Staline

Summary

Dominique Pagani often comes back to the idea that he would have been "the first one shot" under Stalin. He uses it to show that he is not spreading Soviet propaganda1. He holds a twofold position: there is a Stalin he defends and another against whom he defends the victim. On the one hand, he respects the head of the army that crushed Nazism and liberated Europe. He explains the German-Soviet pact by the refusal of France and England and by Munich, since they wanted to see Hitler and Stalin destroy each other. On the other hand, he deplores the purges: no one killed as many communists as Stalin did. According to Pagani, Stalin is not Marxian when he attacks individuals, since a class is liquidated by changing property relations2. On the philosophical level, he reproaches him for condemning the negation of the negation, a regression from Lenin that Althusser praised3. Finally, he rejects lumping him together with Hitler under the notion of totalitarianism, and sums up: "neither devil nor good Lord"4.

1. 1#1 Presentation: the EU, Clouscard, Rousseau20 Sept 2014 · 14:30
2. 2Marx on the Beach 2/21 Feb 2016 · 48:49
3. 3Tribute to Domenico Losurdo2 Jul 2018 · 9:18
4. 4Neo-fascism and the ideology of desire: is Michel Clouscard still relevant?23 May 2026 · 1:06:43

Summary produced automatically from 47 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.