Vindicating Stalin: Responding to Lefebvre

No significant scholarship in educational studies has focused on Lefebvre’s engagement with socialist state theory and his position against Stalin. As a result, when Lefebvre’s thoughts on the state and on actually existing socialism are mentioned, they are engaged completely uncritically. This essa...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPolicy futures in education Vol. 15; no. 4; pp. 441 - 459
Main Author Malott, Curry
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London, England SAGE Publications 01.05.2017
Subjects
Criticism
European History
Foreign Countries
Ideology
Leaders
Marxian Analysis
Misconceptions
Social Systems
Russia
Communism
pedagogy
Stalin
Lefebvre
Soviet Union
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Summary:No significant scholarship in educational studies has focused on Lefebvre’s engagement with socialist state theory and his position against Stalin. As a result, when Lefebvre’s thoughts on the state and on actually existing socialism are mentioned, they are engaged completely uncritically. This essay addresses this crucial gap. Toward these ends, I critically engage Lefebvre’s work on one of the most important and central concepts of socialist state theory, the dictatorship of the proletariat. While Lefebvre embraces Lenin’s theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat, as spelled out in The State and Revolution, following Khrushchev, he argues that Stalin distorted it in practice. Given the recent beginning stages of the vindication of Stalin as a result of previously unreleased Soviet-era state documents, this essay could not be more timely. In addition, the popularity of socialism among US youth also warrants a more honest appraisal of the historical context and contributions of Stalin.
ISSN:1478-2103
1478-2103
DOI:10.1177/1478210316676002