Democracy & State > Stalinism
Dead Russians
12 Mar 2009
Jack Conrad defends Lenin and Trotsky, and issues a health warning about Arthur Scargill, George Galloway, Robert Griffiths and others who want to forget, belittle or maintain silence over the crimes of Stalin
A Stalinist school of development?
02 Dec 2021
Paul Flewers looks back at the flawed but insightful theory of state collectivism presented by John Fantham and Moshé Machover in the late 1970s
Lamb dressed as mutton
18 Mar 2021
Lawrence Parker reviews 'A centenary for socialism: Britain’s Communist Party 1920-2020' by the Communist Party of Britain, edited by Mary Davis
Stalin as historian
23 Jul 2020
David Brandenberger has painstakingly studied the writing and editing of the famous Short course. Khrushchev’s account of Stalin simply wanting to feed his own personality cult is badly misleading
Marx’s vision
08 Aug 2019
In his second article, Nick Rogers concludes that there is no basis in the writing of Marx for Lenin’s schema of socialism and communism. Marx wrote no blueprints for how the future society should be organised.
Lenin’s misreading of Marx
02 Aug 2019
In the first of a two-part article, Nick Rogers claims that Lenin’s "The state and revolution" introduced the concept of socialism and communism as two different forms of post-capitalist society. His contention is that this established a “framework” that in the 20th century was abused to “justify Stalinist practice”.
Reclaiming democratic centralism
23 May 2019
One of the major issues raised by the Renewal Faction of America’s now liquidated ISO was the managerial regime that underpins the Cliffite tradition internationally. But there is bureaucratic centralism and democratic centralism. Mike Macnair continues his investigation
Commitment and collectivity
28 Feb 2019
René Gimpel continues his examination of the conflict between Jean-Paul Sartre’s political and philosophical passions
Individualism or class struggle?
21 Feb 2019
René Gimpel examines the philosophical and political development of Jean-Paul Sartre, and his fraught relationship with the French Communist Party
Stalinophiles and ignoramuses
24 Jan 2019
Rex Dunn examines a selection of fiction that deals with Stalinism and anti-Stalinism
Not social democracy
27 Sep 2018
Jack Conrad argues that the SACP is best understood in terms of ‘official communism’ and a tradition that dates back to the 7th Congress of Comintern
The place of the Soviet Union in history
16 Aug 2018
The USSR was neither a new type of capitalism nor a 'degenerate' socialism, but a freakish new social system, argues Jack Conrad
Into the swamp
12 Jul 2018
Review of Yuri Slezkine's 'The house of government: a saga of the Russian Revolution'. Princeton University Press, 2017, pp1096, £30
Trotskyism and May 1968
14 Jun 2018
It was the role of Stalinism that prevented revolution, insists Rex Dunn
From the mouths of the women
29 Mar 2018
Rex Dunn reviews Svetlana Alexievich The unwomanly face of war Penguin Classics, 2017, pp351, £12.99
Zuma on the brink
08 Feb 2018
Cyril Ramaphosa now looks set to become president a year earlier than scheduled, writes Peter Manson