What is it about?
Marxism was a secular humanism about empowering people, while Stalinism was a cruel dictatorial system. This article tries to explain how an emancipatory revolution ended up in a brutal despotism.
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Why is it important?
This essay was first given as a lecture when my biography of the young Stalin -- STALIN, PASSAGE TO REVOLUTION -- won the Deutscher Prize.
Perspectives
The article deals with vexed questions about the fate of the major anti-capitalist theory of social critique and change, Marxism, and why it is still relevant in the current moment.
Ronald Grigor Suny Suny
University of Michigan
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Was Stalin a Marxist? And If He Was, What Does This Mean for Marxism?, Historical Materialism, June 2023, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/1569206x-bja10007.
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