Abstract

The publication of Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago has generated an international debate concerning the meaning of Stalinism, which, strangely enough, has not had much repercussion in the English-speaking world. With the exception of the publication of a few half-baked apologies by notorious party hacks such as Althusser, very little has been done in English. Gouldner's lead article tackles the problem head-on and, rejecting both Cold War interpretations (and more recent fashionable French variations) that see Stalinism as a logical consequence of Marxism, as well as Marxist apologies, which dismiss it as merely a “Russian accident” explainable in terms of backwardness and otherwise insurmountable historical obstacles, discusses it as a case of internal colonialism.