A wide-ranging survey of debates within Marxism about the Soviet Union in the twentieth century.
"Readers of a certain age will recall debates amongabout whether Russia was 'state capitalist' or a 'degenerated workers' state'. The debate was profoundly serious, since it raged among Stalin's victims, who needed to know why they had been defeated, and by what. Since the Russian experience is still used to vilify the idea of socialism, the debate remains relevant. Van der Lindenhas now produced a comprehensive scholarly account of the arguments."--Ian Birchall, London Socialist Historians Group
