Acceptable stalinism
As long as Wal-Mart can built its factories there, stalinism is no problem; or, what’s the difference between China and North Korea?
We have been encouraged in the past to believe that there is a pure antagonism between Stalinist regimes and the West, just as we are now encourage to think that Islamism and liberal democracy are mortal foes. The relationship, supposedly, is one of principled difference. In fact, what is more likely is that Stalinist regimes – regimes which legitimise themselves with the lingua franca of socialism, but which in economically backward societies ruthlessly pursue state-led development programmes oriented around the primitive accumulation of capital – have more in common with their Western antecedents than is usually acknowledged. The ‘revolutionary’ regimes in the Middle East, whether taking their cue from Stalinism or Arab nationalism, or even conservative monarchism, repeated the same gestures: they brought a new middle class to power, initiated state-led programmes of development, built up the urban centres etc. Stalinist regimes are therefore quite happy to ingratiate themselves with Western capital, whatever ideological narratives they happen to flatter themselves with. And Western states and capital are not slow to take the opportunity to profit where they can.