Pavel Compenau Exit Toward Post-Stalinism

Annotation

How does a society emerge from Stalinism? This is the question of the day in Eastern Europe. In this final volume of his trilogy on Stalinism, Campeanu examines the main pillars of the Stalinist system - the vacuum of ownership and the regulation of all social and economic activity by a central power endowed with infallibility. Only if both of these conditions are eliminated, Campeanu argues, can Stalinism finally be overcome. Attempts only to reform, to modify, to ameliorate, to eliminate "excesses" will ensure that society stays in a perpetual dead-end. How does perestroika measure up against this standard? What are the stakes in Moscow, in Beijing? It is to be able to answer questions such as these that Campeanu undertook this work.