Leon Trotsky permanent revolution. What is a permanent revolution? (basic provisions)

What will be the social content of this dictatorship? First of all, it will have to complete the agrarian revolution and the democratic restructuring of the state. In other words, the dictatorship of the proletariat will become an instrument for solving the problems of the historically belated bourgeois revolution. But the matter cannot stop there. Having come to power, the proletariat will be compelled to carry out more and more profound intrusions into the relations of private property in general, i.e., to pass over to the path of socialist measures.

“But do you really think,” the Stalins, Rykovs and all the other Molotovs of 1905-1917 objected to me dozens of times, “that Russia is ripe for a socialist revolution? To this I invariably answered: no, I don't think so. But the world economy as a whole, and above all the European economy, is fully ripe for the socialist revolution. Whether the dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia will lead to socialism or not - at what pace and through what stages - depends on the future fate of European and world capitalism.

Such are the main features of the theory of the permanent revolution, as it took shape already in the first months of 1905. After that, three revolutions had time to take place. The Russian proletariat rose to power on a mighty wave of peasant uprising. The dictatorship of the proletariat has become a fact in Russia before it has been in any of the incomparably more developed countries of the world. In 1924, i.e., seven years after the historical forecast of the theory of the permanent revolution was confirmed with absolutely exceptional power, the epigones launched a frenzied attack against this theory, pulling out individual phrases and polemical remarks from my old works, thoroughly by myself to this time forgotten.

Here it is appropriate to recall that the first Russian revolution broke out more than half a century after the period of bourgeois revolutions in Europe, and 35 years after the episodic uprising of the Paris Commune. Europe has managed to wean itself from revolutions. Russia did not know them at all. All the problems of the revolution were posed anew. It is not difficult to understand how many unknown and conjectural quantities the future revolution then contained for us. The formulas of all groupings were a kind of working hypotheses. What is needed is a complete incapacity for historical forecasting and a complete lack of understanding of its methods in order now, in hindsight, to consider the analyzes and assessments of 1905 as if they were written yesterday. I have often said to myself and to friends: I have no doubt that there were large gaps in my forecasts for 1905, which it is not difficult to open now in hindsight. But did my critics see better and further? Without rereading my old works for a long time, I was ready in advance to consider the gaps in them much more significant and important than they really were. I became convinced of this in 1928, during my exile in Alma-Ata, when forced political leisure gave me the opportunity to re-read my old works on the question of the permanent revolution, pencil in hand. I hope that from what follows, the reader will be fully convinced of this.

Within the framework of this introduction, however, it is necessary to characterize, as accurately as possible, the constituent elements of the theory of permanent revolution and the main objections to it. The controversy has broadened and deepened to such an extent that it has come to embrace in essence all the most important questions of the world revolutionary movement.

Permanent revolution, in the sense that Marx gave to this concept, means a revolution that does not put up with any form of class domination, does not stop at the democratic stage, passes over to socialist measures and to a war against external reaction, a revolution, each subsequent stage of which is laid in the previous one, and which can only end with the complete liquidation of class society.

In order to disperse the chaos that has been created around the theory of permanent revolution, it seems necessary to dissect the three series of ideas that are combined in this theory.

First, it covers the problem of the transition from a democratic to a socialist revolution. This is essentially the historical origin of the theory.

The concept of permanent revolution was put forward by the great communists of the middle of the 19th century, Marx and his associates, in opposition to democratic ideology, which, as you know, claims that with the establishment of a "reasonable", or democratic state, all questions can be resolved by peaceful, reformist or evolutionary way. Marx considered the bourgeois revolution of 1948 only as a direct introduction to the proletarian revolution. Marx was wrong. But his error was factual, not methodological. The revolution of 1848 did not turn into a socialist revolution. But that is precisely why it did not end with democracy. As for the German revolution of 1918, this is by no means the democratic consummation of the bourgeois revolution: it is a proletarian revolution decapitated by the Social Democracy; more correctly, it is a bourgeois counter-revolution, forced, after the victory over the proletariat, to preserve pseudo-democratic forms.

Vulgar "Marxism" worked out a scheme of historical development, according to which each bourgeois society sooner or later secures a democratic regime for itself, after which the proletariat, in a democratic environment, is gradually organized and educated for socialism. The very transition to socialism was not conceived in the same way: open reformists imagined it in the form of a reformist filling of democracy with socialist content (Jores). Formal revolutionaries recognized the inevitability of revolutionary violence in the transition to socialism (Gaed). But both of them considered democracy and socialism in relation to all peoples and countries in general, as two, not only completely separate, but also far from each other, stages in the development of society. This view was also dominant among the Russian Marxists, who in the period of 1905 belonged in general to the left wing of the Second International. Plekhanov, the brilliant founder of Russian Marxism, considered the idea of ​​the dictatorship of the proletariat in contemporary Russia to be delusional. The same point of view was held not only by the Mensheviks, but also by the overwhelming majority of the leading Bolsheviks, in particular, without exception, by all the present leaders of the party, who were in their time resolute revolutionary democrats, but for whom the problems of the socialist revolution, not only in 1905, but still and on the eve of 1917, were the vague music of a distant future.

The theory of permanent revolution, revived in 1905, declared war on these ideas and sentiments. It showed how the democratic tasks of the backward bourgeois nations in our epoch lead directly to the dictatorship of the proletariat, while the dictatorship of the proletariat places socialist tasks on the order of the day. This was the central idea of ​​the theory. If the traditional view was that the path to the dictatorship of the proletariat lay through a long period of democracy, then the theory of permanent revolution established that for the backward countries the path to democracy goes through the dictatorship of the proletariat. Thus, democracy does not become a self-sufficient regime for decades, but only a direct entry into the socialist revolution. They communicate with each other in a continuous connection. Between the democratic revolution and the socialist reorganization of society, the permanence of revolutionary development is thus established.

The second aspect of the "permanent" theory already characterizes the socialist revolution as such. Over an indefinitely long time and in a constant internal struggle, all social relations are rebuilt. Society is constantly shedding. One stage of transformation follows directly from the other. This process, of necessity, retains a political character, i.e., it unfolds through clashes between different groups of the society being restructured. Explosions of civil war and external wars alternate with periods of "peaceful" reforms. Revolutions of the economy, technology, knowledge, family, way of life, morals unfold in complex interaction with each other, preventing society from reaching equilibrium. This is the permanent character of the socialist revolution as such.

It will not stop at fulfilling exclusively democratic tasks. While the bourgeoisie is trying to complete the revolution as soon as possible, the proletariat must "... make the revolution continuous until all more or less propertied classes are removed from domination, until the proletariat wins state power" . In the same place, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels insist on the coherence of the proletarian revolution and the peasant revolutionary movement.

The view of the social democrats

The Western Social Democrats and Russian Mensheviks subsequently had a somewhat different point of view on the permanent revolution. Their view expresses the idea that the proletariat, in making the socialist revolution, fights against all non-proletarian classes, including the peasantry, which is resisting it. Therefore, for the victory of the socialist revolution, especially in Russia, after the bourgeois-democratic revolution, a long time must pass until a significant part of the population is proletarianized and the proletariat becomes the majority in the country. Given the small size of the working class, any permanent revolution is doomed to failure.

Lenin's point of view

The development of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist

The prospect of world revolution

In addition, Lenin considered the development of the revolutionary process in the context of an international revolutionary perspective. He saw the complete construction of socialism precisely through the world revolutionary process. As Lenin wrote in one of his reports to the 10th Congress of the RCP(b):

“...Betting on an international revolution does not mean that the calculation is for a certain period of time and that the pace of development, which is becoming more and more rapid, may bring a revolution by spring, or may not bring it. And therefore we must be able to adjust our activities in such a way to the class relations within our country and other countries, so that we will be able to maintain the dictatorship of the proletariat for a long time ... ".

In all his works, Lenin inscribes the October Revolution in the global revolutionary context. Although, like Leon Trotsky, in a number of works he speaks of the Soviet Republic as a stronghold of the world revolution. In one of his articles in 1922, Lenin, in particular, writes:

“We have created the Soviet type of state, thus beginning a world-historical epoch, the epoch of the political domination of the proletariat, which has come to replace the epoch of the domination of the bourgeoisie. This, too, can no longer be taken back, although the only way to “finish” the Soviet type of state is through the practical experience of the working class in several countries. But we have not even completed the foundation of the socialist economy. This can still be taken back by the hostile forces of dying capitalism. We must clearly recognize and openly admit this, because there is nothing more dangerous than illusions ... And there is nothing “terrible”, nothing that gives a legitimate reason for even the slightest despondency in recognizing this bitter truth, for we have always confessed and repeated that truism of Marxism that in order to win socialism needs the joint efforts of the workers of several advanced countries.”

Trotsky on permanent revolution

Trotsky's "Permanent Revolution" in English (Socialist Resistance, with a foreword by Michael Levy)

Theory of combined development

In turn, Leon Trotsky, who developed a new theory of it in 1905, outlined his vision of the prospects for a permanent revolution. One of the most important elements of the theory of permanent revolution is the theory of combined development. According to Trotsky, in relatively advanced countries such as Russia - in which the process of industrialization and the development of the proletariat had only recently begun - it was possible to make a socialist revolution due to the historical inability of the bourgeoisie to implement the bourgeois-democratic demands.

Leon Trotsky wrote:

“The political incapacity of the bourgeoisie was directly determined by the nature of its relations with the proletariat and the peasantry. She could not lead the workers who opposed her with hostility in everyday life and learned very early to generalize their tasks. But it turned out to be just as incapable of leading the peasantry, because it was connected by a network of common interests with the landowners and was afraid of shaking property in any form. The belatedness of the Russian revolution thus turned out to be not only a matter of chronology, but also a matter of the social structure of the nation.

The theory of permanent revolution was especially developed by Leon Trotsky after the October Revolution of the year. Trotsky denied the completed socialist character of the October Revolution, considering it only as the first stage on the road to socialist revolution in the West and throughout the world. He saw the possibility of the victory of socialism in Soviet Russia - due to the small number of the proletariat in it, the existence of a huge mass of petty-bourgeois peasantry in character - only if the socialist revolution becomes permanent, that is, it spreads to the most important countries of Europe, when the victorious proletariat of the West will help the proletariat of Russia cope in the struggle with the classes opposing it, and then it will become possible to build socialism and communism on a world scale.

The role of the peasantry

Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution is often criticized for allegedly underestimating the role of the peasantry. Trotsky himself wrote about the role of the peasantry in the socialist revolution and about its relationship with the proletariat:

“Our liberal bourgeoisie acts counter-revolutionary even before the revolutionary climax. Our intellectual democracy every time at critical moments only demonstrates its impotence. The peasantry is, on the whole, a rebellious element. It can be placed at the service of the revolution only by that force which takes state power into its own hands. The vanguard position of the working class in the revolutionary struggle; the connection that is established directly between him and the revolutionary countryside; the charm with which he subordinates the army to himself - all this inevitably pushes him to power. The complete victory of the revolution means the victory of the proletariat. This latter, in turn, means the further continuity of the revolution.

Condemnation of the theory of permanent revolution in the USSR

In the Soviet Union, the theory of permanent revolution was condemned at the plenums of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the RCP (b) in the resolution of January 17 of the year on the speech of Leon Trotsky, as well as in the "Theses on the tasks of the Comintern and the RCP (b)" in connection with the expanded plenum of the ECCI, adopted 14th conference of the RCP(b) "On the opposition bloc in the CPSU(b)". Similar resolutions were adopted in all the official communist parties that were members of the Comintern.

Prospects for the USSR

The supporters of the permanent revolution considered the construction of socialism in a single Russia to be “national narrow-mindedness”, a departure from the fundamental principles of proletarian internationalism. The Trotskyists believed that if the proletarian revolution did not win in the West in the near future after the October Revolution, then the USSR was waiting for the “restoration of capitalism” in its development.

In the Transitional Programme, Trotsky wrote:

“The Soviet Union emerged from the October Revolution as a workers' state. The nationalization of the means of production, a necessary condition for socialist development, opened up the possibility of a rapid growth of the productive forces. Meanwhile, the apparatus of the workers' state underwent a complete transformation, turning from an instrument of the working class into an instrument of bureaucratic coercion against the working class, and, more and more, into an instrument for the sabotage of the economy. The bureaucratization of a backward and isolated workers' state and the transformation of the bureaucracy into an all-powerful privileged caste is the most convincing - not theoretical, but practical - refutation of socialism in a single country. The regime of the USSR thus contains terrifying contradictions. But it continues to be the regime of a degenerated workers' state. This is the social diagnosis. The political prognosis has an alternative character: either the bureaucracy, which is becoming more and more the organ of the world bourgeoisie in a workers' state, will overthrow the new forms of property and throw the country back to capitalism, or the working class will crush the bureaucracy and open the way to socialism.

Development of theory after the Second World War

The development of the theory of permanent revolution was continued by many leftist Marxist theorists in the countries of Western Europe, North and South America and Southeast Asia, where Trotskyist organizations were active. During the anti-colonial upsurge of the late 1950s and 1960s, the Fourth International analyzed the development of revolutionary processes in the countries of the Third World, and, above all, in the Algerian and Cuban revolutions.

In 1963, at one of the congresses of the Fourth International, a resolution was adopted "The dynamics of the world revolution today." The sponsors of the resolution were Ernest Mandel, the leader of the Belgian section, and Joseph Hansen, a member of the leadership of the Socialist Workers' Party (USA). The resolution stated:

“... The three main forces of the world revolution - the colonial revolution, the political revolution in the degenerate or deformed workers' states and the proletarian revolution in the imperialist countries - form a dialectical unity. Each of these forces affects the others and receives in response a powerful impetus for its future development or inhibition. The delay of the proletarian revolution in the imperialist countries undoubtedly prevented the colonial revolution from embarking on the socialist path as quickly and as consciously as possible under the influence of a victorious revolutionary uprising or the victory of the proletariat in the developed countries. This delay also does not provide an opportunity for the development of a political revolution in the USSR, also because the Soviet workers do not see before them an example of an alternative way of building socialism.

Notes

Literature

• L. Trotsky. Permanent revolution. Collection. - M.: "Ast", 2005.
• L. Trotsky. History of the Russian Revolution: In 2 volumes - M .: "Terra", "Respublika", 1997.
• Kakurin N.E. How the revolution fought. T. 1-2. - M.-L., 1925-1926.
• Trapeznikov S.P. On the sharp turns of history. (From the lessons of the struggle for scientific socialism against revisionist trends.) - M., "Thought", 1972.

Links

• Website dedicated to Leon Trotsky and the Trotskyist movement (Russian)
• Collection of Marxist materials on pre-capitalist societies (English)
• Yu. A. Krasin. Permanent Revolution (TSB 3rd ed.) (Russian)

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010 .

, Livio Maitan).

The formulations of the founders of Marxism

The very idea of ​​a permanent revolution was expressed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the 1840s in the "Manifesto of the Communist Party" and in the "Appeal of the Central Committee to the Union of Communists." The founders of Marxism believed that in carrying out the bourgeois-democratic revolution in the advanced capitalist countries, in which the prerequisites for socialism were ripe, the proletariat would not stop at the fulfillment of exclusively democratic tasks. While the bourgeoisie is trying to complete the revolution as soon as possible, the proletariat must "... make the revolution continuous until all more or less propertied classes are removed from domination, until the proletariat wins state power" . In the same place, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels insist on the coherence of the proletarian revolution and the peasant revolutionary movement.

From the point of view of Theodor Oizerman, by the end of the 1950s and 1860s, Marx and Engels partially revised their conclusions based on the revolutionary experience of 1848. They, in particular, abandoned the idea of ​​a permanent revolution, recognizing that the proletarian revolution from the bourgeois separated by a whole historical epoch.

The view of the social democrats

Trotsky on permanent revolution

Trotsky was greatly influenced in 1904-1905 by the ideas of the German leftist Social Democrat A. Parvus. Parvus proposed to start with the creation during the armed uprising of the Social Democratic government of "workers' democracy" (he put forward the well-known slogan: "Without a tsar, but a workers' government"), the main task of which was to be the implementation of the minimum program of the RSDLP, which combined general democratic demands, implemented in the West in the course of bourgeois revolutions, with measures aimed at radically improving the situation of the working class.

Theory of combined development

Leon Trotsky wrote:

“The political incapacity of the bourgeoisie was directly determined by the nature of its relations with the proletariat and the peasantry. She could not lead the workers who opposed her with hostility in everyday life and learned very early to generalize their tasks. But it turned out to be just as incapable of leading the peasantry, because it was connected by a network of common interests with the landowners and was afraid of shaking property in any form. The belatedness of the Russian revolution thus turned out to be not only a matter of chronology, but also a matter of the social structure of the nation.

The theory of permanent revolution was especially developed by Leon Trotsky after the October Revolution of 1917. Trotsky denied the completed socialist character of the October Revolution, considering it only as the first stage on the road to socialist revolution in the West and throughout the world. He saw the possibility of the victory of socialism in Soviet Russia - due to the small number of the proletariat in it, the existence of a huge mass of petty-bourgeois peasantry in character - only if the socialist revolution becomes permanent, that is, it spreads to the most important countries of Europe, when the victorious proletariat of the West will help the proletariat of Russia cope in the struggle with the classes opposing it, and then it will become possible to build socialism and communism on a world scale.

The role of the peasantry

Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution is often criticized for allegedly underestimating the role of the peasantry. In fact, he writes very much in his works that the proletariat will not be able to carry out a socialist revolution without enlisting the support of the peasantry. Trotsky writes that, being only a small minority of Russian society, the proletariat can lead the revolution to the emancipation of the peasantry and thereby "enlist the support of the peasantry" as part of the revolution, on whose support it will rely.

At the same time, the working class, in the name of its own interests and the improvement of its own conditions, will strive to carry out such revolutionary transformations that will not only fulfill the functions of a bourgeois revolution, but will also lead to the establishment of a workers' state. At the same time, Trotsky writes:

“The proletariat will be compelled to carry the class struggle into the countryside and thus violate the community of interests that the entire peasantry undoubtedly has, but within comparatively narrow limits. The proletariat, in the very next moments of its rule, will have to seek support in opposing the rural poor to the rural rich, the agricultural proletariat to the agricultural bourgeoisie.

Condemnation of the theory of permanent revolution in the USSR

In the Soviet Union, the theory of permanent revolution was condemned at the plenums of the Central Committee and Central Control Commission of the RCP (b) in the resolution of January 17, 1925 on the speech of Leon Trotsky, as well as in the "Theses on the tasks of the Comintern and the RCP (b)" in connection with the expanded plenum of the ECCI, adopted by the 14th Conference of the RCP(b) "On the opposition bloc in the CPSU(b)". Similar resolutions were adopted in all the official communist parties that were members of the Comintern.

The immediate reason for Trotsky's systematic presentation of the theory of permanent revolution and criticism of the Stalinist concept of "stages of the revolutionary process" was the policy of the Comintern in China, where the Communist Party of China, at the direction of Moscow, pursued a line of alliance with the national bourgeoisie - first with the leadership of the Kuomintang led by Chiang Kai-shek, and after the anti-communist terror unleashed by him (the Shanghai massacre of 1927) - with the "left Kuomintang" (Wang Jingwei).

Prospects for the USSR

The supporters of the permanent revolution considered the construction of socialism in a single Russia to be “national narrow-mindedness”, a departure from the fundamental principles of proletarian internationalism. The Trotskyists believed that if the proletarian revolution did not win in the West in the near future after the October Revolution, then the USSR was waiting for the “restoration of capitalism” in its development.

In the Transitional Programme, Trotsky wrote:

“The Soviet Union emerged from the October Revolution as a workers' state. The nationalization of the means of production, a necessary condition for socialist development, opened up the possibility of a rapid growth of the productive forces. Meanwhile, the apparatus of the workers' state underwent a complete transformation, turning from an instrument of the working class into an instrument of bureaucratic coercion against the working class, and, more and more, into an instrument for the sabotage of the economy. The bureaucratization of a backward and isolated workers' state and the transformation of the bureaucracy into an all-powerful privileged caste is the most convincing - not theoretical, but practical - refutation of socialism in a single country.

The regime of the USSR thus contains terrifying contradictions. But it continues to be the regime of a degenerated workers' state. This is the social diagnosis. The political forecast has an alternative character: either the bureaucracy, which is becoming more and more an organ of the world bourgeoisie in a workers' state, will overthrow the new forms of property and throw the country back to capitalism, or the working class will crush the bureaucracy and open the way to socialism" and the proletarian revolution in the imperialist countries - form a dialectical unity. Each of these forces affects the others and receives in response a powerful impetus for its future development or inhibition. The delay of the proletarian revolution in the imperialist countries undoubtedly prevented the colonial revolution from embarking on the socialist path as quickly and as consciously as possible under the influence of a victorious revolutionary uprising or the victory of the proletariat in the developed countries. This delay also does not provide an opportunity for the development of a political revolution in the USSR, also because the Soviet workers do not see before them an example of an alternative way of building socialism.

It will not stop at fulfilling exclusively democratic tasks. While the bourgeoisie is trying to complete the revolution as soon as possible, the proletariat must "... make the revolution continuous until all more or less propertied classes are removed from domination, until the proletariat wins state power" . In the same place, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels insist on the coherence of the proletarian revolution and the peasant revolutionary movement.

The view of the social democrats

The Western Social Democrats and Russian Mensheviks subsequently had a somewhat different point of view on the permanent revolution. Their view expresses the idea that the proletariat, in making the socialist revolution, fights against all non-proletarian classes, including the peasantry, which is resisting it. Therefore, for the victory of the socialist revolution, especially in Russia, after the bourgeois-democratic revolution, a long time must pass until a significant part of the population is proletarianized and the proletariat becomes the majority in the country. Given the small size of the working class, any permanent revolution is doomed to failure.

Lenin's point of view

The development of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist

The prospect of world revolution

In addition, Lenin considered the development of the revolutionary process in the context of an international revolutionary perspective. He saw the complete construction of socialism precisely through the world revolutionary process. As Lenin wrote in one of his reports to the 10th Congress of the RCP(b):

“...Betting on an international revolution does not mean that the calculation is for a certain period of time and that the pace of development, which is becoming more and more rapid, may bring a revolution by spring, or may not bring it. And therefore we must be able to adjust our activities in such a way to the class relations within our country and other countries, so that we will be able to maintain the dictatorship of the proletariat for a long time ... ".

In all his works, Lenin inscribes the October Revolution in the global revolutionary context. Although, like Leon Trotsky, in a number of works he speaks of the Soviet Republic as a stronghold of the world revolution. In one of his articles in 1922, Lenin, in particular, writes:

“We have created the Soviet type of state, thus beginning a world-historical epoch, the epoch of the political domination of the proletariat, which has come to replace the epoch of the domination of the bourgeoisie. This, too, can no longer be taken back, although the only way to “finish” the Soviet type of state is through the practical experience of the working class in several countries. But we have not even completed the foundation of the socialist economy. This can still be taken back by the hostile forces of dying capitalism. We must clearly recognize and openly admit this, because there is nothing more dangerous than illusions ... And there is nothing “terrible”, nothing that gives a legitimate reason for even the slightest despondency in recognizing this bitter truth, for we have always confessed and repeated that truism of Marxism that in order to win socialism needs the joint efforts of the workers of several advanced countries.”

Trotsky on permanent revolution

Trotsky's "Permanent Revolution" in English (Socialist Resistance, with a foreword by Michael Levy)

Theory of combined development

In turn, Leon Trotsky, who developed a new theory of it in 1905, outlined his vision of the prospects for a permanent revolution. One of the most important elements of the theory of permanent revolution is the theory of combined development. According to Trotsky, in relatively advanced countries such as Russia - in which the process of industrialization and the development of the proletariat had only recently begun - it was possible to make a socialist revolution due to the historical inability of the bourgeoisie to implement the bourgeois-democratic demands.

Leon Trotsky wrote:

“The political incapacity of the bourgeoisie was directly determined by the nature of its relations with the proletariat and the peasantry. She could not lead the workers who opposed her with hostility in everyday life and learned very early to generalize their tasks. But it turned out to be just as incapable of leading the peasantry, because it was connected by a network of common interests with the landowners and was afraid of shaking property in any form. The belatedness of the Russian revolution thus turned out to be not only a matter of chronology, but also a matter of the social structure of the nation.

The theory of permanent revolution was especially developed by Leon Trotsky after the October Revolution of the year. Trotsky denied the completed socialist character of the October Revolution, considering it only as the first stage on the road to socialist revolution in the West and throughout the world. He saw the possibility of the victory of socialism in Soviet Russia - due to the small number of the proletariat in it, the existence of a huge mass of petty-bourgeois peasantry in character - only if the socialist revolution becomes permanent, that is, it spreads to the most important countries of Europe, when the victorious proletariat of the West will help the proletariat of Russia cope in the struggle with the classes opposing it, and then it will become possible to build socialism and communism on a world scale.

The role of the peasantry

Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution is often criticized for allegedly underestimating the role of the peasantry. Trotsky himself wrote about the role of the peasantry in the socialist revolution and about its relationship with the proletariat:

“Our liberal bourgeoisie acts counter-revolutionary even before the revolutionary climax. Our intellectual democracy every time at critical moments only demonstrates its impotence. The peasantry is, on the whole, a rebellious element. It can be placed at the service of the revolution only by that force which takes state power into its own hands. The vanguard position of the working class in the revolutionary struggle; the connection that is established directly between him and the revolutionary countryside; the charm with which he subordinates the army to himself - all this inevitably pushes him to power. The complete victory of the revolution means the victory of the proletariat. This latter, in turn, means the further continuity of the revolution.

Condemnation of the theory of permanent revolution in the USSR

In the Soviet Union, the theory of permanent revolution was condemned at the plenums of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the RCP (b) in the resolution of January 17 of the year on the speech of Leon Trotsky, as well as in the "Theses on the tasks of the Comintern and the RCP (b)" in connection with the expanded plenum of the ECCI, adopted 14th conference of the RCP(b) "On the opposition bloc in the CPSU(b)". Similar resolutions were adopted in all the official communist parties that were members of the Comintern.

Prospects for the USSR

The supporters of the permanent revolution considered the construction of socialism in a single Russia to be “national narrow-mindedness”, a departure from the fundamental principles of proletarian internationalism. The Trotskyists believed that if the proletarian revolution did not win in the West in the near future after the October Revolution, then the USSR was waiting for the “restoration of capitalism” in its development.

In the Transitional Programme, Trotsky wrote:

“The Soviet Union emerged from the October Revolution as a workers' state. The nationalization of the means of production, a necessary condition for socialist development, opened up the possibility of a rapid growth of the productive forces. Meanwhile, the apparatus of the workers' state underwent a complete transformation, turning from an instrument of the working class into an instrument of bureaucratic coercion against the working class, and, more and more, into an instrument for the sabotage of the economy. The bureaucratization of a backward and isolated workers' state and the transformation of the bureaucracy into an all-powerful privileged caste is the most convincing - not theoretical, but practical - refutation of socialism in a single country. The regime of the USSR thus contains terrifying contradictions. But it continues to be the regime of a degenerated workers' state. This is the social diagnosis. The political prognosis has an alternative character: either the bureaucracy, which is becoming more and more the organ of the world bourgeoisie in a workers' state, will overthrow the new forms of property and throw the country back to capitalism, or the working class will crush the bureaucracy and open the way to socialism.

Development of theory after the Second World War

The development of the theory of permanent revolution was continued by many leftist Marxist theorists in the countries of Western Europe, North and South America and Southeast Asia, where Trotskyist organizations were active. During the anti-colonial upsurge of the late 1950s and 1960s, the Fourth International analyzed the development of revolutionary processes in the countries of the Third World, and, above all, in the Algerian and Cuban revolutions.

In 1963, at one of the congresses of the Fourth International, a resolution was adopted "The dynamics of the world revolution today." The sponsors of the resolution were Ernest Mandel, the leader of the Belgian section, and Joseph Hansen, a member of the leadership of the Socialist Workers' Party (USA). The resolution stated:

“... The three main forces of the world revolution - the colonial revolution, the political revolution in the degenerate or deformed workers' states and the proletarian revolution in the imperialist countries - form a dialectical unity. Each of these forces affects the others and receives in response a powerful impetus for its future development or inhibition. The delay of the proletarian revolution in the imperialist countries undoubtedly prevented the colonial revolution from embarking on the socialist path as quickly and as consciously as possible under the influence of a victorious revolutionary uprising or the victory of the proletariat in the developed countries. This delay also does not provide an opportunity for the development of a political revolution in the USSR, also because the Soviet workers do not see before them an example of an alternative way of building socialism.

Notes

Literature

• L. Trotsky. Permanent revolution. Collection. - M.: "Ast", 2005.
• L. Trotsky. History of the Russian Revolution: In 2 volumes - M .: "Terra", "Respublika", 1997.
• Kakurin N.E. How the revolution fought. T. 1-2. - M.-L., 1925-1926.
• Trapeznikov S.P. On the sharp turns of history. (From the lessons of the struggle for scientific socialism against revisionist trends.) - M., "Thought", 1972.

Links

• Website dedicated to Leon Trotsky and the Trotskyist movement (Russian)
• Collection of Marxist materials on pre-capitalist societies (English)
• Yu. A. Krasin. Permanent Revolution (TSB 3rd ed.) (Russian)

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010 .

Permanent revolution. The idea of ​​a permanent, that is, continuous, revolution was put forward by K. Marx and F. Engels in the "Manifesto of the Communist Party" (1848) and "Appeal of the Central Committee to the Union of Communists" (1850). The founders of Marxism believed that the proletariat, having sufficient strength, organization, influence and taking an independent political position, could make the transition from the bourgeois-democratic revolution to the socialist revolution, to the establishment of its own power. “While the democratic petty bourgeois want to finish the revolution as soon as possible, ... our interests and our tasks are to make the revolution uninterrupted until all more or less propertied classes are removed from the rule, until the proletariat will conquer state power ... ”(K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 7, p. 261). Continuity was understood by K. Marx and F. Engels as a successive change of stages of the revolutionary process. They warned that "... the workers cannot, at the beginning of the movement, propose purely communist measures" and "... they will not be able to achieve dominance and the realization of their class interests without having completely passed the longer path of revolutionary development ..." (ibid., pp. 266, 267).

In the new historical conditions of the era of imperialism, the idea of ​​continuous revolution was developed by V. I. Lenin into the theory of the development of a democratic revolution into a socialist one. “... From the democratic revolution,” wrote V. I. Lenin, “we will immediately begin to pass, and just to the extent of our strength, the strength of the conscious and organized proletariat, we will begin to move on to the socialist revolution. We stand for continuous revolution. We will not stop halfway” (Poln. sobr. soch. (composition), 5th ed., vol. 11, p. 222).

V. I. Lenin rejected the scheme of the opportunist leaders of the 2nd International and the Russian Mensheviks, according to which the victory of the bourgeois revolution was necessarily followed by a more or less long period of development of capitalism. In the epoch of imperialism, when the world capitalist system is ripe for socialist revolution, revolutionary-democratic transformations objectively pose a threat to capitalism. Monopoly capital unites with the most reactionary forces on a common platform of hostility to any revolution. That is why, V. I. Lenin emphasized, “in the 20th century in a capitalist country one cannot be a revolutionary democrat if one is afraid to go towards socialism” (ibid., vol. 34, p. 190).

The cornerstone of Lenin's theory of the development of a democratic revolution into a socialist one is the idea hegemony of the proletariat , which plays the role of an engine for the unstoppable development of the democratic revolution, a gradual transition to solving more and more radical tasks, and creating conditions for the socialist revolution. As a result of the victory of the democratic revolution, the revolutionary-democratic type of power is established, which acts as an instrument for the continuous deepening and development of the democratic revolution into a socialist one. In relation to the conditions of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. V. I. Lenin defined the class content of such power as the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry.

After World War II (1939–45), democratic revolutions developed into socialist revolutions in a number of European and Asian countries. In some countries, democratic and socialist transformations were closely intertwined, essentially constituting two stages in a single revolutionary process (see Vol. People's Democratic Revolution ).

The significance of the Marxist-Leninist theory of continuous revolution lies in the fact that it reveals the natural connection between the socialist revolution and various types of popular democratic movements and revolutions, and makes it possible to find ways and forms of transition to a socialist revolution that meet the specific conditions of a particular country.

Marx's idea of ​​continuous revolution received a distorted interpretation in the Trotskyist theory of political reform, advanced by A. Parvus and L. Trotsky during the years of the Revolution of 1905–07 in Russia and which became the platform for the struggle of the Trotskyists against Leninism. The continuity of the successive stages of the revolutionary process was replaced in Trotskyist theory by a subjectivist concept, which arbitrarily mixed all the stages, ignoring the natural connection between them; it denied the bourgeois-democratic character of the revolution and put forward the adventurist idea of ​​a direct transition to a socialist revolution (see V. I. Lenin, ibid., vol. 17, p. 381). This position of Trotsky, who ignored the idea of ​​a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry, was expressed in the slogan "without a tsar, but a workers' government." Revealing the eclecticism of the Trotskyist theory, V. I. Lenin noted: “Trotsky’s original theory takes from the Bolsheviks a call for a decisive revolutionary struggle of the proletariat and for the conquest of political power by it, and from the Mensheviks it takes the “denial” of the role of the peasantry” (ibid., vol. 27, p. 80). By rejecting the Marxist-Leninist strategy of class alliances between the proletariat and the peasantry and other non-proletarian strata of the working people, Trotskyist theory essentially closed the way to the formation of a mass political army of the socialist revolution and undermined the internal factors for the development and victory of this revolution. Trotsky associated the permanence of the revolutionary process, the fate of the socialist revolution in each country, with external factors, with the victory of the world revolution. From these mechanistic positions, the Trotskyists opposed Lenin's theory of the possibility of the victory of socialism, initially in one country taken separately. From this flowed a directive, contrary to Marxism, to "export", to artificially push the revolution.

Trotskyist theory of P. r. represents one of the ideological sources of modern concepts of petty-bourgeois revolutionism, including Maoism , a characteristic feature of which is also disbelief in the ability of the working class to unite the broad masses of working people around itself to solve the problems of socialist construction. This attitude is expressed in the entire adventurist policy of this petty-bourgeois trend. Such ideas contradict Marxism-Leninism, the practice of the world revolutionary movement.

Lit.: Leibzon B. M.. Petty-bourgeois revolutionarism, M., 1967; Lenin's theory of socialist revolution and modernity, M., 1972, ch. (chapters) 6.