ABSTRACT
Marxism and Leninism, especially, propose that capitalism and imperialism lead, from their inner contradictions, to war and genocide at evermore-destructive levels. The reverse side of historical theodicy is a philosophical positivism that does not deconstruct Marxist monotheism but rather "solves" the problem of ethical–theological categories by arguing that such categories are meaningless and have no place in a materialist social science. For Jean-Paul Sartre, "Stalinism" represents an outgrowth of Leninism that is a "detour" within Marxism, especially seen in what Sartre calls the "monstrosity" of the conception, "socialism in one country". An important addition to this description is that Sartre defends this "monstrosity" as a necessary detour within the context of a choice between "concrete particularism" and "abstract universalism." After decades of the positivist-deflation of philosophy and normativity, it is time for philosophy to reassert itself. Anti-communists, Cold War liberals, and even Marxists who call themselves anti-Stalinists make much of Joseph Stalin's compromises with the rising Nazi threat.
