What is a permanent revolution? Who wrote about her? We will answer these and other questions in the article. It is believed that this term was introduced by Leon Trotsky. But this expression appeared in the Russian language thanks to G. V. Plekhanov, who wrote about the “permanent revolution” in the 12th issue of the Daily Social Democrat (June 1910). It was this man who founded the social democratic movement in Russia. In his writings, he used the term of Karl Marx (1918-1883) - die Revolution in Permanenz (continuous revolution), which coined it.
Appearance
How did the phrase "permanent revolution" come about? Trotsky first wrote in 1905 about a "revolutionary continuum" and "continuous upheaval" (Nachalo, November 8). The phrase "permanent revolution" he began to use after February 1917, when in the pamphlet "What's Next?" published the slogan "Permanent coup against permanent slaughter!". In 1932, his book about this phenomenon was published, and the new term began to be associated only with the name of Trotsky.
As a sarcasm, this phrase means a protracted process of reform, change, and so on.
Theory
What is the theory of permanent revolution? This is the doctrine of the formation of a rebellious process in underdeveloped and peripheral countries. It was first proposed by Engels and Marx, further developed by Leon Trotsky, Vladimir Lenin, Ernest Mendel and other Marxist ideologues (including Trotskyist authors such as Joseph Hansen, Michael Levy, Livio Maitan).
Forms
How was the permanent revolution interpreted by the founders of Marxism? The very image of this phenomenon was described by Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx as early as 1840 in the “Manifesto of the Communist Party” and “Message of the Central Committee to the Union of Communists”. The creators of Marxism believed that in carrying out the democratic-bourgeois revolution, the workers would not stop at achieving only simple goals.
It is known that the bourgeoisie seeks to end the rebellion as soon as possible. And the proletariat is obliged to make this process uninterrupted until the propertied classes are removed from government, until the workers win state power. Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx insisted on the harmony of the revolutionary movement of the peasants and the proletarian upheaval.
Lenin's position
Lenin was also interested in the term "permanent revolution". Vladimir Ilyich argued that in the Russian situation, the democratic-bourgeois revolution could develop into a socialist revolt. This nuance is possible due to specific conditions.development in the country of capitalism - the presence of a dual type of disagreement of this formation both between developing capitalism and the remnants of serfdom, and within the system itself.
In such a situation, not the bourgeoisie, but the proletariat, led by the revolutionary party, is the foremost force of the revolution. The peasantry, which wants to achieve its goals with the help of the rebellion, first of all, to destroy the landed estates, is an ally of the workers.
Lenin's point of view is rather unusual. He believed that the essence of the development of a democratic-bourgeois revolution into a socialist one is the modification of the structure of forces around the working class by the end of the democratic-bourgeois revolution. He argued that if the proletariat carries out the democratic-bourgeois rebellion in alliance with all the grain growers, then the workers should immediately proceed to the socialist revolution only with the rural poor and other propertyless, oppressed elements. The democratic-revolutionary dictatorship of the workers and peasants must assume the form of a socialist dictatorship of the proletariat.
The concept of turning a democratic-bourgeois rebellion into a socialist one was created in 1905 by Lenin in his works “Democratic-revolutionary dictatorship of workers and peasants”, “Two maneuvers of social democracy in a democratic rebellion” and others. Lenin considered the socialist and democratic-bourgeois revolutions as two parts of one chain. Moreover, these two rebellions are interpreted by him as a single current.
The prospect of world revolt
Theory of permanentrevolution is a very interesting doctrine. It is known that Lenin contemplated the formation of a rebellious movement in the context of an interethnic revolutionary perspective. He saw the complete building of socialism precisely through the worldwide anti-imperialist movement.
In each of his works, Vladimir Ulyanov inscribes the October Revolution in the revolutionary global context. Although, like Trotsky, in a number of works he writes about the Soviet Republic as a stronghold of the world revolution.
The view of the Social Democrats
The idea of a permanent revolution was also of interest to Russian Mensheviks and Western Social Democrats. Their view reflects the idea that the working class, when committing a socialist revolt, resists all non-proletarian classes, including the opposition peasantry.
In view of this, for the triumph of the socialist revolt, mainly in Russia, after the accomplishment of the democratic-bourgeois revolution, a lot of time must pass until the majority of the population turns into proletarians and the workers become the majority in the state. If there are not enough workers, any permanent rebellion is doomed to failure.
Trotsky's opinion
In turn, Trotsky set out his own view of the prospect of a permanent rebellion, who prepared a new interpretation of it in 1905. One of the most important details of the concept of this revolution is the theory of combined development. Marxists before 1905 analyzed the method of carrying out a socialist revolt in the developed bourgeois countries.
According toTrotsky, in more or less progressive states such as Russia, in which the process of development of the proletariat and industrialization quite recently arose, it was possible to carry out a socialist revolution due to the historical impotence of the bourgeoisie to fulfill the democratic-bourgeois demands.
In his writings, Leon Trotsky wrote that the political incompetence of the bourgeoisie was directly determined by the way it related to the peasantry and the proletariat. He argued that the belatedness of the Russian rebellion turned out to be not only a problem of chronology, but also a dilemma of the social structure of the nation.
So, we have already found out that Trotsky is a supporter of the theory of permanent revolution. He began to develop it very rapidly after the October 1917 riot. Trotsky denied the completed socialist character of this revolt, regarding it only as the first phase on the road to a socialist revolt in the West and throughout the globe. He said that socialism could be victorious in Soviet Russia only when the socialist revolt became permanent, that is, when it penetrated the main countries of Europe, when the victorious proletariat of the West helped the Russian workers to cope in the struggle against the classes opposing it, and then it would be possible to build communism and socialism on a global scale. He saw such an outcome of the rebellion in connection with the small number of the Russian proletariat and the existence in Russia of a huge mass of philistine grain growers by nature.
The role of villagers
Trotsky's theory of permanent coup is often criticized because the author allegedly underestimates the rolepeasantry. In fact, in his writings, he writes a lot about the fact that the workers will not be able to carry out a socialist revolt without enlisting the support of the peasants. Trotsky argues that, being only a minor part of Russian society, the working class can lead the rebellion to the emancipation of the peasantry and thereby gain the approval of the agrarians as part of the revolution, on whose support it will rely.
At the same time, the proletariat, in the name of personal interests and the improvement of its conditions, will strive to carry out such revolutionary transformations that will not only perform the functions of a bourgeois coup, but also lead to the formation of a workers' power.
At the same time, Trotsky argues that the proletariat will be forced to introduce class confrontation into the countryside, as a result of which the community of interests that all grain growers undoubtedly have, but within relatively narrow limits, will be violated. The workers, in the initial period of their rule, will have to seek support in the confrontation of the rural poor against the village rich, the agrarian proletariat against the arable bourgeoisie.
Condemnation of the theory in the USSR
So, you already know that the author of the theory of permanent revolution in Russia is Trotsky. In the Soviet Union, his teaching was condemned at the plenums of the Central Control Commission of the RCP (b) and the Central Committee in the resolution on Trotsky’s speech, which was adopted in 1925, on January 17, as well as in the “Theses on the tasks of the RCP (b) and the Comintern”, adopted on 14 th session of the RCP (b) "On the Fronde bloc in the CPSU (b)". Similar decisions were made in all the official communist parties that werewithin the Comintern.
The policy of this organization in China became a direct occasion for Trotsky's classified exposition of the doctrine of permanent revolution and criticism of the Stalinist interpretation of the "stages of the revolutionary movement." It was in this country that the Chinese Communist Party, on the orders of Moscow, tried to create an alliance with the popular bourgeoisie - first with the leadership of the Kuomintang (head of Chiang Kai-shek), and after the Shanghai massacre of 1927, which occurred through his fault, with Wang Jingwei ("the left Kuomintang").
Prospects of the USSR
How could the permanent revolution affect the development of the USSR? The definition of this process makes many think. Supporters of a permanent rebellion considered the construction of socialism in Russia taken separately as "people's one-sidedness", a retreat from the fundamental views of proletarian solidarity.
Trotskyists said that if in the near future after the October uprising the revolution of the working class did not triumph in the West, then the "reconstruction of capitalism" would begin in the USSR.
Trotsky argued that the Soviet Union emerged from the October coup as a workers' power. The reprivatization of the means of production is a necessary condition for socialist development. It was she who opened up the possibility of a rapid growth of productive forces. In the meantime, the apparatus of the workers' country turned into an instrument of bureaucratic violence against the working class, and then into an instrument of sabotage of the economy. Rendering an isolated and backward working-class country and transforming the bureaucracy into a privileged onethe all-powerful caste is the most logical practical challenge to socialism in a separate state.
Trotsky declared that the regime of the USSR thus consists of appalling contradictions. But it continues to be the regime of a degenerated workers' country. This is the social conclusion. The political scenario has a multivariate character: either the bureaucracy will throw the country back to capitalism, overturning new types of property, or the proletariat will destroy the bureaucracy and open the way to socialism.
Evolution of Doctrine
How did the theory develop after World War II? This doctrine was continued to develop by many leftist Marxist theorists in the countries of Southeast Asia, Western Europe, South and North America, where Trotskyist formations existed. In the middle of the 20th century, there was an anti-colonial upsurge. At this stage, the Fourth International explored the evolution of revolutionary currents in developing countries, primarily in the Cuban and Algerian revolutions.
At one of the congresses of the Fourth International in 1963, the resolution "The Dynamics of the World Revolution Today" was adopted. Its authors were Ernest Mandel (leader of the Belgian bloc) and Joseph Hansen (member of the leadership of the US Socialist Workers Party).
The resolution stated that the three dominant forces of the world upheaval - political revolt in the distorted workers' powers, colonial revolt and proletarian uprising in capitalist countries - form a dialectical union. Each of these forces affects the others and in response receives a powerful impulse for its future inhibition ordevelopment. The delay of the proletarian revolt in the bourgeois powers certainly prevented the colonial upheaval from embarking on the socialist path as consciously and quickly as possible under the pressure of the triumph of the workers in the developed countries or the revolutionary victorious revolt. This delay also hinders the development of a political uprising in the USSR, in part because Soviet workers do not see themselves as an example of a multivariate path to building socialism.
Bukharin
Bukharin was also interested in the term "permanent revolution". In a pamphlet on the October Revolution, at the beginning of 1918, he wrote that the fall of the imperialist regime was organized by the entire previous revolutionary history. He argued that this fall and triumph of the working class, supported by the rural poor, a victory that immediately opened up limitless horizons on the entire planet, is not the beginning of an organic era. Before the Russian proletariat, as sharply as ever, the task of an inter-ethnic revolution is set. The whole complex of relations that originated in Europe leads to this inevitable end. Thus, the permanent upheaval in Russia turns into a European revolution of the proletariat.
He believed that the torch of the Russian socialist rebellion had been thrown into the powder magazine of bloodied old Europe. He didn't die. He prospers. It's expanding. And it will inevitably merge with the great triumphant revolt of the world proletariat.
In fact, Bukharin was far from the system of socialism in a sovereign country. Everyone knows that he was the main theorist of the campaign against Trotskyism,generalized in the battle against the concept of permanent upheaval. But earlier, when the magma of the revolutionary uprising had not yet had time to cool down, Bukharin, it turns out, did not find any other formulation for evaluating the coup, except for the one against which he was to fiercely fight a few years later.
Bukharin's pamphlet was produced by the Central Committee of the Surf Party. No one declared her heretical. On the contrary, everyone saw in it the indisputable and official expression of the convictions of the Central Council of the Party. The pamphlet in this form was reprinted many times over the next few years, and together with another booklet dedicated to the February uprising, under the general title "From the collapse of the autocracy to the fall of the bourgeoisie", was translated into French, German, English and other languages.
In 1923-1924, many began to debate against Trotskyism. These disputes destroyed much of what had been built by the October Revolution, seeped into reading rooms, libraries, newspapers, and buried countless documents relating to the greatest epoch in the development of the revolution and the party. Today, these documents have to be restored in parts in order to remember the old days.
Practice
So, you have already understood that the prospect of a world revolution is very tempting. In practice, the doctrine of a permanent upheaval looked unusual. Criticizing Trotsky's theory, Radek (a Soviet politician) adds to it "the tactics that follow from it." This is a very important addition. Public discussion of "Trotskyism" in this matterprudently limited to doctrine. But this is not enough for Radek. He is fighting against the Bolshevik diplomatic line in China. He seeks to soil this course with the theory of permanent rebellion, and for this it is necessary to prove that the wrong tactical line followed from this doctrine in the past.
Radek misleads his readers here. Perhaps he himself does not know the history of the revolution, in which he never personally participated. But he apparently didn't bother to check the question against the docs.
History does not go straight. Sometimes she climbs into various dead ends.
