Marx once wrote that history weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.' Perhaps he did not know how right he would be. Even twenty years after the Soviet Union's collapse, activists are still confronted by the legacy of Communism, particularly in regards to Stalinism. Tariq Ali's The Stalinist Legacy aims to deepen understanding of the origins, impacts and enduring prominence of Stalinism, so as to help exorcise these ghosts of the past. Edited by Tariq Ali, author of The Obama Syndrome (Verso, 2011) and editor of the New Left Review.'