Abstract

Stalinism just does not go away. Fifty years after the Great Purges, 34 years since Stalin's death, the system that bears his name continues to haunt the political and academic Left in the West. As “real socialism,” it continues to oppress the peoples of the East. Years ago, we could console ourselves by “explaining” Stalinism as a “deviation” or “degeneration” from a once purer socialism. Yet this historical accident seems to possess an extraordinary viability. Stalinism has confronted threats to its hegemony by sending in tanks in Budapest, Prague and Kabul. It has withstood the revelations of the Gulag, the debacle in Kampuchea, the military coup in Poland, and twenty-six years of Fidel