The stalinisation of the Soviet-Union was a counter-revolution within the revolution, and had disastrous consequences both for the SU and for the world revolution. But it neither ended October's revolutionary impact in the world, nor the process of Permanent Revolution – in spite of the attempt to submit the communist movement to "socialism in one country" and the "soviet model". Only international changes and the dissolving of the Soviet-Union put and end to the "short century of October." This end could only be imposed through far-reaching capitalist and imperialist counter-revolutions: direct repression, killings, coups, the 'neo-liberal' socio-economic and geo-strategic turn in response to the crisis of the world order in the 1970's; and the integration of large parts of the 'Communist' apparatus in the new historical phase that opened at the end of the 80's. But that is not the 'end of History'...
Catherine Samary is an economist and taught at the Dauphine University, Paris. She is the author of Yugoslavia Dismembered (1995) and numerous publications on Eastern-Europe and socialist eonomics. She is a fellow of the IIRE.
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