Why the Soviet Bureaucracy Is Not a New Ruling Class; Reply by Paul Sweezy; The Ever Vanishing Vision; More on Althusser's Marxism

Abstract

Paul Sweezy has finally started to discuss the Marxist tradition—which, he acknowledges, is by and large represented by Trotskyism—with regard to the Russian Revolution and its subsequent fate. True, he still rejects that interpretation. But he is at least ready to discuss it, and his first comments contained in Monthly Review (October 1978) are of a provisional nature. By answering them on the main challenges they raise, we hope to be able to contribute to a constructive debate—both with Paul Sweezy, the editors of Monthly Review, and the readers of that magazine—about what remains a key issue for the future of the international labor movement.

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