Similarly, the fear instilled in Soviet citizens of contamination by contact with the West has been in its violence and irrationality reminiscent of the taboo — it suggests the savages' dread of incest.
Stalinism is a complex phenomenon, which needs to be viewed from many angles. But when it is seen from the angle from which we are now viewing it, it appears as the mongrel offspring of Marxism and primitive magic.
Marxism has its inner logic and consistency: and its logic is modern through and through. Primitive magic has its own integrity and its peculiar poetic beauty. But the combination of Marxism and primitive magic was bound to be as incoherent andincongruous as is Stalinism itself. Stalin was exceptionally well equipped to embody that combination and to reconcile in some degree the irreconcilables. But he did not himself create the combination. It was produced by the impact of a Marxist revolution upon a semi-Asiatic society and by the impact of that society upon the Marxist revolution.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE LEGACY OF STALINISM
I.DOMESTIC AFFAIRS
Stalinism, we have seen, was no accidental phenomenon in post-revolutionary Russia. It was no freak of history, as some of its old-Bolshevik opponents were inclined to believe. It had its roots deep in its native soil, and it quite naturally flourished in its native climate. This accounted in the last instance for its stupendous strength and resilience, which allowed it to survive so many convulsions and shocks that might have broken any less organically constituted regime.
The question whether Stalinism can survive Stalin for long depends on whether the social conditions from which it had sprung are still prevalent in the Soviet Union. Does the blend of Marxism, autocracy, Greek Orthodoxy, and primitive magic still satisfy a vital need of Russia's development? If so, then, failing some national calamity like a defeat in war, Stalinism may be expected to survive Stalin for a long time, regardless of temporary difficulties and possible rivalry and division in the ruling group. But if the social conditions which have produced it have vanished or are about to do so, then Stalinism cannot long endure.
A survey of the legacy of Stalinism, in both domestic and foreign affairs, may therefore not be out of place here. What does that legacy consist of? What meaning has it for the present and for the new and rising Soviet generations?
In trying to answer these questions one does not have to resort to guesswork, but has only to draw certain inferences from the changes which Stalinism has wrought in Soviet society.