Trotskyism and international revolution

[BobKKKindle$]

Please keep this in politics. Trotskyists have historically argued that the main cause of bureaucratic degeneration in the Soviet Union and the eventual emergence of a state-capitalist regime was the failure of the revolution to spread beyond the borders of Russia to other more advanced capitalist countries such as Germany. This emphasis on the need for international revolution is a persistent feature of Trotskyist politics, and rightly so - it is the only sensible analysis in a world that has been integrated into a single economic unit, because this process of integration and the natural distribution of resources across the planet's surface means that no country has sufficient capacity to overcome material scarcity and develop socialism on its own. However, how do Trotskyists approach situations where the working class has taken power in a particular country, but the revolutionary wave has been defeated, with no other country undergoing a socialist revolution? Does it necessarily follow that such a country will inevitably experience the restoration of capitalism, once the bureaucracy has been able to establish its power within the state and revolutionary party, or is it possible for revolutionary gains to be preserved until further opportunities for international revolution present themselves? What was the logic behind the Left Opposition in Russia, after Lenin's death in 1924? Was there anything Trotsky and his comrades could have done to maintain the existence of a workers state without the aid of workers in other countries?

To look at the same problem from a slightly different angle, how should Trotskyists respond if we find that a country is ripe for socialist revolution due to conditions that are particular to that country, and do not apply to the rest of the world, such as an especially oppressive government that has driven workers to revolt against capitalism as part of a broader democratic struggle, or a level of underdevelopment that is so intense that capitalist rule can no longer be tolerated? Do we support the seizure if power in such a country - an example might be Nepal, in recent years - when we know that international revolution is very unlikely to follow?

[Martin Blank]

This is something the Bolshevik-Leninist/Trotskyist movement has been debating since 1924. I think that, in the final analysis, unless a new revolutionary wave that can succeed takes shape, those countries where workers are able to overthrow capitalism and establish their own state will suffer degeneration and inevitable counterrevolution. Depending on the material conditions, they may be able to hold on for years and decades in the transitional phase, and even advance along the road of the transition as a singular post-capitalist society, but without international extension there is little hope for long-term success ... and there is no hope that they will exit the transition and become a classless society.

[Enragé]

How, could somebody please enlighten me, can you even know the situation isnt ripe for international revolution? Revolutions are contagious, as such we should support any revolution occurring, and hope we can spread it. Not supporting revolutions by pointing to certain conditions which supposedly make an international revolution impossible is defeatist and counterproductive, since such a revolution in itself (if it's a truly communist/anarchist revolution) changes the conditions with regard to international revolution in our favour (i.e it brings closer revolutions in other countries).

Revolutionary waves have to start somewhere, and in cases were it has been defeated it can only be rekindled by new revolutions or revolutions holding their own. Though i agree that in the long run a revolution in one country alone cannot succeed, this does not mean that we cannot use the succes of revolution in one country to spread revolution accross the globe - thereby also assuring the survival of revolution in the country in question.

Also, it would be very deterministic to claim that a revolutionary success in one country alone automatically means the revolution will degenerate (though i agree tendencies toward degeneration are enforced under such a circumstance - we'll just have to fight those tendencies). Lastly, degeneration in russia was a consequence of some extremely shitty conditions which were enforced, but not caused, by the lack of spread of the revolution.