Trotskys permanent revolution

[CesareBorgia]

How does it explain a country like South Korea? Where the
working class never took power but the bourgeoisie has managed to create
a modern developed state.

The same goes for many other countries. Trotsky said that Japan would see a revolution
along the lines of the Bolshevik Revolution because it contained many of the same elements
and that the problems of a 'democratic revolution,' or whatever you wanna call it, could only
be solved with a dictatorship of the proletariat because of the belated capitalist development.

But looking today, Japan is a highly developed capitalist state.

Also, Trotsky says that the petty-bourgeoisie can play no independent role, meaning it can only
side with this or the other camp, and he also gives it a secondary or tertiary role in the revolutionary process.
But explaining the rise of fascism and naziism the role of the petty-bourgeoisie run amok becomes the main element.

A successful proletarian revolution has not occurred anywhere in the world in over 90 years.
So, is it safe to say that if the theory of permanent revolution is correct that it is correct in the inverse?
If so please address the issues I have raised.

Thank you.

[caramelpence]

In fairness to Trotsky, he never argued that no countries whatsoever would be able to have bourgeois-democratic revolutions under the leadership of classes other than the working class. His theory of permanent revolution was simply a generalization based on the experiences of Russia and then subsequently China in the 1920s, rather than being an axiomatic law that is true of all times and places. In this respect it is not dissimilar to what Marx had to say about violent revolution - his expectation was that revolution would involve violence and would take place through the destruction of the entire state apparatus, but he still left open the possibility that there would be some countries (e.g. Britain) where it would be possible to come to power through peaceful and parliamentary means. There are in fact Trotskyists who have sought to explain the events of the post-war era, nationalist revolutions in particular, by emphasizing the ability of the petty-bourgeoisie to intervene and lead bourgeois-democratic revolutions in cases where both the working class and the bourgeoisie are weak, either because they are structurally dependent on the authoritarian state and/or imperialism (as with the bourgeoisie) or because they suffer a crisis of revolutionary leadership (as with the working class in countries where Stalinist parties are dominant). This essay might be worth a read - Tony Cliff on Deflected Permanent Revolution. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1963/xx/permrev.htm) Also it is worth emphasizing - because I think this was slightly ambiguous in your post - that Trotsky's thesis of the weakness of the bourgeoisie in countries that have experienced belated capitalist development does not mean that those countries are not capitalist or are a combination of capitalism and pre-capitalist modes of production. Trotsky insisted that countries like China were capitalist and that it was only because they were capitalist or dominated by capitalist relations of production (rather than "semi-feudal", which was the argument put forward by the Comintern in relation to China in the 1920s and is still put forward by Maoists to this day) that it was possible to speak of the working class taking on a leading role and carrying out both bourgeois-democratic and socialist revolutions.

The lesson is that even such brilliant Marxists as Trotsky should not be treated dogmatically and that we should feel able to say that they might sometimes have been too hasty in their conclusions - if indeed this is true of Trotsky when it comes to permanent revolution, which I don't really think it was. I also think, however, that you are slightly too hasty yourself in assuming that bourgeois-democratic revolutions have been carried out in the countries you mentioned. In South Korea the national dimension of the bourgeois-democratic revolution has not been carried out in that the bourgeoisie was not able to take advantage of the defeat of Japan and pursue the creation of an independent nation-state at the head of a progressive coalition of other class forces, and, whilst South Korea does exhibit democratic institutions, in the form of elections and a functioning party system, those institutions have only recently been consolidated, after decades of military rule, and the South Korean political system still involves a heavy emphasis on executive leadership. It also embodies laws like the National Security Act that allow the state to carry out repression against progressive forces far beyond what bourgeois democracies like Britain are able to do. In Japan, elements of the bourgeois-democratic revolution were only carried out through the external intervention of the United States, a mature bourgeois democracy, rather than through the independent action of the domestic bourgeoisie.

[red cat]

How does it explain a country like South Korea? Where the
working class never took power but the bourgeoisie has managed to create
a modern developed state.

The same goes for many other countries. Trotsky said that Japan would see a revolution
along the lines of the Bolshevik Revolution because it contained many of the same elements
and that the problems of a 'democratic revolution,' or whatever you wanna call it, could only
be solved with a dictatorship of the proletariat because of the belated capitalist development.

But looking today, Japan is a highly developed capitalist state.

Also, Trotsky says that the petty-bourgeoisie can play no independent role, meaning it can only
side with this or the other camp, and he also gives it a secondary or tertiary role in the revolutionary process.
But explaining the rise of fascism and naziism the role of the petty-bourgeoisie run amok becomes the main element.

A successful proletarian revolution has not occurred anywhere in the world in over 90 years.
So, is it safe to say that if the theory of permanent revolution is correct that it is correct in the inverse?
If so please address the issues I have raised.

Thank you.

I haven't read much of Trotsky, so it is likely that I am misinterpreting his theory, but I think there is a serious contradiction between Trotsky's original analysis that borrowed heavily from Lenin and how western Trotskyites today define many third-world countries. Aside from the very obvious fact that the proletariat must take on a determining subjective role to bring about socialism, Trotsky also supported the very non-trivial claim that the national bourgeoisie of any country in the era of imperialism, that has not already overthrown feudalism or foreign imperialism from its native lands, is unable to do so any more independently. This makes the proletariat the only class that is able to overthrow feudalism and imperialism, and hence the only class that can bring about any positive qualitative change today. This directly implies that the revolutions in China, Korea etc. that overthrew imperialism were led by the proletariat, which Trotskyites of today are very eager to deny.

For third world countries that seem very advanced and capitalist, Maoists will argue that a very detailed study of these societies will reveal a combination of widespread feudal political and economic characteristics combined with foreign capitalist penetration. And indeed, except in the cases where Trotskyite analyses are aimed particularly to dishonestly denounce Maoist movements in these countries, Trotskyite groups and individuals have also made similar claims. Tony Cliff, in "Conflict in India", admitted that the "triangle of power" in India was "imperialism, the Indian bourgeoisie and feudalism". The Trotskyite NSA in India refers to the Indian society as "capitalism-landlordism". These are not very different from the Maoist analysis of India being semi-feudal, and comprador capital serving imperialism coexisting with heavy feudal elements in the society.

[caramelpence]

Trotsky also supported the very non-trivial claim that the national bourgeoisie of any country in the era of imperialism, that has not already overthrown feudalism or foreign imperialism from its native lands, is unable to do so any more independently


These are not very different from the Maoist analysis of India being semi-feudal, and comprador capital serving imperialism coexisting with heavy feudal elements in the society.

I think this is confused, and that the confusion springs in part from Trotsky's own language when it comes to characterizing societies like China and India in the 1920s and 30s. Trotsky definitely distinguishes these societies from the more advanced and mature capitalist states by making clear that they still exhibit pre-capitalist relations and phenomena of different kinds. For example, in his 1938 essay The Chinese Revolution, which was an introduction for Harold Isaacs' book, he talks about the existence of "semi-serf relations" and argues that the impact of imperialism was to implant "capitalist relations" on the one hand and to re-create "all the forms of slavery and serfdom" on the other. In the same article he also emphasizes that the importation of advanced technique and technology into countries like China as part of uneven and combined development involves technique and technology being implanted in relations of "relations of feudal or pre-feudal barbarism", and that the result of these relations being combined with the most advanced facets of capitalist development is to transform and subject the relations and to create "peculiar relations of classes" - this strikes me as an important point because it shows that Trotsky does not believe that pre-capitalist phenomena are simply inherited from the past but have been altered by imperialist penetration and are themselves a dimension of imperialism. Similar kinds of arguments are spread throughout Trotsky's other writings on China. In The Third International After Lenin, written ten years prior in 1928, and specifically under the heading The Question of the Character of the Coming Chinese Revolution, he enters into a more extended discussion on prevailing social relations in China and the particular issue of the survival or non-survival of feudal relations, dealing directly with the positions of the Executive Committee of the Comintern. He specifies that "matters would be quite hopeless if feudal survivals did really dominate in Chinese economic life" before then going on to emphasize that they do not in fact dominate by pointing to the growth of Chinese industry on the basis of capital as well as other features of Chinese economic life that point to the dominance of capitalist relations, such as the dependence of the countryside on urban markets, the volume of foreign trade, and the general subordination of the countryside to the city.

Taken as a whole, there are at least two key points that emerge from Trotsky's writings on China. First, the overwhelming thrust of his writings is that China is a capitalist society but one that differs from the advanced capitalist societies in exhibiting the signs of combined and uneven development in social, cultural, and political terms. At no point does Trotsky argue that the mode of production in China is feudalism or a combined mode of production like semi-feudalism. This is made evident from his stated conclusion in The Third International After Lenin, as he states that "only thanks to this dominant role of capitalist relations can we speak seriously of the prospects of proletarian hegemony in the national revolution". Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, Trotsky is also clear that, to the extent that feudal social phenomena do continue to exist, or have been reproduced, this does not change the need for working-class leadership or the need for a revolution to pass in an uninterrupted manner from bourgeois-democratic tasks to the tasks of the socialist revolution, so that it is only under working-class leadership that the remnants of feudalism can be completely swept away, and this sweeping-away necessitates that the revolution not stop at the bourgeois-democratic stage. This is made clear in Trotsky's collection Problems of the Chinese Revolution and in particular his May 1927 text, The Chinese Revolution and the Theses of Comrade Stalin, where he says in no uncertain terms "no matter how great the specific weight of the typically “feudal” elements in Chinese economy may be they can be swept away only in a revolutionary way".

In comparison to Maoism, then, Trotskyists do differ in their analyses of countries like China and India, in that their recognition of feudal remnants like cases of serfdom, rather than freely alienable labour being universal, does not translate into categories like "semi-feudalism" when describing the mode of production that is present in these societies, whereas Maoists do describe India's mode of production in these terms. Comments such as the one by Tony Cliff you mentioned do not negate this because I have never seen any Trotskyist say that there is any contemporary society that is fundamentally pre-capitalist or a combination of pre-capitalism and capitalism in its mode of production, as opposed to being capitalist with pre-capitalist social phenomena that have themselves been transformed by the processes of combined and uneven development, which is perhaps what Cliff's characterization is designed to convey. The more important difference, however, is that, on the basis of their characterization of societies like China and India, Maoists advocate a stageist approach to revolution as part of which the working class is called to subordinate its class interests to a "bloc of four classes" in which a so-called national bourgeoisie is allocated an important role. It is ultimately this strategic difference, between working-class leadership and permanent revolution on the one hand, and class-collaboration and stageism on the other, that constitutes the fundamental divide between Trotskyists and Maoists, which may be more or less closely linked to their different characterizations of societies like China and India, in terms of their modes of production.


This directly implies that the revolutions in China, Korea etc. that overthrew imperialism were led by the proletariat, which Trotskyites of today are very eager to deny.

I think Trotskyists would actually argue that these revolutions did not complete the tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolution (i.e. even the formal task of completing national reunification, which does not entail the overthrow of imperialism) let alone the tasks that constitute the socialist revolution. Or, Trotskyists like Cliff would argue that the tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolution were carried out and that this shows that the petty-bourgeoisie or a section thereof can intervene under certain conditions and carry out the role that the bourgeoisie played in the classical capitalist countries, so that Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution is a generalization about class relations and interests rather than an axiomatic law.

[red cat]

I think this is confused, and that the confusion springs in part from Trotsky's own language when it comes to characterizing societies like China and India in the 1920s and 30s. Trotsky definitely distinguishes these societies from the more advanced and mature capitalist states by making clear that they still exhibit pre-capitalist relations and phenomena of different kinds. For example, in his 1938 essay The Chinese Revolution, which was an introduction for Harold Isaacs' book, he talks about the existence of "semi-serf relations" and argues that the impact of imperialism was to implant "capitalist relations" on the one hand and to re-create "all the forms of slavery and serfdom" on the other. In the same article he also emphasizes that the importation of advanced technique and technology into countries like China as part of uneven and combined development involves technique and technology being implanted in relations of "relations of feudal or pre-feudal barbarism", and that the result of these relations being combined with the most advanced facets of capitalist development is to transform and subject the relations and to create "peculiar relations of classes" - this strikes me as an important point because it shows that Trotsky does not believe that pre-capitalist phenomena are simply inherited from the past but have been altered by imperialist penetration and are themselves a dimension of imperialism. Similar kinds of arguments are spread throughout Trotsky's other writings on China. In The Third International After Lenin, written ten years prior in 1928, and specifically under the heading The Question of the Character of the Coming Chinese Revolution, he enters into a more extended discussion on prevailing social relations in China and the particular issue of the survival or non-survival of feudal relations, dealing directly with the positions of the Executive Committee of the Comintern. He specifies that "matters would be quite hopeless if feudal survivals did really dominate in Chinese economic life" before then going on to emphasize that they do not in fact dominate by pointing to the growth of Chinese industry on the basis of capital as well as other features of Chinese economic life that point to the dominance of capitalist relations, such as the dependence of the countryside on urban markets, the volume of foreign trade, and the general subordination of the countryside to the city.

Maoism is not in much conflict with this. Even Maoists do not believe in the total linear inheritance of pre-capitalist relations of production in colonial economies. In countries like India, one of the main features of feudalism; agricultural subsistence production, is rarely to be seen and the countryside economy largely produces what are sold in the market as commodities. The transformation of feudal relations is actually the use of the feudal political military apparatus in producing these commodities, whereby the classical capitalist feature of labour itself becoming a commodity is not commonly seen in these types of societies. Due to these, qualitative differences arise in the social contradictions or revolutionary strategies applicable in semi-feudal countries and capitalist countries. This is why Maoists distinguish between capitalist and semi-colonial countries.


Taken as a whole, there are at least two key points that emerge from Trotsky's writings on China. First, the overwhelming thrust of his writings is that China is a capitalist society but one that differs from the advanced capitalist societies in exhibiting the signs of combined and uneven development in social, cultural, and political terms. At no point does Trotsky argue that the mode of production in China is feudalism or a combined mode of production like semi-feudalism. This is made evident from his stated conclusion in The Third International After Lenin, as he states that "only thanks to this dominant role of capitalist relations can we speak seriously of the prospects of proletarian hegemony in the national revolution". Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, Trotsky is also clear that, to the extent that feudal social phenomena do continue to exist, or have been reproduced, this does not change the need for working-class leadership or the need for a revolution to pass in an uninterrupted manner from bourgeois-democratic tasks to the tasks of the socialist revolution, so that it is only under working-class leadership that the remnants of feudalism can be completely swept away, and this sweeping-away necessitates that the revolution not stop at the bourgeois-democratic stage. This is made clear in Trotsky's collection Problems of the Chinese Revolution and in particular his May 1927 text, The Chinese Revolution and the Theses of Comrade Stalin, where he says in no uncertain terms "no matter how great the specific weight of the typically “feudal” elements in Chinese economy may be they can be swept away only in a revolutionary way". This is what I was referring to; the central role of the proletariat in every type of revolution in the modern world.


In comparison to Maoism, then, Trotskyists do differ in their analyses of countries like China and India, in that their recognition of feudal remnants like cases of serfdom, rather than freely alienable labour being universal, does not translate into categories like "semi-feudalism" when describing the mode of production that is present in these societies, whereas Maoists do describe India's mode of production in these terms. Comments such as the one by Tony Cliff you mentioned do not negate this because I have never seen any Trotskyist say that there is any contemporary society that is fundamentally pre-capitalist or a combination of pre-capitalism and capitalism in its mode of production, as opposed to being capitalist with pre-capitalist social phenomena that have themselves been transformed by the processes of combined and uneven development, which is perhaps what Cliff's characterization is designed to convey. But Tony Cliff claims exactly the same three classes as Maoists to be the ruling classes of India. Even Indian Trots mention landlordism along with capitalism. This itself indicates that they acknowledge the existence of a significant amount of feudal features in the Indian society. Whether they think that India is fundamentally capitalist or not is a secondary question, as it depends on the parameters they use for their definitions. If they judge the Indian economy by the market value of products that ultimately sold in the market as commodities, then they can call India capitalist. But that analysis will be wrong as it will hardly focus on the basic class contradictions or revolutionary strategies. A close inspection of the class contradictions of the Indian society will reveal that India is far from being capitalist.


The more important difference, however, is that, on the basis of their characterization of societies like China and India, Maoists advocate a stageist approach to revolution as part of which the working class is called to subordinate its class interests to a "bloc of four classes" in which a so-called national bourgeoisie is allocated an important role. It is ultimately this strategic difference, between working-class leadership and permanent revolution on the one hand, and class-collaboration and stageism on the other, that constitutes the fundamental divide between Trotskyists and Maoists, which may be more or less closely linked to their different characterizations of societies like China and India, in terms of their modes of production.
Contrary to this, in a Maoist new democratic revolution, the interests of all other classes are subordinated to those of the proletariat, and those of the national bourgeoisie are subordinated to the interests of the three revolutionary classes. I will not comment on what should be considered as the fundamental difference, but some major differences include the Maoists engaging in finer analysis of the classes and basing their struggles on the lowermost portions of the working class. Also, Maoists prepare the oppressed classes politically, economically as well as militarily for overthrowing the ruling classes. Clandestine practice, practice among the rural proletariat and military practice are three features completely absent from the Trotskyite movements of today in semi-feudal countries.



I think Trotskyists would actually argue that these revolutions did not complete the tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolution (i.e. even the formal task of completing national reunification, which does not entail the overthrow of imperialism) let alone the tasks that constitute the socialist revolution.I do not understand the logic here. Don't Trotskyites acknowledge that China today is a bourgeois democracy ?


Or, Trotskyists like Cliff would argue that the tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolution were carried out and that this shows that the petty-bourgeoisie or a section thereof can intervene under certain conditions and carry out the role that the bourgeoisie played in the classical capitalist countries, so that Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution is a generalization about class relations and interests rather than an axiomatic law.This means that their line would be a deviation from classical Trotskyism.

[Tower of Bebel]

What makes a revolution permanent is the workers' party. In essence that was also the conclusion of Marx and Engels in 1850. Back then they urged the German workers to organize themselves around their own strategic aims. Instead of the that the workers' followed the radical petty bourgeoisie and were subsequently betrayed by them when the Prussian king went in the offensive.

What made the revolution in Russia permanent was the existence of a revolutionary workers' party and many other revolutionary workers' organisations. However, that's something Trotsky never really worked out in his articles. It was f.e. Trotsky who joined the Bolsheviks, not the other way around. Lenin's view of permanent revolution was les pronounced buth his approach to revolution was more flexible and advanced.

Trotsky wrote that countries like Russia had the potential for a permanent revolution because of the law of uneven and combined development, which stated that although not fully capitalist and without having a genuine national bourgeoisie, it developed a modern industry with a modern proletariat. That was also one of the conclusions of Lenin in his 'Imperialism' (1916).

But if the imperialist countries are willing (or weakened) a bourgeois revolution remains a possibility. If the proletariat does not take power, then this small national bourgeoisie could possibly. But only if the the imperialists stand aside or grant it to them. Yet, a 'normal' 'liberal' and 'independent' capitalist nation in such countries is a rare development. In Africa and South-America f.e. (semi-) fascist or Bonapartist regimes under imperialist tutelage were far more comon.

[RedTrackWorker]

These are good questions.


How does it explain a country like South Korea? Where the
working class never took power but the bourgeoisie has managed to create
a modern developed state.

Key is that, as fully developed, the theory of permanent revolution is about the world as a system (an imperialist system). In general, countries cannot advance--except at the expense of other countries. One could argue South Korea did so because of its usefulness to the imperialist system (i.e. an exception that proves the rule). One would have to demonstrate this.

Israel is another example--there I think it is clear (and I have seen the research) that it developed into an imperialist nation.



The same goes for many other countries. Trotsky said that Japan would see a revolution
along the lines of the Bolshevik Revolution because it contained many of the same elements
and that the problems of a 'democratic revolution,' or whatever you wanna call it, could only
be solved with a dictatorship of the proletariat because of the belated capitalist development.

I think that on Japan, Trotsky was just wrong. The SL has a well-research article on this: http://www.icl-fi.org/english/esp/58/meiji.html. The Bolsheviks simply hadn't done enough analysis of Japan and what it was.



Also, Trotsky says that the petty-bourgeoisie can play no independent role, meaning it can only
side with this or the other camp, and he also gives it a secondary or tertiary role in the revolutionary process.
But explaining the rise of fascism and naziism the role of the petty-bourgeoisie run amok becomes the main element.

I guess you know Trotsky is one of the foremost writers on fascism. The key you mention is "independent." The fascists were based on the petty-bougeoisie, but they did not bring small shopkeepers and chronically unemployed workers to power but furthered the rule of finance capital.


A successful proletarian revolution has not occurred anywhere in the world in over 90 years.
So, is it safe to say that if the theory of permanent revolution is correct that it is correct in the inverse?

One has to study the failed revolutions and I think such study would bear out a general confirmation of the theory and would emphasize the need of a revolutionary working class leadership organized in an international party.

[chegitz guevara]

I haven't read much of Trotsky, so it is likely that I am misinterpreting his theory,

Then, as Mao said, you should stop right there. "No investigation, no right to speak."

[chegitz guevara]

But Tony Cliff claims exactly the same three classes as Maoists to be the ruling classes of India. Even Indian Trots mention landlordism along with capitalism.

The question is the social relations. Is this landlordsism carried out on the basis of feudal obligations, i.e., you must work a certain amount of days for the lord, or is it carried out on capitalist relations, i.e., for a wage? Furthermore, are the products of this work for the consumption of the lords and his retinue, or are they for the market? Does production for use-value dominate, or for exchange-value? Clearly production in these countries is dominated by capitalist relations.

Furthermore, given that India and China both now export capital to other countries for the purpose of extracting surplus labor, it can be argued that they are now imperialist states. One can scarcely imagine a successful feudal or semi-feudal imperialism in this age.


I do not understand the logic here. Don't Trotskyites acknowledge that China today is a bourgeois democracy?

Bourgeois, maybe (there is some argument about it in the Trotskyist camp). Democratic, definitely not.

[red cat]

Then, as Mao said, you should stop right there. "No investigation, no right to speak."

No, not exactly. I admitted that I might be wrong about Trotsky's theory and as you might have noticed, that is why I usually don't try to prove myself correct when Trots contradict me on their theory. In this thread I am open to learning from more knowledgeable posters on the topic. But I am unwilling to investigate Trotskyism more than that because I would rather use my time to investigate something more useful.


The question is the social relations. Is this landlordsism carried out on the basis of feudal obligations, i.e., you must work a certain amount of days for the lord, or is it carried out on capitalist relations, i.e., for a wage? Furthermore, are the products of this work for the consumption of the lords and his retinue, or are they for the market? Does production for use-value dominate, or for exchange-value? Clearly production in these countries is dominated by capitalist relations.But then there is no reason to mention "landlordism" besides capitalism; it is simply agricultural capitalism operating in the countryside. However, this is not the case. Feudal social elements like bonded labour are common even in certain industrial sectors of India, not to mention the agricultural ones. That India is not primarily capitalist is so obvious to most Indians that any group that calls itself leftist and tries to organize even petit bourgeois elements has to admit this. And NSA members, though they don't organize the working class, sometimes do try to organize a few dozens of democratic minded middle class students on certain social issues. Since they have to get out on the streets and answer to a few people even for a short time, unlike some of our western dogmatic comrades they probably cannot afford the error of calling India capitalist.



Furthermore, given that India and China both now export capital to other countries for the purpose of extracting surplus labor, it can be argued that they are now imperialist states. One can scarcely imagine a successful feudal or semi-feudal imperialism in this age.That does not imply that both are capitalist. The internal production relations of China confirm its capitalist nature. Similarly the internal production relations of India prove that it is not capitalist. When a capitalist country exhausts all its markets it starts to enter markets abroad, but the converse is not true. Comprador capital of non-capitalist countries can also enter other markets if the pressure of imperialism is lower in those areas than its native markets, and in general if imperialism allows it to.



Bourgeois, maybe (there is some argument about it in the Trotskyist camp). Democratic, definitely not.Why is the notion of bourgeois democracy applicable Australia, USA, Canada and west European countries but never China ?