Original sentence: So it is argued by some Marxists that the failure of Soviet socialism to sustain itself is actually an affirmation of Historical Materialism.The Soviet Union is a case in point - Tsarist Russia was quasi-feudal, not capitalist, and was overthrown by a small cadre rather than by a mass revolution
Edited sentence: It was overthrown on a national scale, while capitalism operates globally.Marxists in Russia, organized under the Left Opposition and led by Trotsky, opposed the methods of Stalin and his backers.So it is that the failure of Stalinism to sustain itself is actually an affirmation of Historical Materialism.The Soviet Union is a case in point - Tsarist Russia was quasi-feudal, not advanced in the development of capitalism, and had a low technological and cultural level.These genuine marxists were hounded out and exiled or killed by the counter-revolutionary Stalinists, as Napoleon killed the leaders of the French revolution