троцкизма
Trotskyism
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| Karl Marx |
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| Leon Trotsky |
Trotsky identified as an orthodox Marxist and Bolshevik-Leninist, and supported founding a vanguard party of the working-class.
His politics differed sharply from those of Stalinism, as he opposed the idea of Socialism in One Country.
Trotsky still supported proletarian internationalism, and an authentic dictatorship of the proletariat based on working-class self-emancipation and mass democracy.
He believed that a bureaucracy developed under Stalin after Lenin's death.
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| Vladimir Lenin |
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| Trotsky Reviewing the Red Army |
Trotsky originally opposed some aspects of Leninism.
Later, he concluded that unity between the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks was impossible, and joined the Bolsheviks.
Trotsky played a leading role with Lenin in the revolution.
Assessing Trotsky, Lenin wrote, "Trotsky long ago said that unification is impossible. Trotsky understood this and from that time on there has been no better Bolshevik."
Later, he concluded that unity between the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks was impossible, and joined the Bolsheviks.
Trotsky played a leading role with Lenin in the revolution.
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| Emblem of the Fourth International |
Trotsky's Fourth International was established in France in 1938 when Trotskyists argued that the Comintern or Third International had become irretrievably "lost to Stalinism" and thus incapable of leading the international working class to political power.
In contemporary English language, an advocate of Trotsky's ideas is often called a "Trotskyist"; a Trotskyist can be called a "Trotskyite" or "Trot", especially by a critic of Trotskyism.
Definition
Supporters of Trotsky would contend that Trotskyism is not a new movement, a new doctrine, but the restoration, the revival of genuine Marxism as it was expounded and practiced in the Russian revolution and in the early days of the Communist International."
Origins
According to Trotsky, the term 'Trotskyism' was coined by Pavel Milyukov, (sometimes transliterated as 'Paul Miliukoff'), the ideological leader of the Constitutional Democratic party (Kadets) in Russia.
Па́вел Никола́евич Милюко́в - Pavel Nikolayevich Milyukov (27 January [O.S. 15 January] 1859 – 31 March 1943), a Russian politician, was the founder, leader, and the most prominent member of the Constitutional Democratic party (known as the Kadets). His name is sometimes rendered in English as Paul Miliukov or Paul Milukoff.
Конституционная Демократическая партия - The Constitutional Democratic Party (Constitutional Democrats, formally Party of People's Freedom, informally 'Kadets') was a liberal political party in the Russian Empire. Party members were called Kadets, from the abbreviation K-D of the party name in Russian. This name should not be confused with the term 'cadets', which referred to students at military schools in the Imperial Russia. Konstantin Kavelin's, and Boris Chicherin's writings formed the theoretical basis of the party's platform. Historian Pavel Miliukov was the party's leader throughout its existence. The Kadets were mainly supported by professionals—university professors and lawyers were particularly prominent within the party, members of the zemstvo (a form of local government) and some industrialists.
Milyukov waged a bitter war against 'Trotskyism' "as early as 1905".
Trotsky was elected chairman of the St. Petersburg Soviet during the 1905 Russian Revolution. He pursued a policy of proletarian revolution at a time when other socialist trends advocated a transition to a "bourgeois" (capitalist) regime to replace the essentially feudal Romanov state.
It was during this year that Trotsky developed the 'Theory of Permanent Revolution' (see below), as it later became known
In 1905, Trotsky quotes from a postscript to a book by Milyukov, 'The elections to the second State Duma, published no later than May 1907:
'Those who reproach the Kadets with failure to protest at that time, by organising meetings, against the 'revolutionary illusions' of Trotskyism, and the relapse into Blanquism, simply do not understand… the mood of the democratic public at meetings during that period.' – 'The elections to the second state Duma' by Pavel Milyukov
Milyukov suggests that the mood of the "democratic public" was in support of Trotsky's policy of the overthrow of the Romanov regime alongside a workers' revolution to overthrow the capitalist owners of industry, support for strike action and the establishment of democratically elected workers' councils or "soviets".
The Theory of Permanent Revolution - I
In 1905, Trotsky formulated a theory that became known as the 'Theory of Permanent Revolution'.
It is one of the defining characteristics of Trotskyism.
Until 1905, Marxism only claimed that a revolution in a European capitalist society would lead to a socialist one.
According to the original theory it was impossible for such to occur in more backward countries such as early 20th century Russia.
Russia in 1905 was widely considered to have not yet established a capitalist society, but was instead largely feudal with a small, weak and almost powerless capitalist class.
The Theory of Permanent Revolution addressed the question of how such feudal regimes were to be overthrown, and how socialism could be established given the lack of economic prerequisites.
Trotsky argued that in Russia only the working class could overthrow feudalism, and win the support of the peasantry;furthermore, he argued that the Russian working class would not stop there.
They would win its own revolution against the weak capitalist class, establish a workers' state in Russia, and appeal to the working class in the advanced capitalist countries around the world. As a result, the global working class would come to Russia's aid, and socialism could develop worldwide.
The Capitalist or Bourgeois-Democratic Revolution
Revolutions in Britain in the 17th century and in France in 1789 abolished feudalism and established the basic requisites for the development of capitalism.
Trotsky argued that these revolutions would not be repeated in Russia.
In 'Results and Prospects', written in 1906, Trotsky outlines his theory in detail, arguing: "History does not repeat itself. However much one may compare the Russian Revolution with the Great French Revolution, the former can never be transformed into a repetition of the latter."
In the French Revolution of 1789, France experienced what Marxists called a "bourgeois-democratic revolution" – a regime was established wherein the bourgeoisie overthrew the existing French feudalistic system.
The bourgeoisie then moved towards establishing a regime of democratic parliamentary institutions, however, while democratic rights were extended to the bourgeoisie, they were not generally extended to a universal franchise.
The freedom for workers to organise unions or to strike was not achieved without considerable struggle.
Trotsky argues that countries like Russia had no "enlightened, active" revolutionary bourgeoisie which could play the same role, and the working class constituted a very small minority.
By the time of the European revolutions of 1848, "the bourgeoisie was already unable to play a comparable role. It did not want and was not able to undertake the revolutionary liquidation of the social system that stood in its path to power."
Theory of Permanent Revolution - II
The Theory of Permanent Revolution considers that in many countries which are thought under Trotskyism to have not yet completed a bourgeois-democratic revolution, the capitalist class opposes the creation of any revolutionary situation.
They fear stirring the working class into fighting for its own revolutionary aspirations against their exploitation by capitalism.
In Russia, the working class, although a small minority in a predominantly peasant based society, were organised in vast factories owned by the capitalist class, and into large working class districts.
During the Russian Revolution of 1905, the capitalist class found it necessary to ally with reactionary elements such as the essentially feudal landlords, and ultimately the existing Czarist Russian state forces.
This was to protect their ownership of their property—factories, banks, etc.—from expropriation by the revolutionary working class.
Therefore, according to the Theory of Permanent Revolution, the capitalist classes of economically backward countries are weak, and incapable of carrying through revolutionary change.
As a result, they are linked to and rely on the feudal landowners in many ways.
Thus, Trotsky argues, because a majority of the branches of industry in Russia were originated under the direct influence of government measures—sometimes with the help of government subsidies—the capitalist class was again tied to the ruling elite.
The capitalist class were subservient to European capital.
The Role of the Proletariat
Trotsky argued, only the 'proletariat' or 'working class' were capable of achieving the tasks of that 'bourgeois' revolution.
In 1905, the working class in Russia, a generation brought together in vast factories from the relative isolation of peasant life, saw the result of its labour as a vast collective effort, and the only means of struggling against its oppression in terms of a collective effort also, forming workers councils (soviets), in the course of the revolution of that year.
In 1906, Trotsky argued:
'The factory system brings the proletariat to the foreground... The proletariat immediately found itself concentrated in tremendous masses, while between these masses and the autocracy there stood a capitalist bourgeoisie, very small in numbers, isolated from the 'people', half-foreign, without historical traditions, and inspired only by the greed for gain.' – Trotsky, 'Results and Prospects'
The Putilov Factory, for instance, numbered 12,000 workers in 1900, and, according to Trotsky, 36,000 in July 1917.
The Theory of Permanent Revolution considers that the peasantry as a whole cannot take on this task, because it is dispersed in small holdings throughout the country, and forms a heterogeneous grouping, including the rich peasants who employ rural workers, and aspire to landlordism, as well as the poor peasants who aspire to own more land.
Trotsky argues: "All historical experience... shows that the peasantry are absolutely incapable of taking up an independent political role."
Trotskyists differ on the extent to which this is true today, but even the most orthodox tend to recognise in the late twentieth century a new development in the revolts of the rural poor, the self-organising struggles of the landless, and many other struggles which in some ways reflect the militant united organised struggles of the working class, and which to various degrees do not bear the marks of class divisions typical of the heroic peasant struggles of previous epochs.
However, orthodox Trotskyists still argue that the town and city based working class struggle is central to the task of a successful socialist revolution, linked to these struggles of the rural poor. They argue that the working class learns of necessity to conduct a collective struggle, for instance in trade unions, arising from its social conditions in the factories and workplaces, and that the collective consciousness it achieves as a result is an essential ingredient of the socialist reconstruction of society.
Although only a small minority in Russian society, the proletariat, would lead a revolution to emancipate the peasantry and thus "secure the support of the peasantry" as part of that revolution, on whose support it will rely, but the working class, in order to improve their own conditions, will find it necessary to create a revolution of their own, which would accomplish both the bourgeois revolution and then establish a workers' state.
International Revolution
According to classical Marxism, revolution in peasant-based countries, such as Russia, prepares the ground ultimately only for a development of capitalism, since the liberated peasants become small owners, producers and traders, which leads to the growth of commodity markets, from which a new capitalist class emerges.
Лев Бори́сович Ка́менев - Lev Borisovich Kamenev (18 July [O.S. 6 July] 1883 – 25 August 1936), born Rozenfeld (Russian: Ро́зенфельд), was a Jewish Bolshevik revolutionary, and a prominent Soviet politician. He served briefly as the first head of state of Soviet Russia in 1917, and from 1923-24 the acting Premier in the last year of Vladimir Lenin's life.
Under the leadership of Joseph Stalin Kamenev fell out of favor and, following a show trial, was executed.
Trotskyism and the 1917 Russian Revolution
During his leadership of the Russian revolution of 1905, Trotsky argued that once it became clear that the Tsar's army would not come out in support of the workers, it was necessary to retreat before the armed might of the state in as good an order as possible.
In 1917, Trotsky was again elected chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, but this time soon came to lead the Military Revolutionary Committee which had the allegiance of the Petrograd garrison, and carried through the October 1917 insurrection.
Stalin wrote:
'All practical work in connection with the organization of the uprising was done under the immediate direction of Comrade Trotsky, the President of the Petrograd Soviet. It can be stated with certainty that the Party is indebted primarily and principally to Comrade Trotsky for the rapid going over of the garrison to the side of the Soviet and the efficient manner in which the work of the Military Revolutionary Committee was organized.' – Stalin, Pravda, November 6, 1918
As a result of his role in the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Theory of Permanent Revolution was embraced by the young Soviet state until 1924.
The Russian revolution of 1917 was marked by two revolutions: the relatively spontaneous February 1917 revolution, and the 25 October 1917 seizure of power by the Bolsheviks, who had gained the leadership of the Petrograd soviet.
Before the February 1917 Russian revolution, Lenin had formulated a slogan calling for the 'democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry', but after the February revolution, through his April theses, Lenin instead called for "all power to the Soviets".
Lenin nevertheless continued to emphasise, (as did Trotsky also), the classical Marxist position that the peasantry formed a basis for the development of capitalism, not socialism.
But also before February 1917, Trotsky had not accepted the importance of a Bolshevik style organisation.
Once the February 1917 Russian Revolution had broken out Trotsky admitted the importance of a Bolshevik organisation, and joined the Bolsheviks in July 1917.
Despite the fact that many, like Stalin, saw Trotsky's role in the October 1917 Russian Revolution as central, Trotsky says that without Lenin, and the Bolshevik party, the October revolution of 1917 would not have taken place.
As a result, since 1917, Trotskyism, as a political theory, is fully committed to a Leninist style of democratic centralist party organisation, which Trotskyists argue must not be confused with the party organisation, as it later developed under Stalin.
Trotsky had previously suggested that Lenin's method of organisation would lead to a dictatorship, but it is important to emphasise that after 1917 orthodox Trotskyists argue that the loss of democracy in the Soviet Union was caused by the failure of the revolution to successfully spread internationally, and the consequent wars, isolation and imperialist intervention, and not the Bolshevik style of organisation.
Lenin's outlook had always been that the Russian Revolution would need to stimulate a Socialist revolution in western Europe in order that this European socialist society would then come to the aid of the Russian revolution and enable Russia to advance towards socialism.
Lenin stated:
'We have stressed in a good many written works, in all our public utterances, and in all our statements in the press that… the socialist revolution can triumph only on two conditions. First, if it is given timely support by a socialist revolution in one or several advanced countries.' – Lenin, Speech at Tenth Congress of the RCP(B)
This outlook matched precisely Trotsky's Theory of Permanent Revolution.
Trotsky's Permanent Revolution had foreseen that the working class would not stop at the bourgeois democratic stage of the revolution, but proceed towards a workers' state, as happened in 1917.
In 1917, Lenin changed his attitude to Trotsky's Theory of Permanent Revolution and after the October revolution it was adopted by the Bolsheviks.
Lenin was met with initial disbelief in April 1917.
Trotsky argues that:
'Up to the outbreak of the February revolution and for a time after Trotskyism did not mean the idea that it was impossible to build a socialist society within the national boundaries of Russia (which "possibility" was never expressed by anybody up to 1924 and hardly came into anybody’s head).
Trotskyism meant the idea that the Russian proletariat might win the power in advance of the Western proletariat, and that in that case it could not confine itself within the limits of a democratic dictatorship but would be compelled to undertake the initial socialist measures.
It is not surprising, then, that the 'April Theses' of Lenin were condemned as Trotskyist.' – Leon Trotsky, 'History of the Russian Revolution'
In contemporary English language, an advocate of Trotsky's ideas is often called a "Trotskyist"; a Trotskyist can be called a "Trotskyite" or "Trot", especially by a critic of Trotskyism.
Definition
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| Marx, Engles, Lenin, Trotsky |
According to Trotsky, his thought could be distinguished from other Marxist theories by five key elements:
Support for the strategy of permanent revolution, in opposition to the 'Two Stage Theory' of his opponents;
Criticism of the post-1924 leadership of the Soviet Union, analysis of its features and after 1933, support for political revolution in the Soviet Union and in what Trotskyists term the deformed workers' states;
Support for social revolution in the advanced capitalist countries through working class mass action;
Support for proletarian internationalism; and
Use of a 'transitional' programme of demands that bridge between daily struggles of the working class and the 'maximal' ideas of the socialist transformation of society.
On the political spectrum of Marxism, Trotskyists are considered to be on the left.
They supported democratic rights in the USSR, opposed political deals with the imperialist powers, and advocated a spreading of the revolution throughout Europe and Asia.
Origins
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| Па́вел Никола́евич Милюко́ Pavel Nikolayevich Milyukov |
Па́вел Никола́евич Милюко́в - Pavel Nikolayevich Milyukov (27 January [O.S. 15 January] 1859 – 31 March 1943), a Russian politician, was the founder, leader, and the most prominent member of the Constitutional Democratic party (known as the Kadets). His name is sometimes rendered in English as Paul Miliukov or Paul Milukoff.
Конституционная Демократическая партия - The Constitutional Democratic Party (Constitutional Democrats, formally Party of People's Freedom, informally 'Kadets') was a liberal political party in the Russian Empire. Party members were called Kadets, from the abbreviation K-D of the party name in Russian. This name should not be confused with the term 'cadets', which referred to students at military schools in the Imperial Russia. Konstantin Kavelin's, and Boris Chicherin's writings formed the theoretical basis of the party's platform. Historian Pavel Miliukov was the party's leader throughout its existence. The Kadets were mainly supported by professionals—university professors and lawyers were particularly prominent within the party, members of the zemstvo (a form of local government) and some industrialists.
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| Emblem of the Romanov State |
Trotsky was elected chairman of the St. Petersburg Soviet during the 1905 Russian Revolution. He pursued a policy of proletarian revolution at a time when other socialist trends advocated a transition to a "bourgeois" (capitalist) regime to replace the essentially feudal Romanov state.
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| State Duma |
In 1905, Trotsky quotes from a postscript to a book by Milyukov, 'The elections to the second State Duma, published no later than May 1907:
'Those who reproach the Kadets with failure to protest at that time, by organising meetings, against the 'revolutionary illusions' of Trotskyism, and the relapse into Blanquism, simply do not understand… the mood of the democratic public at meetings during that period.' – 'The elections to the second state Duma' by Pavel Milyukov
Milyukov suggests that the mood of the "democratic public" was in support of Trotsky's policy of the overthrow of the Romanov regime alongside a workers' revolution to overthrow the capitalist owners of industry, support for strike action and the establishment of democratically elected workers' councils or "soviets".
In 1905, Trotsky formulated a theory that became known as the 'Theory of Permanent Revolution'.
It is one of the defining characteristics of Trotskyism.
Until 1905, Marxism only claimed that a revolution in a European capitalist society would lead to a socialist one.
 |
| Feudal Russia |
Russia in 1905 was widely considered to have not yet established a capitalist society, but was instead largely feudal with a small, weak and almost powerless capitalist class.
The Theory of Permanent Revolution addressed the question of how such feudal regimes were to be overthrown, and how socialism could be established given the lack of economic prerequisites.
Trotsky argued that in Russia only the working class could overthrow feudalism, and win the support of the peasantry;furthermore, he argued that the Russian working class would not stop there.
They would win its own revolution against the weak capitalist class, establish a workers' state in Russia, and appeal to the working class in the advanced capitalist countries around the world. As a result, the global working class would come to Russia's aid, and socialism could develop worldwide.
The Capitalist or Bourgeois-Democratic Revolution
Revolutions in Britain in the 17th century and in France in 1789 abolished feudalism and established the basic requisites for the development of capitalism.
Trotsky argued that these revolutions would not be repeated in Russia.
In 'Results and Prospects', written in 1906, Trotsky outlines his theory in detail, arguing: "History does not repeat itself. However much one may compare the Russian Revolution with the Great French Revolution, the former can never be transformed into a repetition of the latter."
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| Painting Inspired by the 1789 French Revolution The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Son - David |
The bourgeoisie then moved towards establishing a regime of democratic parliamentary institutions, however, while democratic rights were extended to the bourgeoisie, they were not generally extended to a universal franchise.
The freedom for workers to organise unions or to strike was not achieved without considerable struggle.
Trotsky argues that countries like Russia had no "enlightened, active" revolutionary bourgeoisie which could play the same role, and the working class constituted a very small minority.
By the time of the European revolutions of 1848, "the bourgeoisie was already unable to play a comparable role. It did not want and was not able to undertake the revolutionary liquidation of the social system that stood in its path to power."
Theory of Permanent Revolution - II
The Theory of Permanent Revolution considers that in many countries which are thought under Trotskyism to have not yet completed a bourgeois-democratic revolution, the capitalist class opposes the creation of any revolutionary situation.
They fear stirring the working class into fighting for its own revolutionary aspirations against their exploitation by capitalism.
In Russia, the working class, although a small minority in a predominantly peasant based society, were organised in vast factories owned by the capitalist class, and into large working class districts.
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| Russian Revolution of 1905 |
This was to protect their ownership of their property—factories, banks, etc.—from expropriation by the revolutionary working class.
Therefore, according to the Theory of Permanent Revolution, the capitalist classes of economically backward countries are weak, and incapable of carrying through revolutionary change.
As a result, they are linked to and rely on the feudal landowners in many ways.
Thus, Trotsky argues, because a majority of the branches of industry in Russia were originated under the direct influence of government measures—sometimes with the help of government subsidies—the capitalist class was again tied to the ruling elite.
The capitalist class were subservient to European capital.
The Role of the Proletariat
Trotsky argued, only the 'proletariat' or 'working class' were capable of achieving the tasks of that 'bourgeois' revolution.
 |
| Russian Industrial Workers |
In 1906, Trotsky argued:
'The factory system brings the proletariat to the foreground... The proletariat immediately found itself concentrated in tremendous masses, while between these masses and the autocracy there stood a capitalist bourgeoisie, very small in numbers, isolated from the 'people', half-foreign, without historical traditions, and inspired only by the greed for gain.' – Trotsky, 'Results and Prospects'
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| Putilov Factory |
The Theory of Permanent Revolution considers that the peasantry as a whole cannot take on this task, because it is dispersed in small holdings throughout the country, and forms a heterogeneous grouping, including the rich peasants who employ rural workers, and aspire to landlordism, as well as the poor peasants who aspire to own more land.
Trotsky argues: "All historical experience... shows that the peasantry are absolutely incapable of taking up an independent political role."
Trotskyists differ on the extent to which this is true today, but even the most orthodox tend to recognise in the late twentieth century a new development in the revolts of the rural poor, the self-organising struggles of the landless, and many other struggles which in some ways reflect the militant united organised struggles of the working class, and which to various degrees do not bear the marks of class divisions typical of the heroic peasant struggles of previous epochs.
However, orthodox Trotskyists still argue that the town and city based working class struggle is central to the task of a successful socialist revolution, linked to these struggles of the rural poor. They argue that the working class learns of necessity to conduct a collective struggle, for instance in trade unions, arising from its social conditions in the factories and workplaces, and that the collective consciousness it achieves as a result is an essential ingredient of the socialist reconstruction of society.
Although only a small minority in Russian society, the proletariat, would lead a revolution to emancipate the peasantry and thus "secure the support of the peasantry" as part of that revolution, on whose support it will rely, but the working class, in order to improve their own conditions, will find it necessary to create a revolution of their own, which would accomplish both the bourgeois revolution and then establish a workers' state.
International Revolution
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| Russia - A Peasant Based Country Ilya Repin 'Volga Barge Haulers' - 1873 |
Only fully developed capitalist conditions prepare the basis for socialism.
Trotsky agreed that a new socialist state and economy in a country like Russia would not be able to hold out against the pressures of a hostile capitalist world, as well as the internal pressures of its backward economy.
The revolution, Trotsky argued, must quickly spread to capitalist countries, bringing about a socialist revolution which must spread worldwide.
In this way the revolution is "permanent", moving out of necessity first, from the bourgeois revolution to the workers’ revolution, and from there uninterruptedly to European and worldwide revolutions.
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| Лев Бори́сович Ка́менев Lev Borisovich Kamenev |
This was the position, contrary to that of "Classical Marxism" which by that time had been further illuminated by active life, shared by Trotsky and Lenin, and the Bolsheviks, until 1924 when Joseph Stalin, who along with Kamenev in February 1917 had taken the Menshevik position of first the bourgeois revolution, only to be confronted by Lenin and his famous 'April Thesis' on Lenin's return to Russia, after the death of Lenin and seeking to consolidate his growing bureaucratic control of the Bolshevik Party began to put forward the slogan of "Socialism in one country".
Лев Бори́сович Ка́менев - Lev Borisovich Kamenev (18 July [O.S. 6 July] 1883 – 25 August 1936), born Rozenfeld (Russian: Ро́зенфельд), was a Jewish Bolshevik revolutionary, and a prominent Soviet politician. He served briefly as the first head of state of Soviet Russia in 1917, and from 1923-24 the acting Premier in the last year of Vladimir Lenin's life.
Under the leadership of Joseph Stalin Kamenev fell out of favor and, following a show trial, was executed.
An internationalist outlook of permanent revolution is found in the works of Karl Marx.
The term "permanent revolution" is taken from a remark of Marx from his March 1850 Address: "it is our task", Marx said,
'To make the revolution permanent until all the more or less propertied classes have been driven from their ruling positions, until the proletariat has conquered state power and until the association of the proletarians has progressed sufficiently far – not only in one country but in all the leading countries of the world – that competition between the proletarians of these countries ceases and at least the decisive forces of production are concentrated in the hands of the workers'. – Karl Marx, Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League.
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| Russian revolution of 1905 |
In 1917, Trotsky was again elected chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, but this time soon came to lead the Military Revolutionary Committee which had the allegiance of the Petrograd garrison, and carried through the October 1917 insurrection.Stalin wrote:
'All practical work in connection with the organization of the uprising was done under the immediate direction of Comrade Trotsky, the President of the Petrograd Soviet. It can be stated with certainty that the Party is indebted primarily and principally to Comrade Trotsky for the rapid going over of the garrison to the side of the Soviet and the efficient manner in which the work of the Military Revolutionary Committee was organized.' – Stalin, Pravda, November 6, 1918
As a result of his role in the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Theory of Permanent Revolution was embraced by the young Soviet state until 1924.
The Russian revolution of 1917 was marked by two revolutions: the relatively spontaneous February 1917 revolution, and the 25 October 1917 seizure of power by the Bolsheviks, who had gained the leadership of the Petrograd soviet.
Before the February 1917 Russian revolution, Lenin had formulated a slogan calling for the 'democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry', but after the February revolution, through his April theses, Lenin instead called for "all power to the Soviets".
Lenin nevertheless continued to emphasise, (as did Trotsky also), the classical Marxist position that the peasantry formed a basis for the development of capitalism, not socialism.
But also before February 1917, Trotsky had not accepted the importance of a Bolshevik style organisation.
Once the February 1917 Russian Revolution had broken out Trotsky admitted the importance of a Bolshevik organisation, and joined the Bolsheviks in July 1917.
Despite the fact that many, like Stalin, saw Trotsky's role in the October 1917 Russian Revolution as central, Trotsky says that without Lenin, and the Bolshevik party, the October revolution of 1917 would not have taken place.
As a result, since 1917, Trotskyism, as a political theory, is fully committed to a Leninist style of democratic centralist party organisation, which Trotskyists argue must not be confused with the party organisation, as it later developed under Stalin.
Trotsky had previously suggested that Lenin's method of organisation would lead to a dictatorship, but it is important to emphasise that after 1917 orthodox Trotskyists argue that the loss of democracy in the Soviet Union was caused by the failure of the revolution to successfully spread internationally, and the consequent wars, isolation and imperialist intervention, and not the Bolshevik style of organisation.
Lenin's outlook had always been that the Russian Revolution would need to stimulate a Socialist revolution in western Europe in order that this European socialist society would then come to the aid of the Russian revolution and enable Russia to advance towards socialism.
Lenin stated:
'We have stressed in a good many written works, in all our public utterances, and in all our statements in the press that… the socialist revolution can triumph only on two conditions. First, if it is given timely support by a socialist revolution in one or several advanced countries.' – Lenin, Speech at Tenth Congress of the RCP(B)
This outlook matched precisely Trotsky's Theory of Permanent Revolution.
Trotsky's Permanent Revolution had foreseen that the working class would not stop at the bourgeois democratic stage of the revolution, but proceed towards a workers' state, as happened in 1917.
In 1917, Lenin changed his attitude to Trotsky's Theory of Permanent Revolution and after the October revolution it was adopted by the Bolsheviks.
Lenin was met with initial disbelief in April 1917.
Trotsky argues that:
'Up to the outbreak of the February revolution and for a time after Trotskyism did not mean the idea that it was impossible to build a socialist society within the national boundaries of Russia (which "possibility" was never expressed by anybody up to 1924 and hardly came into anybody’s head).
Trotskyism meant the idea that the Russian proletariat might win the power in advance of the Western proletariat, and that in that case it could not confine itself within the limits of a democratic dictatorship but would be compelled to undertake the initial socialist measures.
It is not surprising, then, that the 'April Theses' of Lenin were condemned as Trotskyist.' – Leon Trotsky, 'History of the Russian Revolution'
The 'Legend of Trotskyism'
In 'The Stalin School of Falsification', Trotsky argues that what he calls the "legend of Trotskyism" was formulated by Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev, in collaboration with Stalin in 1924, in response to the criticisms Trotsky raised of Politburo policy.
The urge to silence Trotsky, and all criticism of the Politburo, was in itself a crucial factor in Stalin's rise to power.
During 1922–24, Lenin suffered a series of strokes and became increasingly incapacitated. Before his death in 1924, Lenin, while describing Trotsky as "distinguished not only by his exceptional abilities – personally he is, to be sure, the most able man in the present Central Committee", and also maintaining that "his non-Bolshevik past should not be held against him", criticized him for "showing excessive preoccupation with the purely administrative side of the work", and also requested that Stalin be removed from his position of General Secretary, but his notes remained suppressed until 1956.
Zinoviev and Kamenev broke with Stalin in 1925, and joined Trotsky in 1926, in what was known as the United Opposition.
In 1926, Stalin allied with Nikolai Bukharin, who then led the campaign against "Trotskyism".
In 'The Stalin School of Falsification', Trotsky quotes Bukharin's 1918 pamphlet, 'From the Collapse of Czarism to the Fall of the Bourgeoisie', which was re-printed by the party publishing house, 'Proletari', in 1923.
In this pamphlet, Bukharin explains and embraces Trotsky's 'Theory of Permanent Revolution', writing:
"The Russian proletariat is confronted more sharply than ever before with the problem of the international revolution … The grand total of relationships which have arisen in Europe leads to this inevitable conclusion. Thus, the permanent revolution in Russia is passing into the European proletarian revolution." Yet it is common knowledge, Trotsky argues, that three years later, in 1926, "Bukharin was the chief and indeed the sole theoretician of the entire campaign against 'Trotskyism', summed up in the struggle against the theory of the permanent revolution."
Trotsky wrote that the Left Opposition grew in influence throughout the 1920s, attempting to reform the Communist Party, but in 1927 Stalin declared "civil war" against them:
During the first ten years of its struggle, the Left Opposition did not abandon the program of ideological conquest of the party for that of conquest of power against the party.
Its slogan was: reform, not revolution.
The bureaucracy, however, even in those times, was ready for any revolution in order to defend itself against a democratic reform.
In 1927, when the struggle reached an especially bitter stage, Stalin declared at a session of the Central Committee, addressing himself to the Opposition:
“Those cadres can be removed only by civil war !”
What was a threat in Stalin’s words became, thanks to a series of defeats of the European proletariat, a historic fact.
The road of reform was turned into a road of revolution.
Defeat of the European working class led to further isolation in Russia, and further suppression of the Opposition.
Trotsky argued that the "so-called struggle against 'Trotskyism' grew out of the bureaucratic reaction against the October Revolution [of 1917]".
He responded to the one sided civil war with his' Letter to the Bureau of Party History', (1927), contrasting what he claimed to be the falsification of history with the official history of just a few years before.
'In the year 1918, Stalin, at the very outset of his campaign against me, found it necessary, as we have already learned, to write the following words:
“All the work of practical organization of the insurrection was carried out under the direct leadership of the Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, comrade Trotsky…” (Stalin, Pravda, Nov. 6, 1918)
With full responsibility for my words, I am now compelled to say that the cruel massacre of the Chinese proletariat and the Chinese Revolution at its three most important turning points, the strengthening of the position of the trade union agents of British imperialism after the General Strike of 1926, and, finally, the general weakening of the position of the Communist International and the Soviet Union, the party owes principally and above all to Stalin'. – Trotsky, Leon, 'The Stalin School of Falsification', p87.
Trotsky was sent into internal exile, and his supporters were jailed.
Victor Serge, for instance, first "spent six weeks in a cell" after a visit at midnight, then 85 days in an inner GPU cell, most of it in solitary confinement.
He details the jailings of the Left Opposition.
The Left Opposition, however, continued to work in secret within the Soviet Union.
Trotsky was eventually exiled to Turkey.
He moved from there to France, Norway, and finally to Mexico.
After 1928, the various Communist Parties throughout the world expelled Trotskyists from their ranks.
Most Trotskyists defend the economic achievements of the planned economy in the Soviet Union during the 1920s and 1930s, despite the "misleadership" of the soviet bureaucracy, and what they claim to be the loss of democracy.
Trotskyists claim that in 1928 inner party democracy, and indeed soviet democracy, which was at the foundation of Bolshevism, had been destroyed within the various Communist Parties. Anyone who disagreed with the party line was labeled a Trotskyist and even a fascist.
In 1937, Stalin again unleashed what Trotskyists say was a political terror against their Left Opposition, and many of the remaining 'Old Bolsheviks' (those who had played key roles in the October Revolution in 1917), in the face of increased opposition, particularly in the army.
Trotskyism vs. Stalinism
In 'The Stalin School of Falsification', Trotsky argues that what he calls the "legend of Trotskyism" was formulated by Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev, in collaboration with Stalin in 1924, in response to the criticisms Trotsky raised of Politburo policy.
The urge to silence Trotsky, and all criticism of the Politburo, was in itself a crucial factor in Stalin's rise to power.
During 1922–24, Lenin suffered a series of strokes and became increasingly incapacitated. Before his death in 1924, Lenin, while describing Trotsky as "distinguished not only by his exceptional abilities – personally he is, to be sure, the most able man in the present Central Committee", and also maintaining that "his non-Bolshevik past should not be held against him", criticized him for "showing excessive preoccupation with the purely administrative side of the work", and also requested that Stalin be removed from his position of General Secretary, but his notes remained suppressed until 1956.
Zinoviev and Kamenev broke with Stalin in 1925, and joined Trotsky in 1926, in what was known as the United Opposition.
In 1926, Stalin allied with Nikolai Bukharin, who then led the campaign against "Trotskyism".
In 'The Stalin School of Falsification', Trotsky quotes Bukharin's 1918 pamphlet, 'From the Collapse of Czarism to the Fall of the Bourgeoisie', which was re-printed by the party publishing house, 'Proletari', in 1923.
In this pamphlet, Bukharin explains and embraces Trotsky's 'Theory of Permanent Revolution', writing:
"The Russian proletariat is confronted more sharply than ever before with the problem of the international revolution … The grand total of relationships which have arisen in Europe leads to this inevitable conclusion. Thus, the permanent revolution in Russia is passing into the European proletarian revolution." Yet it is common knowledge, Trotsky argues, that three years later, in 1926, "Bukharin was the chief and indeed the sole theoretician of the entire campaign against 'Trotskyism', summed up in the struggle against the theory of the permanent revolution."
Trotsky wrote that the Left Opposition grew in influence throughout the 1920s, attempting to reform the Communist Party, but in 1927 Stalin declared "civil war" against them:
During the first ten years of its struggle, the Left Opposition did not abandon the program of ideological conquest of the party for that of conquest of power against the party.
Its slogan was: reform, not revolution.
The bureaucracy, however, even in those times, was ready for any revolution in order to defend itself against a democratic reform.
In 1927, when the struggle reached an especially bitter stage, Stalin declared at a session of the Central Committee, addressing himself to the Opposition:
“Those cadres can be removed only by civil war !”
What was a threat in Stalin’s words became, thanks to a series of defeats of the European proletariat, a historic fact.
The road of reform was turned into a road of revolution.
Defeat of the European working class led to further isolation in Russia, and further suppression of the Opposition.
Trotsky argued that the "so-called struggle against 'Trotskyism' grew out of the bureaucratic reaction against the October Revolution [of 1917]".
He responded to the one sided civil war with his' Letter to the Bureau of Party History', (1927), contrasting what he claimed to be the falsification of history with the official history of just a few years before.
'In the year 1918, Stalin, at the very outset of his campaign against me, found it necessary, as we have already learned, to write the following words:
“All the work of practical organization of the insurrection was carried out under the direct leadership of the Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, comrade Trotsky…” (Stalin, Pravda, Nov. 6, 1918)
With full responsibility for my words, I am now compelled to say that the cruel massacre of the Chinese proletariat and the Chinese Revolution at its three most important turning points, the strengthening of the position of the trade union agents of British imperialism after the General Strike of 1926, and, finally, the general weakening of the position of the Communist International and the Soviet Union, the party owes principally and above all to Stalin'. – Trotsky, Leon, 'The Stalin School of Falsification', p87.
Trotsky was sent into internal exile, and his supporters were jailed.
Victor Serge, for instance, first "spent six weeks in a cell" after a visit at midnight, then 85 days in an inner GPU cell, most of it in solitary confinement.
He details the jailings of the Left Opposition.
The Left Opposition, however, continued to work in secret within the Soviet Union.
Trotsky was eventually exiled to Turkey.
He moved from there to France, Norway, and finally to Mexico.
After 1928, the various Communist Parties throughout the world expelled Trotskyists from their ranks.
Most Trotskyists defend the economic achievements of the planned economy in the Soviet Union during the 1920s and 1930s, despite the "misleadership" of the soviet bureaucracy, and what they claim to be the loss of democracy.
Trotskyists claim that in 1928 inner party democracy, and indeed soviet democracy, which was at the foundation of Bolshevism, had been destroyed within the various Communist Parties. Anyone who disagreed with the party line was labeled a Trotskyist and even a fascist.
In 1937, Stalin again unleashed what Trotskyists say was a political terror against their Left Opposition, and many of the remaining 'Old Bolsheviks' (those who had played key roles in the October Revolution in 1917), in the face of increased opposition, particularly in the army.
Trotskyism vs. Stalinism
Trotskyists argue that the "Stalinist USSR" was not socialist (and not communist), but a bureaucratised degenerated workers' state — that is, a non-capitalist state in which exploitation is controlled by a ruling caste which, although not owning the means of production and not constituting a social class in its own right, accrued benefits and privileges at the expense of the working class.
After Lenin’s death (21 January 1924), Trotsky ideologically battled the influence of Stalin, who formed ruling blocs within the Russian Communist Party (with Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev, then with Nikolai Bukharin, and then by himself) and so determined soviet government policy from 1924 onwards.
The ruling blocs continually denied Stalin’s opponents the right to organise as an opposition faction within the Party — thus, the re-instatement of democratic centralism and free speech within the Communist Party were key arguments of Trotsky’s Left Opposition, and the later Joint Opposition.
In the course of instituting government policy, Stalin promoted the doctrine of 'Socialism in One Country' (adopted 1925), wherein the USSR would establish socialism upon Russia’s economic foundations (and support socialist revolutions elsewhere).
Conversely, Trotsky held that socialism in one country would economically constrain the industrial development of the USSR, and thus required assistance from the new socialist countries that had arisen in the developed world, which was essential for maintaining Soviet democracy, in 1924 much undermined by civil war and counter-revolution.
Furthermore, Trotsky’s Theory of Permanent Revolution proposed that socialist revolutions in underdeveloped countries would go further towards dismantling feudal régimes, and establish socialist democracies that would not pass through a capitalist stage of development and government, hence, revolutionary workers should politically ally with peasant political organisations, but not with capitalist political parties.
In contrast, Stalin and allies proposed that alliances with capitalist political parties were essential to realising a revolution where Communists were too few.
Stalin’s policy of mixed-ideology political alliances, became Comintern policy.
Founding of the Fourth International
Trotsky founded the International Left Opposition in 1930.
It was meant to be an opposition group within the Comintern, but anyone who joined, or was suspected of joining, the ILO, was immediately expelled from the Comintern.
The ILO therefore concluded that opposing Stalinism from within the Communist organizations controlled by Stalin's supporters had become impossible, so new organizations had to be formed.
In 1933, the ILO was renamed the International Communist League (ICL), which formed the basis of the Fourth International, founded in Paris in 1938.
Trotsky said that only the Fourth International, basing itself on Lenin's theory of the vanguard party, could lead the world revolution, and that it would need to be built in opposition to both the capitalists and the Stalinists.
Trotsky argued that the defeat of the German working class and the coming to power of Hitler in 1933 was due in part to the mistakes of the Third Period policy of the Communist International and that the subsequent failure of the Communist Parties to draw the correct lessons from those defeats showed that they were no longer capable of reform, and a new international organisation of the working class must be organised.
The Transitional demand tactic had to be a key element.
At the time of the founding of the Fourth International in 1938 Trotskyism was a mass political current in Vietnam, Sri Lanka and slightly later Bolivia.
There was also a substantial Trotskyist movement in China which included the founding father of the Chinese Communist movement, Chen Duxiu, amongst its number.
Wherever Stalinists gained power, they made it a priority to hunt down Trotskyists and treated them as the worst of enemies.
There was also a substantial Trotskyist movement in China which included the founding father of the Chinese Communist movement, Chen Duxiu, amongst its number.
Wherever Stalinists gained power, they made it a priority to hunt down Trotskyists and treated them as the worst of enemies.
The Fourth International suffered repression and disruption through the Second World War. Isolated from each other, and faced with political developments quite unlike those anticipated by Trotsky, some Trotskyist organizations decided that the Soviet Union no longer could be called a degenerated workers state and withdrew from the Fourth International.
After 1945 Trotskyism was smashed as a mass movement in Vietnam and marginalised in a number of other countries.
After 1945 Trotskyism was smashed as a mass movement in Vietnam and marginalised in a number of other countries.
The International Secretariat of the Fourth International (ISFI) organised an international conference in 1946, and then World Congresses in 1948 and 1951 to assess the expropriation of the capitalists in Eastern Europe and Yugoslavia, the threat of a Third World War, and the tasks for revolutionaries.
The Eastern European Communist-led governments which came into being after World War II without a social revolution were described by a resolution of the 1948 congress as presiding over capitalist economies.
By 1951, the Congress had concluded that they had become "deformed workers' states."
As the Cold War intensified, the ISFI's 1951 World Congress adopted theses by Michel Pablo that anticipated an international civil war.
Pablo's followers considered that the Communist Parties, insofar as they were placed under pressure by the real workers' movement, could escape Stalin's manipulations and follow a revolutionary orientation.
The 1951 Congress argued that Trotskyists should start to conduct systematic work inside those Communist Parties which were followed by the majority of the working class.
However, the ISFI's view that the Soviet leadership was counter-revolutionary remained unchanged.
The 1951 Congress argued that the Soviet Union took over these countries because of the military and political results of World War II, and instituted nationalized property relations only after its attempts at placating capitalism failed to protect those countries from the threat of incursion by the West.
Pablo began expelling large numbers of people who did not agree with his thesis and who did not want to dissolve their organizations within the Communist Parties.
For instance, he expelled the majority of the French section and replaced its leadership.
As a result, the opposition to Pablo eventually rose to the surface, with an open letter to Trotskyists of the world, by Socialist Workers Party leader James P. Cannon.
The Fourth International split in 1953 into two public factions.
The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) was established by several sections of the International as an alternative centre to the International Secretariat, in which they felt a revisionist faction led by Michel Pablo had taken power.
From 1960, a number of ICFI sections started to reunify with the IS.
After the 1963 reunification congress, the French and British sections maintained the ICFI. Other groups took different paths and originated the present complex map of Trotskyist groupings.
