Well, not exactly fatal, but more complex than it seems.
Logic tells us that Stalinist should be someone who subscribes to the policies and theories hatched under the late Joe. Simple enough one would think. Certainly, at one period there were many who subscribed to anything steming from the old USSR and whose theories were as flexible as the latest policy announcement.
In this sense, they were properly Stalinist (here meaning an attitude to the preminance of all things from the USSR, and a very opportunistic interpretation of them). There are a few still about who use an image of these times and refer to works attributed to old Joe, who might also support the label, but the farcical nature of this is obvious to all but the handful of remaining adherants (espeically in the light of knowledge about Stalin easily obrtained from many sources - is either a mere cultural bias or just the result of cultish politics).
That is the easy bit.
Next you will find that it is a term loosely applied. It is applied to organisations whose history was involved in the old Communist Parties, and individuals who happen to belong to them. In short, it is applied most often to communists who do not have a Trotskyist history (and sometimes those that do).
In this case it becomes a very nebulous term, difficult to clearly define and often resting on convuloted interpretations of phrases, terms, historical references - in short, the same mental gymnastics as classical Stalinists employed.
It is this nebulous "Stalinism" that you will most often come across and hence I think the real cause of your question (fifty years ago such a question would be niave, today it is simply an honest one for the term has just become a sign of "witchcraft" and about as reliable as a third nipple as proof devilish companionship).
Now this is the bit where I really get into trouble.
The irony is that Stalinism and its political opposite Trotskyism shared the same philosophical outlook, the same theoretical limitations, despite the fact of the very real and important political schism. But by the same token, as the whole communist movement was split between the two opposing schools for so long, good theory came from people influenced by one or the other. However, as the USSR dissappeared as a force, one school appeared triumphant - hence the frequency of dismissing works by the other as simply "Stalinist".
There is even more to it, as not only do works get dismissed but much of the complex history of class struggle in the 20th century becomes reduced to good policies as against bad, "stalinist" policies. A more silly and superficial understand would be hard to imagine, yet in a sense this is the state of play at the moment.
A critical understanding of this important century is beyond us and instead people reach for easy labels - which I think is the source of your question. Unfoirtunately I probably have not made things any clearer.
Greg Schofield Perth Australia
--- Message Received --- From: Kelley <kwalker2 at gte.net> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2001 13:12:42 -0500 Subject: Wouldn't ya like to be a Stalinist, too? (was: Sedition Act)
At 06:21 AM 11/11/01 +0000, Justin Schwartz wrote:
>we read, for ex, Elizabeth Fox Genovese's[1],
>>Feminism
>>without Illusions, for instance.
>
>A book a recall rather liking, actually.
i can't recall much about it, except it ends with something like a "we're different be/c of biology in the end, anyway. (go ahead, Rob, bate (not a sic) me :)
>It's a long story. G was a sort of Stalinist as a Marxist,
avoiding ancient list debates and standoffs, could someone explain to me what it means to say "i'm a stalinist" or "she's a stalinist"? is there a, uh, non-pejorative sense of the term?
kelley