A straight A for comrade Stalin

When Joseph Stalin wasn't busy murdering people, including some of his own generals, he actually wrote philosophical works. Well, at least he wrote something which by a certain stretch could be termed "philosophical".

This little pamphlet, "Dialectical and Historical Materialism", is a short introduction to Marxist philosophy, written by Old Joe in 1938. I admit that it's quite correct, as far as it goes. Some Marxists might complain about Stalin laying to much emphasis on the productive forces rather than the class struggle, while others might feel that comrade Stalin is using the term "metaphysics" in a somewhat skewed manner.

Otherwise, I can't see any obvious errors in this little work.

The Secretary General clearly was a good and able student of Marx, Engels and Lenin. He would get a straight A in any party school, even without threatening to shoot somebody.

I don't know who published this particular edition, but my private copy of "Dialectical and Historical Materialism" was published by a Swedish Maoist group, the KFML. It therefore contains an afterword by KFML's chairman Bo Gustafsson, in which he "corrects" Stalin on a number of points, in the light of Mao Zedong's brilliant contributions to Marxist philosophy. Mao, as is well known, regarded Stalin as 70% good, 30% bad (Uncle Joe was bad when telling *Mao* what to do).

OK, should I or should you call the NKVD and have comrade Gustafsson shot? Or perhaps we should call him "citizen"?

And now, sports.