Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend

Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend
Iskra Books proudly presents the first authorized English edition of Domenico Losurdo’s influential work, Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend, now translated from the original Italian.

Losurdo challenges readers to critically examine Josef Stalin, rather than blindly accepting popular, often negative, portrayals. He argues that the widespread caricatures of Stalin as pure evil, prevalent in liberal democracies and accepted by many Western leftists, are more closely tied to ruling class agendas than to actual evidence.

Losurdo emphasizes that this book is not a rehabilitation, but an effort to contextualize and end the demonization of Stalin, who even received praise from figures like Gandhi in 1946.

This work is vital for understanding how historical narratives are constructed and challenged. Losurdo underscores the importance of historical context and comparative analysis for evaluating political philosophies, deepening our understanding of socialist history, and dismantling bourgeois ideologies.

Immanuel Ness, Author of *Southern Insurgency: The Coming of the Global Working Class*: “Domenico Losurdo’s Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend recaptures the distorted personal and political narrative proffered by western historians for over 75 years. This magisterial work convincingly counters the biased distortions of both establishment and left historians through a balanced historiographic and philosophical exegesis of Stalin’s complex life and leadership, as well as his contribution to socialism and the defeat of fascism. Losurdo’s heretical counter-hegemonic history authentically counters the mythical, demonic figure into a true-to-life biography of the most significant political figure of the 20th century. Fifteen years after its publication in Italian, Henry Hakamäki and Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro’s superb translation brings Losurdo’s compelling corrective of Stalin to English readers.”

Gabriel Rockhill, Founding Director of the Critical Theory Workshop / Atelier de Théorie Critique, Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University: “In this intrepid and rigorous study, Domenico Losurdo takes on the myth of the monster by shedding much-needed light on the monstrous situation in which Joseph Stalin found himself: that of building the world’s first socialist state under conditions of incessant imperialist assault, civil war, subversive plots, fascist invasion, and the risks of nuclear annihilation. Losurdo’s dialectical assessment of the commendable as well as the deplorable decisions made by Soviet leadership, given the circumstances, provides the reader with an extraordinary opportunity to learn practical and difficult lessons from concrete history. This book is thus an essential antidote to the terrifying tales whose purpose is to produce fear-induced ignorance, and thus benighted ideological alignment against ‘the monster.’”