{{Short description|Opposition to Stalinism by left-wing political movements}} {{use dmy dates|date=May 2016}} {{Stalinism sidebar|expanded=related}} The '''anti-Stalinist left''' encompasses various kinds of left-wing political movements that oppose Joseph Stalin, Stalinism, neo-Stalinism and the system of governance that Stalin implemented as leader of the Soviet Union between 1924 and 1953. This term also refers to those that opposed Joseph Stalin and his leadership from within the communist movement, such as Leon Trotsky and the party's Left Opposition.
In recent years, the term may also refer to left and centre-left wing opposition to dictatorship, cult of personality, totalitarianism and police states, all being features commonly attributed to Marxist–Leninist regimes that took inspiration from Stalinism such as the regimes of Kim Il Sung, Enver Hoxha and others, including in the former Eastern Bloc.<ref>{{cite magazine|first=Dennis H. |last=Wrong |url=https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-american-left-and-cuba/ |title=The American Left and Cuba |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180523011148/https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-american-left-and-cuba/ |archive-date=23 May 2018 |magazine=Commentary |date=February 1, 1962}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Julius |last=Jacobson |author-link=Julius Jacobson |url=https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2009/08/02/reflections-fascism-and-communism |chapter=Reflections on Fascism and Communism |title=Socialist Perspectives |editor1-first=Phyllis |editor1-last=Jacobson |editor2-first=Julius |editor2-last=Jacobson |year=1983}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Samuel |last=Farber |url=https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/nothing-if-not-critical-by-alejandro-anreus/ |title=Cuba since the Revolution of 1959: A Critical Assessment |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180523095447/https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/nothing-if-not-critical-by-alejandro-anreus/ |archive-date=23 May 2018 |location=Chicago |publisher=Haymarket |year=2011}}</ref> Some of the notable movements within the anti-Stalinist left have been Trotskyism and Titoism, anarchism and libertarian socialism, left communism and libertarian Marxism, the Right Opposition within the Communist movement, Eurocommunism, ultra-leftism, democratic socialism and social democracy.
== Revolutionary era critiques (pre-1924) == {{Main|Left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks|Kronstadt rebellion|Left communism|libertarian Marxism}}
A large majority of the political left was initially enthusiastic about the Bolshevik Revolution in the revolutionary era. In the beginning, the Bolsheviks and their policies received much support because the movement was originally painted by Lenin and other leaders in a libertarian light.<ref name="Linkhoeva ">{{cite book |first=Tatiana |last=Linkhoeva |title=Revolution Goes East |chapter=5. Anarchism against Bolshevism |publisher=Cornell University Press |date=15 March 2020 |isbn=978-1-5017-4810-3 |doi=10.7591/9781501748103-007 |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.7591/9781501748103-007/html |access-date=23 July 2025 |pages=127–158}}</ref><ref name="b354">{{cite journal |last=Zoffmann Rodriguez |first=Arturo |title=An Uncanny Honeymoon: Spanish Anarchism and the Bolshevik Dictatorship of the Proletariat, 1917–22 |journal=International Labor and Working-Class History |volume=94 |date=2018 | issn=0147-5479 |doi=10.1017/S0147547918000066 |pages=5–26 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0147547918000066/type/journal_article |access-date=23 July 2025|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name=":12">{{Cite web|last=Goldman|first=Emma|date=1935|title=There Is No Communism in Russia|url=https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-there-is-no-communism-in-russia|url-status=live|access-date=2021-03-13|website=The Anarchist Library|language=en|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121003214005/http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-there-is-no-communism-in-russia |archive-date=3 October 2012 }}</ref> However, as more politically repressive methods were used, the Bolsheviks steadily lost support from many anarchists and revolutionaries.<ref name="Swain">{{cite journal |last=Swain |first=Geoffrey |title=The Bolshevik Anti-Anarchist Action of Spring 1918 |journal=Revolutionary Russia |volume=33 |issue=2 |date=2 July 2020 |issn=0954-6545 |doi=10.1080/09546545.2020.1830602 |doi-access=free |pages=221–245 |url=https://eprints.gla.ac.uk/223613/1/223613.pdf |access-date=23 July 2025}}</ref><ref name=":12" /><ref name="Linkhoeva "/> Prominent anarchist communists and libertarian Marxists such as Sylvia Pankhurst,<ref name="d708">{{cite web |first=Sylvia |last=Pankhurst |author-link=Sylvia Pankhurst |title=Open letter to Lenin |website=libcom.org | date=4 November 1922 |url=https://libcom.org/article/open-letter-lenin-sylvia-pankhurst | access-date=23 July 2025}}</ref> Rosa Luxemburg,<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4205366 |jstor=4205366 |last1=Schurer |first1=H. |title=Some Reflections on Rosa Luxemburg and the Bolshevik Revolution |journal=The Slavonic and East European Review |year=1962 |volume=40 |issue=95 |pages=356–372}}</ref> and Emma Goldman<ref name=":12" /> were among the first left-wing critics of Bolshevism.
Rosa Luxemburg was heavily critical of the methods that Bolsheviks used to seize power in the October Revolution claiming that it was "not a movement of the people but of the bourgeoisie".<ref name=":4">[https://libcom.org/article/nationalities-question-russian-revolution-rosa-luxemburg-1918 "The Nationalities Question in the Russian Revolution (Rosa Luxemburg, 1918)"]. Libcom.org. 11 July 2006. Retrieved 2 April 2021</ref> Primarily, Luxemburg's critiques were based on the manner in which the Bolsheviks suppressed anarchist movements.<ref>{{cite journal | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/4546390 |jstor=4546390 |title='Rosa Luxemburg Belongs to Us!' German Communism and the Luxemburg Legacy |last1=Weitz |first1=Eric D. |journal=Central European History |year=1994 |volume=27 |issue=1 |pages=27–64 |doi=10.1017/S0008938900009675 |s2cid=144709093 |url-access=subscription}}</ref> In one of her essays published titled "The Nationalities Question in the Russian Revolution", she explains:<ref name=":4" />
{{blockquote|To be sure, in all these cases, it was really not the "people" who engaged in these reactionary policies, but only the bourgeois and petit bourgeois classes, who – in sharpest opposition to their own proletarian masses – perverted the "national right of self-determination" into an instrument of their counter-revolutionary class policies.}}
thumb|Rosa Luxemburg's political legacy was criticized by Stalin after he rose to power.
Because of her early criticisms toward the Bolsheviks, her legacy was vilified by Stalin once he rose to power.<ref name=":5">Trotsky, Leon (June 1932). "Hands Off Rosa Luxemburg!". ''International Marxist Tendency''.</ref> According to Trotsky, Stalin was "often lying about her and vilifying her" in the eyes of the public.<ref name=":5" />
The relations between the anarchists and the Bolsheviks worsened in Soviet Russia due to the suppression of movements like the Kronstadt rebellion and the Makhnovist movement.<ref name="Swain"/><ref name="Zimmer">{{cite journal |last=Zimmer |first=Kenyon |title=Premature Anti-Communists?: American Anarchism, the Russian Revolution, and Left-Wing Libertarian Anti-Communism, 1917-1939 |journal=Labor |volume=6 |issue=2 |date=1 May 2009 |issn=1547-6715 |doi=10.1215/15476715-2008-058 |pages=45–71 |url=https://read.dukeupress.edu/labor/article/6/2/45/15315/Premature-Anti-Communists-American-Anarchism-the |access-date=23 July 2025|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name=":12" /> The Kronstadt rebellion (March 1921) was a key moment during which many libertarian and democratic leftists broke with the Bolsheviks, laying the foundations for the anti-Stalinist left. The American anti-Stalinist socialist Daniel Bell later said: {{blockquote|Every radical generation, it is said, has its Kronstadt. For some it was the Moscow Trials, for others the Nazi-Soviet Pact, for still others Hungary (The Raik Trial or 1956), Czechoslovakia (the defenestration of Masaryk in 1948 or the Prague Spring of 1968), the Gulag, Cambodia, Poland (and there will be more to come). My Kronstadt was Kronstadt.<ref name="Bell">{{cite web |last=Bell |first=Daniel |title=Arguing the World – The New York Intellectuals |website=PBS |url=https://www.pbs.org/arguing/nyintellectuals_bell_2.html |access-date=2021-04-23 |archive-date=16 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210416181915/https://www.pbs.org/arguing/nyintellectuals_bell_2.html |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Hitchens 2008">{{cite web |title=The Hitchens out-takes |website=Prospect Magazine |date=2008-05-24 |url=https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/thehitchensouttakes |access-date=2021-04-23 |archive-date=23 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210423163145/https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/thehitchensouttakes |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="UC Press E-Books Collection, 1982-2004">{{cite web |title=Critical Crossings |website=UC Press E-Books Collection, 1982–2004 |url=https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft9w1009t9&chunk.id=d0e6145&toc.id=d0e5478&toc.depth=1&brand=ucpress;query=Cold%20War&anchor.id=bkd0e6445 |access-date=2021-04-23 |archive-date=23 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210423163146/https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft9w1009t9&chunk.id=d0e6145&toc.id=d0e5478&toc.depth=1&brand=ucpress;query=Cold%20War&anchor.id=bkd0e6445 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Dissent Magazine 2012">{{cite web |title=Remembering Daniel Bell |website=Dissent Magazine |date=2012-09-27 |url=https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/remembering-daniel-bell |access-date=2021-04-23 |archive-date=23 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210423163145/https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/remembering-daniel-bell |url-status=live}}</ref>}}
Another key anti-Stalinist, Louis Fischer, later coined the term "Kronstadt moment" for this.<ref name="Hitchens 2008"/>
Like Rosa Luxemburg, Emma Goldman was primarily critical of Lenin's style of leadership, but her focus eventually transferred over to Stalin and his policies as he rose to power.<ref name="Wexler">{{cite journal |last=Wexler |first=Alice |title= Reviewed work: Emma Goldman in Exile: From the Russian Revolution to the Spanish Civil War, Alice Wexler |journal=American Jewish History |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press, American Jewish Historical Society |volume=79 |issue=2 |year=1989 |issn=0164-0178 |jstor=23884405 |pages=279–281 |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/23884405 |access-date=23 July 2025}}</ref><ref name=":12" /> In her essay titled "There Is No Communism in Russia", Goldman details how Stalin "abused the power of his position" and formed a dictatorship.<ref name=":12" /> In this text she states:<ref name=":12" /> {{blockquote|In other words, by the Central Committee and Politbureau of the Party, both of them controlled absolutely by one man, Stalin. To call such a dictatorship, this personal autocracy more powerful and absolute than any Czar's, by the name of Communism seems to me the acme of imbecility.}}
Emma Goldman asserted that there was "not the least sign in Soviet Russia even of authoritarian, State Communism".<ref name=":12" /> Emma Goldman remained critical of Stalin and the Bolshevik's style of governance up until her death in 1940.<ref name=":6">{{Cite book |first=Emma |last=Goldman |author-link=Emma Goldman |title=Living my life |date=1988 |publisher=Pluto Press |oclc=166081114}}</ref>
Overall, the left communists and anarchists were critical of the statist, repressive, and totalitarian nature of Marxism–Leninism which eventually carried over to Stalinism and Stalin's policy in general.<ref name=":6" /> Conversely, Trotsky argued that he and Lenin had intended to lift the ban on the opposition parties such as the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries as soon as the economic and social conditions of Soviet Russia had improved.<ref name="books.google.com">{{cite book |last1=Deutscher |first1=Isaac |author1-link=Isaac Deutscher |title=The Prophet: The Life of Leon Trotsky |date=5 January 2015 |publisher=Verso Books |isbn=978-1-78168-721-5 |pages=528 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YGznDwAAQBAJ&q=isaac+deutscher+trotsky+the+prophet |language=en}}</ref>
== After Stalin's rise to power (1924–1930) == {{Main|Old Bolsheviks|Left Opposition|United Opposition (Soviet Union)|Right Opposition|Third Period}} thumb|right|A young Nikolai Bukharin, whose ideas formed the ideological framework of the Right Opposition {{Quote box|width=25em|align=left|bgcolor=|quote=He is an unprincipled intriguer, who subordinates everything to the preservation of his own power. He changes his theory according to whom he needs to get rid of.|source=Bukharin on Stalin's theoretical position, 1928.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sakwa |first1=Richard |title=The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union |date=17 August 2005 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-134-80602-7 |page=165 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CJ6IAgAAQBAJ&dq=bukharin+he+changes+his+theory+according+to+whom+he+needs+to+get+rid+of&pg=PA165 |language=en}}</ref>}} The struggle for power in the Soviet Union after the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924 saw the development of three major tendencies within the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). These were described by Trotsky as left, right, and centre tendencies. The Right Opposition was a label formulated by Stalin in Autumn of 1928 for the opposition against certain measures included within the first five-year plan, an opposition which was led by Nikolai Bukharin, Alexei Rykov, Mikhail Tomsky, and their supporters within the Soviet Union that did not follow the so-called "general line of the party". Stalin and his "centre" faction were allied with Bukharin and the Right Opposition from late 1924, with Bukharin elaborating Stalin's theory of socialism in one country. Together, they expelled Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev, and the United Opposition from the Communist Party in December 1927. However, once Trotsky was out of the way and the Left Opposition had been illegalized, Stalin soon turned on his Right Opposition allies. Bukharin and the Right Opposition were, in their turn, sidelined and removed from important positions within the Communist Party and the Soviet government from 1928 to 1930, with Stalin ending the NEP and beginning the first five-year plan.
One of the last attempts of the Right Opposition to resist Stalin was the Ryutin affair in 1932, where a manifesto against the policy of collectivization was circulated; it openly called for "The Liquidation of the dictatorship of Stalin and his clique".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ryutin |first=Martemyan N. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yYIfSQAACAAJ |title=The Ryutin Platform: Stalin and the Crisis of Proletarian Dictatorship: Platform of the "Union of Marxists-Leninists" |date=2010 |publisher=Seribaan |isbn=978-81-87492-28-3 |language=en |access-date=23 April 2021 |archive-date=23 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210423160624/https://books.google.com/books?id=yYIfSQAACAAJ |url-status=live}}</ref> Later, some rightists joined a secret bloc with Leon Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev to oppose Stalin. Historian Pierre Broué stated that it dissolved in early 1933.<ref>{{Cite web |first=Pierre |last=Broué |title=The 'Bloc' of the Oppositions against Stalin |date=January 1980 |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html |access-date=2020-08-07 |via=Marxists Internet Archive |archive-date=12 August 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210812075818/https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html |url-status=live}}</ref>
[[File:Leon Trotsky, 1930s.jpg|thumb|Bolshevik revolutionary Leon Trotsky was exiled by Stalin in February 1929.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Stalin banishes Trotsky |website=History |date=21 July 2010 |url=https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/stalin-banishes-trotsky}}</ref> Trotsky would become the most vocal and prominent critic of Stalinism in the early 20th century.]] Leon Trotsky and Stalin disagreed on issues of industrialization and revolutionary tactics.<ref name=":72" /> Trotsky believed that there was a need for super-industrialization while Stalin believed in a rapid surge and collectivization, as written in his 5-year plan.<ref name=":72" /> Trotsky believed an accelerated global surge to be the answer to institute communism globally.<ref name=":72">{{Cite web |first=L. D. |last=Trotsky |author-link=Leon Trotsky |title=The New Course in the Economy of the Soviet Union |date=March 1930 |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1930/03/newcourse.htm |access-date=2021-04-19 |via=Marxists Internet Archive |archive-date=19 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210419024946/https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1930/03/newcourse.htm |url-status=live}}</ref> Trotsky was critical of Stalin's methods because he believed the slower pace of collectivization and industrialization to be ineffective in the long run.<ref name=":72" /><!--really need a secondary source to analyze the difference between Trotsky and Stalin here--> According to historian Sheila Fitzpatrick, the scholarly consensus is that Stalin appropriated the position of the Left Opposition on such matters as industrialisation and collectivisation.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Fitzpatrick |first1=Sheila |title=The Old Man |journal=London Review of Books |date=22 April 2010 |volume=32 |issue=8 |url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v32/n08/sheila-fitzpatrick/the-old-man |language=en |issn=0260-9592}}</ref> Trotsky also disagreed with Stalin's thesis of Socialism in One Country,<ref name=":72" /> believing that the institution of revolution in one state or country would not be as effective as a global revolution.<ref name=":23">{{cite book |first=Martin |last=Oppenheimer |chapter=The 'Russian Question' and the U.S. Left |title=State Capitalism, Contentious Politics and Large-Scale Social Change |series=Studies in Critical Social Sciences |volume=29 |isbn=9789004194748 |publisher=Brill |date=1 January 2011 }}</ref><!--Originally cited in "Digger Journal"--> He also criticized how the Socialism in One Country thesis broke with the internationalist traditions of Marxism.<ref name=":33">Harap, Louis (1989). ''The Rise and Decline of the Anti-Stalinist Left from the 1930s to the 1980s''. Guilford Publication.</ref> Trotskyists believed that a permanent global revolution was the most effective method to ensure the system of communism was enacted worldwide.<ref name=":23" /> According to his biographer, Isaac Deutscher, Trotsky explicitly supported proletarian internationalism but was opposed to achieving this via military conquest as seen with his documented opposition to the war with Poland in 1920, proposed armistice with the Entente and temperance with staging anti-British revolts in the Middle East.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Deutscher |first1=Isaac |title=The Prophet: The Life of Leon Trotsky |date=5 January 2015 |publisher=Verso Books |isbn=978-1-78168-721-5 |pages=472–473 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YGznDwAAQBAJ&q=isaac+deutscher+trotsky |language=en}}</ref> Overall, Trotsky and his followers were very critical of the lack of internal debate and discussion among Stalinist organizations along with their politically repressive methods.<ref name=":23" /><ref name=":33" />
== The consolidation of Stalin's rule and responding to the rise of fascism in Europe (1930–1939) == [[File:Three Arrows election poster of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, 1932 - Gegen Papen, Hitler, Thälmann.png|thumb|A widely publicized election poster of the Social Democratic Party of Germany from 1932, with the Three Arrows symbol representing resistance against reactionary conservatism, Nazism and Stalinism, alongside the slogan "Against Papen, Hitler, Thälmann"]] {{Main|Great Purge|Moscow Trials|Dewey Commission|Fourth International|Spanish Revolution of 1936|Spanish Civil War}} During the 1930s, critics of Stalin, both inside and outside the Soviet Union, were under heavy attack by the party. According to historian, Bernhard H. Bayerlein, the increasingly "repressive transformation" of the Communist movement "strengthened intermediate oppositionist and anti-Stalinist currents” in the left.<ref name="Bayerlein ">{{cite book | last=Bayerlein | first=Bernhard H. | title=The "Cultural International" as the Comintern's Intermediate Empire: International Mass and Sympathizing Organisations beyond Parties | publisher=Brill | date=1 January 2017 | url=https://brill.com/display/book/edcoll/9789004324824/B9789004324824-s003.xml | access-date=24 July 2025 | pages=28–88 | doi=10.1163/9789004324824_003 | isbn=978-90-04-32481-7 }}</ref>
Outside the Communist movement, for example, the International Revolutionary Marxist Centre was founded in 1932 as an international association of left-wing parties which rejected both more moderate mainstream social democracy and the Stalinist Third International.
[[File:Diego rivera Commies.jpg|thumb|A Diego Rivera mural (''Man, Controller of the Universe'') depicts Trotsky with Marx and Engels as a true champion of the workers' struggle.]] While defending the Russian Revolution from outside aggression, Leon Trotsky and his followers at the same time urged an anti-bureaucratic political revolution against Stalinism to be conducted by the Soviet working class themselves. In 1936, Trotsky called for the restoration of the right of criticism in areas such as economic matters, the revitalization of the trade unions and the free elections of the Soviet parties.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Trotsky |first1=Leon |title=The Revolution Betrayed: What is the Soviet Union and where is it Going? |date=1991 |publisher=Mehring Books |isbn=978-0-929087-48-1 |page=218 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hiCYS9Z3lDoC |language=en}}</ref> Trotsky also opposed the policy of forced collectivisation under Stalin and favoured a voluntary, gradual approach towards agricultural production<ref>{{cite book |last1=Beilharz |first1=Peter |title=Trotsky, Trotskyism and the Transition to Socialism |date=19 November 2019 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-000-70651-2 |pages=1–206 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Lfe-DwAAQBAJ&dq=trotsky+widely+acknowledged+collectivisation&pg=PT196 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Rubenstein |first1=Joshua |title=Leon Trotsky: a revolutionary's life |date=2011 |location=New Haven |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-13724-8 |page=161 |url=https://archive.org/details/leontrotskyrevol0000rube/page/160/mode/2up?q=forced+collectivization}}</ref> with greater tolerance for the rights of Soviet Ukrainians.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Deutscher |first1=Isaac |title=The Prophet: The Life of Leon Trotsky |date=5 January 2015 |publisher=Verso Books |isbn=978-1-78168-721-5 |page=637 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YGznDwAAQBAJ&q=isaac+deutscher+trotsky |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Leon Trotsky: Problem of the Ukraine (1939) |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1939/04/ukraine.html |website=Marxists Internet Archive}}</ref> From 1936, Trotsky and his American supporter James P. Cannon described the Soviet Union as a "degenerated workers' state", the revolutionary gains of which should be defended against imperialist aggression despite the emergence of a gangster-like ruling stratum, the party bureaucracy.
The Great Purge occurred from 1936 to 1938 as a result of growing internal tensions between the critics of Stalin but eventually turned into an all-out cleansing of "anti-Soviet elements".<ref name=":8">{{Cite journal |last=Ellman |first=Michael |date=November 2002 |title=Soviet Repression Statistics: Some Comments |journal=Europe-Asia Studies |volume=54 |issue=7 |pages=1151–1172 |doi=10.1080/0966813022000017177 |s2cid=43510161 |issn=0966-8136}}</ref> A majority of those targeted were peasants and minorities, but anarchists and democratic socialist opponents were also targeted for their criticisms of the severely repressive political techniques that Stalin used.<ref name=":33" /> Many were executed or sent to Gulag prison camps extrajudicially.<ref name=":8" /> It is estimated that during the Great Purge, casualties ranged from 600,000 to over 1 million people.<ref name=":8" />
{{Quote box|width=25em|align=left|bgcolor=|quote=With all the greater frankness can I state how, in my view, the Soviet government should act in case of a fascist upheaval in Germany. In their place, I would, at the very moment of receiving telegraphic news of this event, sign a mobilisation order calling up several age groups. In the face of a mortal enemy, when the logic of the situation points to inevitable war, it would be irresponsible and unpardonable to give that enemy time to establish himself, to consolidate his positions, to conclude alliances ... and to work out the plan to attack.|source=Trotsky describing the military measures he would have taken in place of Stalin to negate the rise of Hitler in 1932.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Deutscher |first1= Isaac |title=The Prophet: The Life of Leon Trotsky |year = 2015 |publisher=Verso Books |isbn=978-1-78168-560-0 |language=en|pages=1192–1193}}</ref>}} Concurrently, fascism was rising across Europe. Initially, during the Comintern's "third period", Communist parties saw the democratic left as social fascists, or as a worse enemy than fascism. The anti-Stalinist left played a major role in the emergence of anti-fascism in this period.<ref name="Hyslop ">{{cite journal | last=Hyslop | first=Jonathan | title=German seafarers, anti-fascism and the anti-Stalinist left: the 'Antwerp Group' and Edo Fimmen's International Transport Workers' Federation, 1933–40 | journal=Global Networks | volume=19 | issue=4 | date=2019 | issn=1470-2266 | doi=10.1111/glob.12212 | doi-access=free | pages=499–520 | url=https://repository.up.ac.za/bitstream/2263/66792/1/Hyslop_German_2019.pdf | access-date=24 July 2025}}</ref> The Soviet leadership switched to a popular front policy in 1933, in which Communists were expected to work with liberal and even conservative allies to defend against an expected fascist assault. Although Communists and their fellow travellers in CP-dominated front organisations played a major role in the anti-fascist movement after 1933, Enzo Traverso and other historians have argued that the historiography has often obscured the role of the anti-Stalinist left: “it was possible to be both antifascist and anti-Stalinist, and... the fascination exercised by Stalinism at this time over the antifascist intelligentsia was not irresistible."<ref name="Wald">{{cite web | last=Wald| first=Alam| title=Review of: ''Fire and Blood: The European Civil War, 1914-1945'' | website=Portside | date=27 July 2016 | url=https://portside.org/2016-07-27/fire-and-blood-european-civil-war-1914-1945 | access-date=24 July 2025}}</ref>
One of the most conflicts of the time was the Spanish Civil War. While the whole left fought alongside the Republican faction, within it there were sharp conflicts between the Communists, on the one hand, and anarchists, Trotskyists and the POUM (the Spanish affiliate of the International Revolutionary Marxist Centre) on the other.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Beevor |first=Antony |title=The battle for Spain: the Spanish Civil War 1936–1939 |date=2006 |publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson |isbn=978-0-297-84832-5 |location=London |oclc=64312268}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Howson |first=Gerald |title=Arms for Spain: the untold story of the Spanish Civil War |date=1999 |publisher=St. Martin's Press |isbn=0-312-24177-1 |edition=1st |location=New York |oclc=42706615}}</ref> Support for the latter became a key issue for the anti-Stalinist left internationally, as exemplified by the ILP Contingent in the International Brigades, George Orwell's book ''Homage to Catalonia'', the periodical ''Spain and the World'', and various pamphlets by Emma Goldman, Rudolf Rocker and others.<ref>{{cite web | last=Vérité | first=La | title=Spanish Revolution | website=English Language Paper of the POUM | date=1936-10-21 | url=https://www.marxists.org/history/spain/poum/spanishrevolution/index.htm | access-date=2022-06-19}}</ref><ref>Merilyn Moos, ''[http://community-languages.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Exiles-text.pdf Anti-Nazi Exiles German Socialists in Britain and their Shifting Alliances 1933–1945]'' (London: Community Languages, 2021)</ref><ref name="Høgsbjerg 2013 pp. 243–275">{{cite journal | last=Høgsbjerg | first=Christian | title='A Kind of Bible of Trotskyism': Reflections on C.L.R. James's World Revolution | journal=The CLR James Journal | publisher=Philosophy Documentation Center | volume=19 | issue=1/2 | year=2013 | issn=2167-4256 | oclc=8289946512 | jstor=26752040 | pages=243–275 | doi=10.5840/clrjames2013191/214 | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26752040 | access-date=2022-06-19| url-access=subscription }}</ref>
Illustrating the role of the anti-Stalinist left in the anti-fascist movement, historian Jonathan Hyslop gives the example of the "Antwerp Group" of former Communist activists in the International Transport Workers' Federation, led by Hermann Knüfken. This group sent fighters to Spain, where they joined an international militia linked to the UGT union federation, but were expelled by the group’s Communst Party leader, Hans Beimler, over political differences, whereupon they joined the anarchist Durruti Column.<ref name="Hyslop "/> Traverso gives the examples of socialists Gaetano Salvemini (who founded the first clandestine anti-fascist newspaper ''{{ill|Non mollare|it}}'' ("Don't Give Up") in January 1925<ref name=pugliese64>Pugliese, ''Carlo Rosselli'', [https://books.google.com/books?id=Yhys8SMGHM0C&pg=PA64 p. 64]</ref>) and Carlo Rosselli (who founded the Giustizia e Libertà anti-fascist group and then fought in Spain as the leader, with Camillo Berneri of the Matteotti Battalion, a mixed volunteer unit of anarchist, liberal, socialist and Communist Italians).<ref name="Traverso">{{cite book | last=Traverso | first=Enzo | title=Fire and Blood: The European Civil War 1914-1945 | publisher=Verso Books | publication-place=London; New York | date=2016-01-12 | isbn=978-1-78478-133-0 }}</ref>
In other countries too, non-Communist left parties competed with Stalinism as the same time as they fought the right. The Three Arrows symbol was adopted by the German Social Democrats to signify this multi-pronged conflict.<ref name="Potthoff">{{cite book |last1= Potthoff |first1=Heinrich |last2= Faulenbach |first2=Bernd |year= 1998 |title=Sozialdemokraten und Kommunisten nach Nationalsozialismus und Krieg: zur historischen Einordnung der Zwangsvereinigung |language=de |publisher= Klartext |page= 27 }}</ref>
== Mid-century critiques (1939–1953) == {{See also|Titoism}} Dissidents in the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party, witnessing the collaboration of Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler in the invasion and the partition of Poland and the Soviet invasion of the Baltic states, argued that the Soviet Union had actually emerged as a new social formation, which was neither capitalist nor socialist. Adherents of that view, espoused most explicitly by Max Shachtman and closely following the writings of James Burnham and Bruno Rizzi, argued that the Soviet bureaucratic collectivist regime had in fact entered one of two great imperialist "camps" aiming to wage war to divide the world. The first of the imperialist camps, which Stalin and the Soviet Union were said to have joined as a directly participating ally, was headed by Nazi Germany and included most notably Fascist Italy. In that original analysis, the "second imperialist camp" was headed by England and France, actively supported by the United States.<ref>See for example [https://www.marxists.org/archive/shachtma/1940/05/mayday.htm "Against Both War Camps – For the Camp of World Labor!"] and the May Day 1940 manifesto of the Workers Party, the political offshoot of the SWP established by Burnham, Shachtman and Martin Abern in April 1940 (''Labor Action'', "Special May Day Preview Number", May 1, 1940, p. 1).</ref>
Shachtman and his cothinkers argued for the establishment of a broad "third camp" to unite the workers and colonial peoples of the world in revolutionary struggle against the imperialism of the German–Soviet–Italian and the Anglo–American–French blocs. Shachtman concluded that the Soviet policy was one of imperialism and that the best result for the international working class would be the defeat of the Soviet Union in the course of its military incursions. Conversely, Trotsky argued that a defeat for the Soviet Union would strengthen capitalism and reduce the possibilities for political revolution.<ref>A series of sharply critical articles and letters from Trotsky's debates with Shachtman was published posthumously under the title ''In Defense of Marxism''. Cannon's polemics against Burnham and Shachtman are contained in the book ''The Struggle for a Proletarian Party''.</ref>
[[File:Josip Broz Tito uniform portrait.jpg|thumb|Tito was a heavy critic of Stalin after their split in 1948.]]
Josip Broz Tito became one of the most prominent leftist critics of Stalin after World War II. The Communist Party of Yugoslavia and the policies that were established was originally closely modeled on that of the Soviet Union.<ref name=":9" /> In the eyes of many, "Yugoslavia followed perfectly down the path of Soviet Marxism".<ref name=":9">{{Cite journal|last=Macridis|first=Roy|date=1952|title=Stalinism and the Meaning of Titoism|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2009046|journal=World Politics|volume=4|issue=2|pages=219–238|doi=10.2307/2009046|jstor=2009046|s2cid=154384077 |issn=0043-8871|access-date=19 April 2021|archive-date=19 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210419094304/https://www.jstor.org/stable/2009046|url-status=live|url-access=subscription}}</ref> At the start, Tito was even considered "Stalin's most faithful pupil".<ref name=":10">{{Cite journal|last=Mehta|first=Coleman|date=2011|title=The CIA Confronts the Tito–Stalin Split, 1948–1951|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26923606|journal=Journal of Cold War Studies|volume=13|issue=1|pages=101–145|doi=10.1162/JCWS_a_00070|jstor=26923606|s2cid=57560689|issn=1520-3972|access-date=19 April 2021|archive-date=19 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210419095807/https://www.jstor.org/stable/26923606|url-status=live|url-access=subscription}}</ref> However, as the Yugoslavian Communist Party grew in size and power, it became a secondary Communist powerhouse in Europe.<ref name=":9" /> This eventually caused Tito to try to operate independently, which created tensions with Stalin and the Soviet Union.<ref name=":9" /> In 1948, the two leaders split apart because of Yugoslavian independent foreign policy and ideological differences.<ref name=":9" /><ref name=":10" />
Tito and his followers began a political effort to develop a new brand of socialism that would be both Marxist–Leninist in nature yet anti-Stalinist in practice.<ref name=":9" /> The result was the Yugoslav system of socialist workers' self-management.<ref name=":9" /> This led to the philosophy of organizing of every production-related activity in society into "self-managed units".<ref name=":9" /> This came to be known as Titoism. Tito was critical of Stalin because he believed Stalin became "un-Marxian".<ref name=":9" /> In the pamphlet titled "On New Roads to Socialism" one of Tito's high ranking aides states:<ref name=":9" />
{{blockquote|The indictment is long indeed: unequal relations with and exploitation of the other socialist countries, un-Marxian treatment of the role of the leader, inequality in pay greater than in bourgeois democracies, ideological promotion of Great Russian nationalism and subordination of other peoples, a policy of division of spheres of influence with the capitalist world, monopolization of the interpretation of Marxism, the abandonment of all democratic forms ...}}
Tito disagreed on the primary characteristics that defined Stalin's policy and style of leadership. Tito wanted to form his own version of "pure" socialism without many of the "un-Marxian" traits of Stalinism.<ref name=":10" /> Tito has also accused Stalinist USSR's hegemonic practices in Eastern Europe and economic exploitation of the Soviet satellite states as imperialist.<ref name="Perović, 2007">{{cite journal |title=The Tito–Stalin split: a reassessment in light of new evidence |first=Jeronim |last=Perović |journal=Journal of Cold War Studies |volume=9 |issue=2 |date=2007 |pages=32–63 |publisher=MIT Press |doi=10.1162/jcws.2007.9.2.32 |s2cid=57567168 |url=https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/62735/1/Perovic_Tito.pdf}}</ref>
Other foreign leftist critics also came about during this time in Europe and America. Some of these critics include George Orwell, H. N. Brailsford,<ref>F. M. Leventhal (1985), ''The Last Dissenter: H. N. Brailsford and His World'', Oxford University Press, {{ISBN|0-19-820055-2}} (pp. 248–49).</ref> Fenner Brockway,<ref>"Brockway ... sought to articulate a socialism distinct from the pragmatism of Labour and the Stalinism of the "Communist Party". David Howell, "Brockway, (Archibald) Fenner, Baron Brockway", in H.C.G. Matthew and Brian Harrison (eds.), ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: From the Earliest Times to the Year 2000''. {{ISBN|0-19-861411-X}} (Volume 7, pp. 765–66)</ref><ref>Paul Corthorn, ''In the shadow of the dictators: the British Left in the 1930s''. Tauris Academic Studies, 2006, {{ISBN|1-85043-843-9}}, p. 125.</ref> the Young People's Socialist League, and later Michael Harrington,<ref>Isserman, M. (1996), "Michael Harrington and the Vietnam War: The Failure of Anti-Stalinism in the 1960s". ''Peace & Change'' 21: 383–408. {{doi|10.1111/j.1468-0130.1996.tb00279.x}}</ref> and the Independent Labour Party in Britain. There were also several anti-Stalinist socialists in France, including writers such as Simone Weil<ref>"In August 1933 Weil carried these reflections further in a widely read article in the avant-garde, anti-Stalinist Communist review ''Revolution proletarienne''". John Hellman, ''Simone Weil: An Introduction to her thought''. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1982 {{ISBN|0-88920-121-8}}. p.21.</ref> and Albert Camus<ref>"From well before the Algerian war the Communists in particular held against Camus not so much his anti-Stalinism as his growing refusal to share political 'positions' or get into public arguments". Quoted in Tony Judt, ''The Burden of Responsibility: Blum, Camus, Aron, and the French Twentieth Century''. University of Chicago Press, 2007 {{ISBN|0-226-41419-1}}. p. 92.</ref> as well as the group around Marceau Pivert.
In America, the New York Intellectuals around the journals ''New Leader'', ''Partisan Review,'' and ''Dissent'' were among other critics. In general, these figures criticized Soviet Communism as a form of "totalitarianism which in some ways mirrored fascism".<ref>Maurice Isserman. [https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/steady-work-sixty-years-of-dissent "Steady Work: Sixty Years of Dissent: A history of Dissent magazine"]. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180924114614/https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/steady-work-sixty-years-of-dissent |date=24 September 2018 }}. ''Dissent'', January 23, 2014</ref><ref name="Wilford 2003 pp. 15–34"/> A key text for this movement was ''The God That Failed'', edited by British socialist Richard Crossman in 1949, featuring contributions by Louis Fischer, André Gide, Arthur Koestler, Ignazio Silone, Stephen Spender and Richard Wright, about their journeys to anti-Stalinism.
== After the death of Stalin (1953–1967) == {{Main|De-Stalinization|Predictions of the collapse of the Soviet Union}}
Following the death of Joseph Stalin, many prominent leaders of Stalin's cabinet sought to seize power. As a result, a Soviet triumvirate was formed between Lavrenty Beria, Georgy Malenkov, and Nikita Khrushchev. The primary goal of the new leadership was to ensure stability in the country while leadership positions within the government were sorted out. Some of the new policy implemented that was antithetical of Stalinism included policy that was free from terror, that decentralized power, and collectivized leadership. After this long power struggle within the Soviet government, Nikita Khrushchev came into power. Once in power, Khrushchev was quick to denounce Stalin and his methods of governance.<ref name=":11">[http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/115995 "Khrushchev's Secret Speech, 'On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences', Delivered at the Twentieth Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union"], February 25, 1956, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, From the Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 84th Congress, 2nd Session (May 22, 1956 – June 11, 1956), C11, Part 7 (June 4, 1956), pp. 9389–9403.</ref> In a secret speech delivered to the 20th party congress in 1956, Khrushchev was critical of the "cult of personality of Stalin" and his selfishness as a leader:<ref name=":11" /> {{blockquote|Comrades, the cult of the individual acquired such monstrous size chiefly because Stalin himself, using all conceivable methods, supported the glorification of his own person. This is supported by numerous facts.}} Khrushchev also revealed to the congress the truth behind Stalin's methods of repression. In addition, he explained that Stalin had rounded up "thousands of people and sent them into a huge system of political work camps" called gulags.<ref name=":11" /> The truths revealed in this speech came to the surprise of many, but this fell into the plan of Khrushchev. This speech tainted Stalin's name which resulted in a significant loss of faith in his policy from government officials and citizens.<ref name=":11" />
There were attempts within the Soviet Union's satellite states to find a left-wing path that departed from Moscow's directives, met with repression by Soviet-backed governments. In June 1956, the Polish Army violently repressed the workers' uprising at Poznań against the economic policies of the Polish People's Republic. The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 lasted fifteen days before being crushed by Soviet tanks. The repression in Hungary led to further disillusionment with Stalinism globally, and precipitated splits within and departures from Communist parties. In the UK, for example, historian E.P. Thompson, then a party member, later recalled many calling for an “organized movement of the Marxist anti-Stalinist left" outside the party.<ref>E. P. Thompson, ''The Poverty of Theory and Other Essays'' (London: Merlin Press, 1978), p. 133.</ref> This was the catalyst for the emergence of the New Left.<ref name=":1"/>{{Rp|page=285}}
During this period, known as the Khrushchev Thaw (1956–64), a dissident left emerged in the Soviet Union, including the Vail group in Leningrad (1956–58), who read texts by anarchists and the Workers Opposition and published “Theses on the Hungarian Revolution” and “The Truth About Hungary,” which emphasized the role of workers’ councils; and the Union of Communards in Leningrad (1960-1965), who wrote pamphlets such as “From the Dictatorship of the Bureaucracy to the Dictatorship of the Proletariat”, drawing on Lenin's ''State and Revolution'' to criticise Soviet bureaucracy. Mayakovsky Square in Moscow became a key meeting point for such groups from 1958.<ref name="Wainer">{{cite web | title=Dissidents Among Dissidents | website=International Viewpoint | date=21 April 2022 | url=https://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article7616 | access-date=24 July 2025}}</ref>
During this Cold War era, the American non-Communist left (NCL) grew.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2020-08-17|title=Non-Communist Left Materials|url=https://exhibits.lib.utexas.edu/spotlight/socialist-pamphlets/feature/non-communist-left-materials|access-date=2021-12-17|website=Socialist Pamphlets – UT Libraries Exhibits|language=en|archive-date=17 December 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211217114317/https://exhibits.lib.utexas.edu/spotlight/socialist-pamphlets/feature/non-communist-left-materials|url-status=live}}</ref> The NCL was critical of the continuation of Stalinist Communism because of aspects such as famine and repression,<ref name=":12" /> and as later discovered, the covert intervention of Soviet state interests in the Communist Party USA (CPUSA).<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last1=Haynes|first1=John Earl|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fBSbKS1FlegC|title=In Denial: Historians, Communism & Espionage|last2=Klehr|first2=Harvey|date=2005|publisher=Encounter Books|isbn=1-59403-088-X|edition=1st|location=San Francisco, California|pages=29–31, 63, 66–69|oclc=62271849}}</ref>{{Rp|page=31}} Members of the NCL were often ex-Communists, such as the historian Theodore Draper whose views shifted from socialism to liberalism, and socialists who became disillusioned with the Communist movement. Anti-Stalinist Trotskyists also wrote about their experiences during this time, such as Irving Howe and Lewis Coser.<ref name=":0"/>{{Rp|pages=29–30}} These perspectives inspired the creation of the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF), as well as international journals like ''Der Monat'' and ''Encounter''; it also influenced existing publications such as the ''Partisan Review''.<ref name=":13">{{Cite book|last=Saunders|first=Frances Stonor|title=The cultural cold war: the CIA and the world of arts and letters|date=2013|isbn=978-1-59558-914-9|location=New York|publisher=New Press|oclc=826444682}}</ref> According to John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, the CCF was covertly funded by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to support intellectuals with pro-democratic and anti-Communist stances.<ref name=":0"/>{{Rp|pages=66–69}} The Communist Party USA lost much of its influence in the first years of the Cold War due to the revelation of Stalinist crimes by Khrushchev.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Cohen|first=Patricia|date=2007-03-20|title=Communist Party USA Gives Its History to N.Y.U.|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/arts/20nyu.html|access-date=2021-12-17|issn=0362-4331|archive-date=17 December 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211217114315/https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/arts/20nyu.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Although the Soviet Communist Party was no longer officially Stalinist, the Communist Party USA received a substantial subsidy from the USSR from 1959 until 1989, and consistently supported official Soviet policies such as intervention in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. The Soviet funding ended in 1989 when Gus Hall condemned the market initiatives of Mikhail Gorbachev.<ref>{{Cite news|date=2014-04-30|title=The curious survival of the US Communist Party|language=en-GB|work=BBC News|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26126325|access-date=17 December 2021|archive-date=17 December 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211217114316/https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26126325|url-status=live}}</ref>
From the late 1950s, several European socialist and Communist parties, such as in Denmark and Sweden, shifted away from orthodox Communism which they connected to Stalinism that was in recent history.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=herHAAAAQBAJ|title=1968 in Europe: a history of protest and activism, 1956–1977|date=2008|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|first1=Martin |last1=Klimke |first2=Joachim |last2=Scharloth|isbn=978-0-230-61190-0|edition=1st|location=New York|pages=240, 285|oclc=314773526}}</ref>{{Rp|page=240}} Albert Camus criticized Soviet Communism, while many leftists saw the Soviet Union as emblematic of "state capitalism".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Sherman|first=David|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X2zuGq1BCBYC|title=Camus|date=2009|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=978-1-4443-0328-5|location=Chichester|pages=4|oclc=476247587|access-date=17 December 2021|archive-date=17 December 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211217114315/https://books.google.com/books?id=X2zuGq1BCBYC|url-status=live}}</ref>
After Stalin's death and the Khrushchev Thaw, study and opposition to Stalinism became a part of historiography. The historian Moshe Lewin cautioned not to categorize the entire history of the Soviet Union as Stalinist, but also emphasized that Stalin's bureaucracy had permanently established "bureaucratic absolutism", resembling old monarchy, in the Soviet Union.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Moshe Lewin – What should be known about USSR?|url=https://pages.uoregon.edu/kimball/Lewin.Moshe.on.USSR.htm|access-date=2021-12-17|website=pages.uoregon.edu|archive-date=17 December 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211217114318/https://pages.uoregon.edu/kimball/Lewin.Moshe.on.USSR.htm|url-status=live}}</ref>
==Castroist critiques (1959–1968)== {{Main|Betrayal thesis}} After Fidel Castro's visit to the United States in 1959, various American academics began publishing essays and books on the character of the Cuban Revolution and Fidel Castro. Some arguing that Castro was veering away from the goals of the Cuban Revolution, and towards Stalinism. Others argued that the criticisms of Castro were unwarranted.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lambe |first=Jennifer |author-link= |date=2024 |title=The Subject of Revolution Between Political and Popular Culture in Cuba |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NCr_EAAAQBAJ&dq=betrayal+thesis+draper&pg=PT30 |location= |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |page=30 |isbn=9781469681160}}</ref> Throughout 1960, many articles were published in the socialist ''Monthly Review'' journal, arguing against any rumored "betrayal" of the Cuban Revolution. These articles were influenced by the writings of socialists Paul Sweezy and Leo Huberman, who visited Cuba in 1959.<ref>{{cite book |last=Rojas |first=Rafael |author-link= |date=2015 |title=Fighting Over Fidel The New York Intellectuals and the Cuban Revolution |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_kGXCgAAQBAJ |location= |publisher=Princeton University Press |pages=97–100 |isbn=9781400880027}}</ref>
In 1961, the historian Theodore Draper famously published in the anti-Stalinist ''Encounter'' magazine that Fidel Castro had betrayed the Cuban Revolution and could bring international war. The article was passed to John F. Kennedy, who considered it before approving the Bay of Pigs Invasion.<ref>{{cite book |last=Iber |first=Patrick |author-link= |date=2015 |title=Neither Peace Nor Freedom: The Cultural Cold War in Latin America |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZymoCgAAQBAJ&dq=betrayal+of+the+revolution+draper&pg=PA141 |location= |publisher=Harvard University Press |page=141 |isbn=9780674915145}}</ref> According to Draper, the Cuban Revolution was a middle class movement for democracy. Castro, after coming to power, began pursuing a wave of land reforms in 1960 and 1961. During this time, Castro drifted away from his original democratic goals. Eventually, Castro heavily integrated Communist officials into his provisional government, and by Draper's conception, Castro had abandoned the democratic goals of the Cuban Revolution, and his own land reform plans of 1960–1961.<ref name=baseball>{{cite book |last=Bjarkman |first=Peter |author-link= |date=2018 |title=Fidel Castro and Baseball The Untold Story |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C31xDwAAQBAJ&dq=betrayal+thesis+draper&pg=PA20 |location= |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |pages=19–23 |isbn=9781538110317}}</ref>
Draper considered his betrayal thesis to be a criticism of the accounts of socialists like Paul Sweezy and Leo Huberman who were sympathetic to Castro. Draper attempted to present a Marxist interpretation of Castroism, that made analogies to Trotskyist conceptions of Stalinism as a betrayer of the Russian Revolution.<ref>{{cite book |last=Goose |first=Van |author-link= |date=1993 |title=Where the Boys Are: Cuba, Cold War and the Making of a New Left |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wjFy44EcVQAC&dq=cuban+revolution+betray+draper+trotsky&pg=PA214 |location= |publisher=Verso Books |page=214 |isbn=9780860916901}}</ref>
Draper's work as a historian of the Cuban Revolution brought him to the attention of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, an anti-Communist think tank located at Stanford University.<ref name=TimeObit>{{cite news |first=Christopher |last=Lehmann-Haupt |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/22/national/22DRAPER.html |title=Theodore Draper, Freelance Historian, Is Dead at 93 |work=The New York Times |date=February 22, 2006}}</ref> Draper accepted a Hoover Institution fellowship and remained there until 1968, at which time he departed, ill at ease with the growing conservatism of the institution.<ref name=TimeObit />
==Later developments (1968–present)== {{See also|Soviet dissidents|Prague Spring}} Anti-Stalinist leftists, influenced by Western Marxism, continued to organise in the Soviet Union. Roy Medvedev published the samizdat ''Political Diary'' to influence “party-democrats” in the hopes of reforming the regime. Elkon Gergieveich Leikin, a veteran of the anti-Stalinist oppositions of the 1920s, wrote ''The Origins of Stalinism'', published by the French Trotskyist League of Revolutionary Communists in the early 1980s. In 1977, the Young Socialists formed at the Moscow State University, with Boris Kagarlitsky among its members. In the late 1980s, anti-Stalinist leftists formed Trotskyist and anarchist currents in the collapsing USSR.<ref name="Wainer"/>
The fall of the Soviet states briefly led to the revival of the anti-Stalinist left, as Traverso relates: <blockquote>At the beginning we were euphoric: “the Berlin Wall is falling down, and this means a German Revolution is coming.” This was the view of Ernest Mandel, for instance: after many decades of passivity and exclusion, the German proletariat would suddenly return in the heart of Europe to accomplish a socialist revolution, which would be the convergence between an anti-capitalist revolution in the West and an anti-bureaucratic, anti-Stalinist revolution in Eastern Europe. Germany was considered the place where these revolutions could merge. Everybody was extremely enthusiastic. Trotskyists, who had always been anti-Stalinist, couldn't help but support this movement.<ref name="h055">{{cite web | title=We were orphans: An interview with Enzo Traverso | website=The Platypus Affiliated Society | date=1 December 2022 | url=https://platypus1917.org/2022/12/01/we-were-orphans-an-interview-with-enzo-traverso/ | access-date=24 July 2025}}</ref></blockquote>
== Notable figures == {{div col|colwidth=15em}} * Leon Trotsky * Emma Goldman<ref name=":12"/> * Colette Audry<ref>{{cite book |last1=Brottman |first1=Mikita |author-link1=Mikita Brottman |title=The Great Grisby: Two Thousand Years of Literary, Royal, Philosophical, and Artistic Dog Lovers and Their Exceptional Animals |date=2014 |publisher=Harper Collins |isbn=978-0-06-230463-6 |page=18 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rvBzAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT18 |access-date=20 June 2020 |language=en |archive-date=26 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200726064616/https://books.google.com/books?id=rvBzAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT18 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Birchall2">{{cite book |last1=Birchall |first1=Ian H. |author-link1=Ian Birchall |title=Sartre Against Stalinism |date=2004 |publisher=Berghahn Books |isbn=978-1-78238-973-6 |pages=5–8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sxPdCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA5 |access-date=20 June 2020 |language=en |archive-date=26 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200726063641/https://books.google.com/books?id=sxPdCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA5 |url-status=live }}</ref> * Daniel Bell<ref name="Brick 1986 p.">{{cite book | last=Brick | first=Howard | title=Daniel Bell and the decline of intellectual radicalism: social theory and political reconciliation in the 1940s | publisher=University of Wisconsin Press | publication-place=Madison, Wisconsin | year=1986 | isbn=978-0-299-10550-1 | oclc=12804502 | pages=60–61,90,148}}</ref><ref name="Wilford 2003 pp. 15–34">{{cite journal | last=Wilford | first=Hugh | title=Playing the CIA's Tune? The New Leader and the Cultural Cold War | journal=Diplomatic History | publisher=Oxford University Press (OUP) | volume=27 | issue=1 | year=2003 | issn=0145-2096 | doi=10.1111/1467-7709.00337 | pages=15–34}}</ref> * André Breton<ref name="Collins">{{cite book |last1=Collins |first1=Cath |title=Post-Transitional Justice: Human Rights Trials in Chile and El Salvador |date=2010 |publisher=Penn State Press |isbn=978-0-271-03688-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M-_kuLOvxf4C&pg=PA206 |access-date=20 June 2020 |language=en |page=206 |archive-date=13 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200713023232/https://books.google.com/books?id=M-_kuLOvxf4C&pg=PA206 |url-status=live }}</ref> *Albert Camus<ref>{{Cite book|title=Sartre and Camus: a historic confrontation|date=2004|publisher=Humanity Books|first1=Jean-Paul |last1=Sartre |first2=Albert |last2=Camus |editor1-first=David |editor1-last=Sprintzen |editor2=Adrian Van den Hoven|isbn=1-59102-157-X|location=Amherst, New York|pages=59|oclc=53096794}}</ref> * Milovan Djilas<ref name="Wasserstein">{{cite book|last= Wasserstein|first= Bernard|title= Barbarism and civilization: a history of Europe in our time|year= 2007|publisher= Oxford University Press|isbn= 978-0-19-873074-3|pages= [https://archive.org/details/barbarismciviliz00wass/page/509 509]|url-access= registration|url= https://archive.org/details/barbarismciviliz00wass/page/509}}</ref> * Daniel Guérin<ref name="Birchall2"/> * Sidney Hook<ref name="HOCHGESCHWENDER">Michael Hochgeschwender, "The cultural front of the Cold War: the Congress for cultural freedom as an experiment in transnational warfare" ''Ricerche di storia politica'', issue 1/2003, pp. 35–60</ref> * Irving Howe<ref name="Pernicone 2005 pp. 227–236"/> * CLR James<ref name="Høgsbjerg 2013 pp. 243–275"/> * Nikita Khrushchev * Lucien Laurat<ref>{{cite book |last1=Birchall |first1=Ian H. |author-link1=Ian Birchall |title=Sartre Against Stalinism |date=2004 |publisher=Berghahn Books |isbn=978-1-78238-973-6 |page=17 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sxPdCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA17 |access-date=20 June 2020 |language=en |archive-date=26 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200726053039/https://books.google.com/books?id=sxPdCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA17 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Milani |first1=Tommaso |title=Hendrik de Man and Social Democracy |date=15 June 2020 |publisher=Springer Nature |isbn=978-3-030-42534-0 |pages=109 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z7frDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA109 |access-date=22 June 2020 |language=en |archive-date=9 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200709011836/https://books.google.com/books?id=z7frDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA109 |url-status=live }}</ref> * Claude Lefort<ref name="Birchall2"/> * Marcel Martinet<ref name="Birchall">{{cite book |last1=Birchall |first1=Ian H. |author-link1=Ian Birchall |title=Sartre Against Stalinism |date=2004 |publisher=Berghahn Books |isbn=978-1-78238-973-6 |page=15 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sxPdCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA15 |access-date=20 June 2020 |language=en |archive-date=26 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200726053810/https://books.google.com/books?id=sxPdCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA15 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Collins"/> * Dwight MacDonald<ref name="Pernicone 2005 pp. 227–236"/> * Mary McCarthy<ref name="HOCHGESCHWENDER"/> * Claude McKay<ref name="Socialism and Sex">Christopher Phelps, [http://newpol.org/content/socialism-and-sex-introduction "On Socialism and Sex: An Introduction"], {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180523095449/http://newpol.org/content/socialism-and-sex-introduction |date=23 May 2018 }}, ''New Politics'' Summer 2008 Vol:XII-1, Whole #: 45</ref> *Maurice Merleau-Ponty *Mikhail Gorbachev * Maurice Nadeau<ref name="Birchall2"/> * Pierre Naville<ref name="Birchall2"/> * New York Intellectuals<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wald |first1=Alan M. |title=The New York Intellectuals: The Rise and Decline of the Anti-Stalinist Left from the 1930s to the 1980s |date=1987 |publisher=UNC Press Books |isbn=978-0-8078-4169-3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mzlsL5s0GXYC |access-date=12 June 2020 |language=en |archive-date=13 March 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170313141849/https://books.google.com/books?id=mzlsL5s0GXYC |url-status=live }}</ref> * New Philosophers * George Orwell<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Menand |first1=Louis |title=Honest, Decent, Wrong |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/01/27/honest-decent-wrong |magazine=The New Yorker |date=20 January 2003 |access-date=7 December 2020 |archive-date=20 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201220083307/http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/01/27/honest-decent-wrong |url-status=live }}</ref> * Benjamin Péret<ref>{{cite book |last1=Dulles |first1=John W. F. |author-link1=John W. F. Dulles |title=Brazilian Communism, 1935–1945: Repression During World Upheaval |date=2011 |publisher=University of Texas Press |isbn=978-0-292-72951-3 |page=135 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qbXJDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA135 |access-date=20 June 2020 |language=en |archive-date=11 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200711034740/https://books.google.com/books?id=qbXJDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA135 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Collins |first1=Cath |title=Post-Transitional Justice: Human Rights Trials in Chile and El Salvador |date=2010 |publisher=Penn State Press |isbn=978-0-271-03688-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M-_kuLOvxf4C&pg=PA205 |access-date=20 June 2020 |language=en |page=205 |archive-date=26 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200726054224/https://books.google.com/books?id=M-_kuLOvxf4C&pg=PA205 |url-status=live }}</ref> * Henry Poulaille<ref name="Collins"/><ref>{{cite book |last1=Chapman |first1=Rosemary |title=Henry Poulaille and Proletarian Literature 1920–1939 |date=1992 |publisher=Rodopi |isbn=978-90-5183-324-9 |page=83 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z0fUQEPsdQUC&pg=PA83 |access-date=22 June 2020 |language=en |archive-date=9 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200709012637/https://books.google.com/books?id=z0fUQEPsdQUC&pg=PA83 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Berry |first1=David |title=A History of the French Anarchist Movement, 1917–1945 |date=2002 |publisher=Greenwood Press |isbn=978-0-313-32026-2 |page=168 |language=en}}</ref> * David Rousset<ref name="Birchall2"/> * Jean-Paul Sartre<ref>{{cite book |last1=Fulton |first1=Ann |title=Apostles of Sartre: Existentialism in America, 1945–1963 |date=1999 |publisher=Northwestern University Press |isbn=978-0-8101-1290-2 |page=9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=guEKFhNsnJ8C&pg=PA9 |access-date=22 June 2020 |language=en |archive-date=26 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200726064716/https://books.google.com/books?id=guEKFhNsnJ8C&pg=PA9 |url-status=live }}</ref> * Josip Broz Tito * Victor Serge<ref>Susan Weissman, [http://links.org.au/node/1228 "Victor Serge: 'dishonest authoritarian', 'anti-worker anarchist' or revolutionary Bolshevik?"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180513023148/http://links.org.au/node/1228 |date=13 May 2018 }}, ''Against the Current'', issue 136, September–October 2008</ref><ref name="Birchall"/><ref name="Collins"/> * Ota Šik<ref>{{Cite book |title='Svoboda': The Press in Czechoslovakia 1968 |date=1969 |language=en |publisher=International Press Institute |page=36 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U7tIMOAdaTIC |quote=propagated the anti-Stalin ideas of other personalities, such as those of Professor Ota Sik }}</ref> * I. F. Stone * Imre Nagy * Władysław Gomułka * Carlo Tresca<ref name="Pernicone 2005 pp. 227–236">{{cite book | last=Pernicone | first=Nunzio | title=Carlo Tresca | chapter=Taking on the Stalinists | publisher=Palgrave Macmillan US | publication-place=New York | year=2005 | isbn=978-1-349-52834-9 | doi=10.1057/9781403981097_21 | pages=227–236}}</ref> {{div col end}}
== See also == {{div col|colwidth=20em}} * Anti-Leninism ** {{format link|Anti-communism#Left-wing anti-communism}} * De-Stalinization * Eurocommunism * Fourth International * Harvill Secker * Joseph Stalin's cult of personality * Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee * Korets–Landau leaflet * Left Opposition * Left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks * Lenin's testament * Liberal hawk * Libertarian socialism * Neo-Stalinism * New Left * Non-conformists of the 1930s * Red fascism * Socialist democracy * ''Tankie'' – pejorative term used by anti-authoritarian socialists * ''The God That Failed'' * ''The Stalinist Legacy'' * ''The Stalin School of Falsification'' * United Opposition (Soviet Union) {{div col end}}
== References == {{Reflist}}
== Further reading == * Ian Birchall. ''Sartre Against Stalinism''. Berghahn Books. (See [http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=9032 review] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130801084049/http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=9032 |date=1 August 2013 }}.) * {{cite journal | last=Hyslop | first=Jonathan | title=German seafarers, anti-fascism and the anti-Stalinist left: the 'Antwerp Group' and Edo Fimmen's International Transport Workers' Federation, 1933–40 | journal=Global Networks | publisher=Wiley | volume=19 | issue=4 | date=2018-08-11 | issn=1470-2266 | doi=10.1111/glob.12212 | pages=499–520| s2cid=150336580 | hdl=2263/66792 | hdl-access=free }} * Julius Jacobson, [https://web.archive.org/web/20180523095343/http://nova.wpunj.edu/newpolitics/issue23/jjacob23.htm "The Russian Question And American Socialism"], ''New Politics'', vol. 6, no. 3 (new series), whole no. 23, Summer 1997 * Alan Johnson, [https://web.archive.org/web/20180523095522/http://nova.wpunj.edu/newpolitics/issue31/johnso31.htm "The Cultural Cold War: Faust Not the Pied Piper"], ''New Politics'', vol. 8, no. 3 (new series), whole no. 31, Summer 2001 * David Renton, ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20070208011512/http://dkrenton.co.uk/books/dissident.html Dissident Marxism]'' 2004 Zed Books {{ISBN|1-84277-293-7}} * Boris Souvarine, ''[http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/souvar/works/stalin/index.htm Stalin]'', 1935 * Frances Stonor Saunders, ''Who Paid the Piper?: CIA and the Cultural Cold War'', 1999, Granta, {{ISBN|1-86207-029-6}} (USA: ''The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters'', 2000, The New Press, {{ISBN|1-56584-596-X}}). * Alan Wald ''The New York Intellectuals, The Rise and Decline of the Anti-Stalinist Left From the 1930s to the 1980s''. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987. 440 pp (See [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1132/is_n6_v39/ai_6218895 review] by Paul LeBlanc)
== External links == * {{Commons category-inline}}
{{Joseph Stalin}} {{political spectrum}} {{Congress for Cultural Freedom}} {{New York Intellectuals}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Anti-Stalinist Left}} Category:Anti-Stalinist left Category:Communism Category:Eponymous political ideologies Category:History of socialism Category:Marxism Category:Political ideologies Category:Political movements Category:Socialism Category:Joseph Stalin