Basic Definitions

[The Man]

Can someone give me some basic definitions of what a 'Permanent Revolution' is?

[graymouser]

The theory of the permanent revolution as Trotsky developed it basically includes two ideas.

1. Combined and uneven development in backward (underdeveloped / "Third World") countries has made the native bourgeoisies of those countries unable to lead a successful bourgeois-democratic revolution or to complete the main tasks of that revolution: land reform, formal equality, consistent capitalist development and so forth. They are too inconsistent, too bound up with foreign powers, and too resource-poor relative to those powers to accomplish anything, and prefer backwardness as long as they have their own personal wealth. Instead, the proletariat will be forced to take the lead in these revolutions, leading the peasantry and middle classes generally behind it, and will immediately find itself facing both the democratic and socialist tasks.

2. In the imperialist epoch, the revolution cannot be confined to a single nation-state. A successful proletarian revolution in one country must be preparatory to a global socialist revolution. If this is not achieved, socialism cannot be built one country at a time, because socialism is fundamentally a question of shared prosperity. Given the technological level which has prevailed for the last century and a half, autarky of any kind always means shared misery - which is not socialism at all.

That's the gist of it. If you have any questions I can answer those tomorrow.

[Uncle Rob]

Can someone give me some basic definitions of what a 'Permanent Revolution' is?

A friend of mine from the Spartacus League gave me this as the definition:


In Trotsky's view, because of the uneven and combined development of the world economy, the bourgeoisie of the backward countries [are tied] to the feudal and imperialist interests, thereby preventing it from carrying out the fundamental tasks of the bourgeois revolution--democracy, agrarian revolution and national emancipation. In the presence of an aroused peasantry and a combative working class, each of these goals would directly threaten the political and economic dominance of the capitalist class. The tasks of the bourgeois revolution can be solved only by the alliance of the peasantry and the proletariat.

Marxism holds that there can only be one dominant class in the state. Since, as the Communist Manifesto states, the proletariat is the only consistently revolutionary class, this alliance must take the form of the dictatorship of the proletariiat, supported by the peasantry. In carrying out the democratic tasks of the revolution, the proletarian state must inevitably make "despotic inroads into the rights of bourgeois property" (e.g., expropriation of landlords), and thus the revolution directly passes over to socialist tasks, without pausing at any arbitrary "stages" or, as Lenin put it, without "Chinese wall" being erected between the bourgeois and proletarian phases. Thus the revolution becomes permanent, eventually leading to the complete aboolition of classes (socialism).