The problem with much of the discussion about "democracy" versus "totalitarianism" that people like Bradford DeLong and Max Sawicky traffic in is that it is ahistorical. Stalin's gulag was not the product of philosophical beliefs but conditions rooted in a time and place. Stalin, who was a member of Lenin's party, read exactly the same Marxist classics as Tomas Borge, who Reagan's propaganda-machine labeled a "Stalinist". But what did Borge do after being named Minister of the Interior in Sandinista Nicaragua? He declared that there would be no firing squads. He said that the best punishment for Somoza's torturers would be for them to live with their crimes.
As it turns out, this was too optimistic. These torturers went to Honduras where they were trained in low-intensity warfare by the CIA and Argentinian military operatives. The Argentinians were fascists, who not only completed Fascism 101, but 201 and 301 as well. They are the same tortures who ranted at Jacobo Timerman in his prison cell that all dirty kikes got what they deserved in Nazi Germany. These Argentinian thugs were our buddies.
Louis Proyect
(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)