Leon Trotsky's
Permanent Revolution &
Results and Prospects
10. WHAT IS THE PERMANENT REVOLUTION?
BASIC POSTULATES
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I hope that the reader
will not object if, to end this book, I attempt, without fear of
repetition, to formulate succinctly my principal conclusions.
1. The theory of the
permanent revolution now demands the greatest attention from every
Marxist, for the course of the class and ideological struggle has fully
and finally raised this question from the realm of reminiscences over
old differences of opinion among Russian Marxists, and converted it into
a question of the character, the inner connexions and methods of the
international revolution in general.
2. With regard to
countries with a belated bourgeois development, especially the colonial
and semi-colonial countries, the theory of the permanent revolution
signifies that the complete and genuine solution of their tasks of
achieving democracy and national emancipation is conceivable
only through the dictatorship of the proletariat as the leader of the
subjugated nation, above all of its peasant masses.
3. Not only the
agrarian, but also the national question assigns to the peasantry—the
overwhelming majority of the population in backward countries—an
exceptional place in the democratic revolution. Without an alliance of
the proletariat with the peasantry the tasks of the democratic
revolution cannot be solved, nor even seriously posed. But the alliance
of these two classes can be realized in no other way than through an
irreconcilable struggle against the influence of the national-liberal
bourgeoisie.
4. No matter what the
first episodic stages of the revolution may be in the individual
countries, the realization of the revolutionary alliance between the
proletariat and the peasantry is conceivable only under the political
leadership of the proletariat vanguard, organized in the Communist
Party. This in turn means that the victory of the democratic revolution
is conceivable only through the dictatorship of the proletariat which
bases itself upon the alliance with the peasantry and solves first of
all the tasks of the democratic revolution.
5. Assessed
historically, the old slogan of Bolshevism—'the democratic
dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry'—expressed precisely the
above-characterized relationship of the proletariat, the peasantry and
the liberal bourgeoisie. This has been confirmed by the experience of
October. But Lenin's old formula did not settle in advance the problem
of what the reciprocal relations would be between the proletariat and
the peasantry within the revolutionary bloc. In other words, the formula
deliberately retained a certain algebraic quality, which had to make way
for more precise arithmetical quantities in the process of historical
experience. However, the latter showed, and under circumstances that
exclude any kind of misinterpretation, that no matter how great the
revolutionary role of the peasantry may be, it nevertheless cannot be an
independent role and even less a leading one. The peasant follows either
the worker or the bourgeois. This means that the 'democratic
dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry' is only conceivable as a dictatorship
of the proletariat that leads the peasant masses behind it.
6. A democratic
dictatorship of the prolelariat and peasantry, as a regime that is
distinguished from the dictatorship of the proletariat by its class
content, might be realized only in a case where an independent
revolutionary party could be constituted, expressing the interests of
the peasants and in general of petty bourgeois democracy—a party
capable of conquering power with this or that degree of aid from the
proletariat, and of determining its revolutionary programme. As all
modern history attests—especially the Russian experience of the last
twenty-five years—an insurmountable obstacle on the road to the
creation of a peasants' party is the petty-bourgeoisie's lack of
economic and political independence and its deep internal
differentiation. By reason of this the upper sections of the
petty-bourgeoisie (of the peasantry) go along with the big bourgeoisie
in all decisive cases, especially in war and in revolution; the lower
sections go along with the proletariat; the intermediate section being
thus compelled to choose between the two extreme poles. Between
Kerenskyism and the Bolshevik power, between the Kuomintang and the
dictatorship of the proletariat, there is not and cannot be any
intermediate stage, that is, no democratic dictatorship of the workers
and peasants.
7. The Comintern' s
endeavour to foist upon the Eastern countries the slogan of the
democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry, finally and
long ago exhausted by history, can have only a reactionary effect.
lnsofar as this slogan is counterposed to the slogan of the dictatorship
of the proletariat, it contributes politically to the dissolution of the
proletariat in the petty-bourgeois masses and thus creates the most
favourable conditions for the hegemony of the national bourgeoisie and
consequently for the collapse of the democratic revolution. The
introduction of the slogan into the programme of the Comintern is a
direct betrayal of Marxism and of the October tradition of Bolshevism.
8. The dictatorship of
the proletariat which has risen to power as the leader of the democratic
revolution is inevitably and, very quickly confronted with tasks, the
fulfillment of which is bound up with deep inroads into the rights of
bourgeois property. The democratic revolution grows over directly into
the socialist revolution and thereby becomes a permanent
revolution.
9. The conquest of
power by the proletariat does not complete the revolution, but only
opens it. Socialist construction is conceivable only on the foundation
of the class struggle, on a national and international scale. This
struggle, under the conditions of an overwhelming predominance of
capitalist relationships on the world arena, must inevitably lead to
explosions, that is, internally to civil wars and externally to
revolutionary wars. Therein lies the permanent character of the
socialist revolution as such, regardless of whether it is a backward
country that is involved, which only yesterday accomplished its
democratic revolution, or an old capitalist country which already has
behind it a long epoch of democracy and parliamentarism.
10. The completion of
the socialist revolution within national limits is unthinkable. One of
the basic reasons for the crisis in bourgeois society is the fact that
the productive forces created by it can no longer be reconciled with the
framework of the national state. From this follows on the one hand,
imperialist wars, on the other, the utopia of a bourgeois United States
of Europe. The socialist revolution begins on the national arena, it
unfolds on the international arena, and is completed on the world arena.
Thus, the socialist revolution becomes a permanent revolution in a newer
and broader sense of the word; it attains completion, only in the final
victory of the new society on our entire planet.
11. The above-outlined
sketch of the development of the world revolution eliminates the
question of countries that are 'mature' or 'immature' for socialism in
the spirit of that pedantic, lifeless classification given by the
present programme of the Comintem. Insofar as capitalism has created a
world market, a world division of labour and world productive forces, it
has also prepared world economy as a whole for socialist transformation.
Different countries
will go through this process at different tempos. Backward countries
may, under certain conditions, arrive at the dictatorship of the
proletariat sooner than advanced countries, but they will come later
than the latter to socialism.
A backward colonial or
semi-colonial country, the proletariat of which is insufficiently
prepared to unite the peasantry and take power, is thereby incapable of
bringing the democratic revolution to its conclusion. Contrariwise, in a
country where the proletariat has power in its hands as the result of
the democratic revolution, the subsequent fate of the dictatorship and
socialism depends in the last analysis not only and not so much upon the
national productive forces as upon the development of the international
socialist revolution.
12. The theory of
socialism in one country, which rose on the yeast of the reaction
against October, is the only theory that consistently and to the very
end opposes the theory of the permanent revolution.
The attempt of the
epigones, under the lash of our criticism, to confine the application of
the theory of socialism in one country exclusively to Russia, because of
its specific characteristics (its vastness and its natural resources),
does not improve matters but only makes them worse. The break with the
internationalist position always and invariably leads to national messianism,
that is, to attributing special superiorities and qualities to one's own
country, which allegedly permit it to play a role to which other
countries cannot attain.
The world division of
labour, the dependence of Soviet industry upon foreign technology, the
dependence of the productive forces of the advanced countries of Europe
upon Asiatic raw materials, etc., etc., make the construction of an
independent socialist society in any single country in the world
impossible.
13. The theory of
Stalin and Bukharin, running counter to the entire experience of the
Russian revolution, not only sets up the democratic revolution
mechanically in contrast to the socialist revolution, but also makes a
breach between the national revolution and the international revolution.
This theory imposes
upon revolutions in backward countries the task of establishing an
unrealizable regime of democratic dictatorship, which it counterposes to
the dictatorship of the proletariat. Thereby this theory introduces
illusions and fictions into politics, paralyses the struggle for power
of the proletariat in the East, and hampers the victory of the colonial
revolution.
The very seizure of
power by the proletariat signifies, from the standpoint of the epigones'
theory, the completion of the revolution ('to the extent of
nine-tenths', according to Stalin's formula) and the opening of the
epoch of national reforms. The theory of the kulak growing into
socialism and the theory of the 'neutralization' of the world
bourgeoisie are consequently inseparable from the theory of socialism in
one country. They stand or fall together.
By the theory of
national socialism, the Communist International is down-graded to an
auxiliary weapon useful only for the struggle against military
intervention. The present policy of the Comintern, its regime and the
selection of its leading personnel correspond entirely to the demotion
of the Communist lnternational to the role of an auxiliary unit which is
not destined to solve independent tasks.
14. The programme of
the Comintern created by Bukharin is eclectic through and through. It
makes the hopeless attempt to reconcile the theory of socialism in one
country with Marxist internationalism, which is, however, inseparable
from the permanent character of the world revolution. The struggle of
the Communist Left Opposition for a correct policy and a healthy regime
in the Communist lnternational is inseparably bound up with the struggle
for the Marxist programme. The question of the programme is in turn
inseparable from the question of the two mutually exclusive theories:
the theory of permanent revolution and the theory of socialism in one
country. The problem of the permanent revolution has long ago outgrown
the episodic differences of opinion between Lenin and Trotsky, which
were completely exhausted by history. The struggle is between the basic
ideas of Marx and Lenin on the one side and the eclecticism of the
centrists on the other.
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