A Consistent Marxian--If Consistency Were Compatible with Marxism--Would Have to admit that Stalin's Political System Was the Necessary Superstructure of Communism

Trotsky was at a loss to explain how all this could be achieved by only one man and his few sycophants. Where were the "material productive forces," much talked about in Marxian historical materialism, which--"independent of the wills of individuals"--determine the course of human events "with the inexorability of a law of nature"? How could it happen that one man was in a position to alter the "juridical and political superstructure" which is uniquely and inalterably fixed by the economic structure of society? Even Trotsky agreed that there was no longer any private ownership of the means of production in Russia. In Stalin's empire, production and distribution are entirely controlled by "society." It is a fundamental dogma of Marxism that the superstructure of such a system must necessarily be the bliss of the earthly paradise. There is in Marxian doctrines no room for an interpretation blaming individuals for a degenerative process which could convert the blessing of public control of business into evil. A consistent Marxian--if consistency were compatible with Marxism--would have to admit that Stalin's political system was the necessary superstructure of communism.

--Ludwig von Mises, epilogue to Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, trans. J. Kahane (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1981), 516.