolution in history, the Bolshevik-led October Revolution in
1917. It masks itself, unlike any prior counterrevolution — such as that which
overthrew the Paris Commune in 1871 — in the mantle of Marx, Engels and
Lenin. For a brief moment, workers and peasants and then the working class
itself was installed in the driver’s seat in the Soviet Union. But by the end
of 1922, in Lenin’s final pronouncement on the issue before his eventual
death, “a workers’ state with bureaucratic distortions” was actually in place.
It took Trotsky, Lenin’s second in command in the October Revolution, to
provide an explanation for the outcome. The baggage of underdevelopment,
the toll of the civil war, and the failure of the revolution to spread westward
were all determinant. Rather than the dictatorship of the proletariat, the
dictatorship of the bureaucracy with Stalin at the head was now in power
— the last man standing after having imprisoned and/or murdered every
other leading Bolshevik.
The Communist International, founded in 1919, had briefly been a
venue for democratic discussion and debate, but became a rubber-stamp
machine for Stalin’s political twists and turns. None would be as consequen-
tial as his “Popular Front” policy in 1935 — a belated attempt to counter
fascism. To do so, the workers’ movement in every country was required to

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wed itself to the “progressive bourgeoisie” rather than pursuing independent

working-class political action. For the United States specifically, no organiza-
tion since then has been more conscious and active in blocking the forma-
tion of a working-class party independent of the Democratic Party than the
Communist Party USA — all in the name of the “Popular Front.” No wonder
that for some a Stalinist signifies a “gravedigger of revolution.”
In 1936 Stalin proclaimed that socialism had been realized in the USSR,
the most misnamed state (except perhaps for the Holy Roman Empire) in
history. Nothing in the entire corpus of writings of Marx, Engels and Lenin
sustains such a claim. The burden of proof is on those who think Stalin knew
better to explain why.

animtz@umn.edu

Alan Wald
Joe Slovo, the life-long South African Communist leader, bequeathed
a hard-earned truth when he published his 1990 pamphlet, Has Socialism
Failed?: “It is surely now obvious that if the socialist world stands in tatters
at this historic moment it is due to the Stalinist distortions.” Slovo then
offered a handy definition: “The term ‘Stalinism’ is used to denote the
bureaucratic–authoritarian style of leadership (of parties both in and out
of power) which denuded the party and the practice of socialism of most
of its democratic content and concentrated power in the hands of a tiny,
self-perpetuating elite.”
For Marxists, who are never just “anti-Stalinist” but militantly for revolu-
tionary socialism, this is what we talk about when we talk about Stalinism: Not
locking antlers to reproduce vicious and predictable debates from the 1930s,
but a tradition of efforts from many quarters to constructively theorize what
has gone wrong and why. Nevertheless, the challenge is monumental and
international. Five years after Slovo, another life-long Communist, British
historian Eric Hobsbawm, affirmed his Marxist commitment in The Age of
Extremes while reminding readers that, for all its positive achievements, com-
munism had produced states “under the iron heel of a genuinely murderous
dictatorship, like Stalin’s and Mao’s, or of lesser megalomaniac tyrannies,
like Ceausescu’s in Romania or Kim Il Sung’s in North Korea.”
There are drawbacks to the term, but a refusal to use the socio-political
category of Stalinism usually snuffs out memories of past alternatives that
envisioned other outcomes. It also facilitates epistemic closure so that the
truly disturbing stuff is filtered from our discussions of Communist thinkers,
activists, and essential movements such as anti-colonialism. Many of us would
like to put past catastrophes in a rearview mirror so that they get tinier and
tinier, but history is unlikely to work that way. Like the Sphinx on the road

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to Thebes, the problem of constructing socialism with democracy will loom

again, devouring all who cannot solve its great riddle. Denial, deflection, and
trivialization (“excesses,” “mistakes”) only disarm us; cataloguing crimes or
disavowing Stalin’s role won’t help. With no reset button to history, we must
proceed by presenting a total picture of the communist experience.

awald@umich.edu

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