Stalin’s purge trials finally destroyed the Institute’s hopes for the Soviet Union

Evidence

It was really not until a decade later, after the Moscow purge trials, that Horkheimer and the others, with the sole exception of the obdurate Grossmann, completely abandoned their hope for the Soviet Union. Even then, preoccupied with problems that will be discussed later, they never focused the attention of Critical Theory on the left-wing authoritarianism of Stalin’s Russia. The lack of available data certainly was one reason, but one ought not to ignore the difficulties involved in a Marxist analysis, however heterodox, of communism’s failures. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 136

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the later Frankfurt discussion (Wiggershaus) of the Institute’s silence on Stalinism and its eventual analysis via Pollock’s state-capitalism thesis. — connects to: Stalin’s purges destroyed the Soviet theoretical tradition of Marxism.; Stalinist purges eliminated serious Marxist theoretical work in the Soviet Union. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1094; Political repression destroyed the Institute’s planned European comparative research — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 691 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Stalin’s purges destroyed the Soviet theoretical tradition of Marxism. #corroborates (0.85)
• Stalinist purges eliminated serious Marxist theoretical work in the Soviet Union. #corroborates (0.85) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1094
• Political repression destroyed the Institute’s planned European comparative research #expands (0.80) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 691
• Soviet bureaucratic record-keeping itself destroyed reliable historical evidence #complicates (0.70)