Permanent revolution vs. socialism in one country

[Karl Renegade]

Which is better? Permanent revolution or Socialism in one country? Please explain.

[subcp]

There are alternatives to both; it's a false dichotomy.

I think a lot of people read back content into permanent revolution that wasn't true at the time. Re-reading Results & Prospects for instance, it seems pretty clear that 'socialism' is defined as a nationalized economy run by representatives from the soviets and Party/party taking power on the backs of soviets and running a nationalized economy. SIOC was just a gloss or cover over realpolitik- not much different from the economics of Tito's Yugoslavia- the theory came after geopolitical and economic problems manifested themselves and forced specific policies.

[Conscript]

I don't think it's comparable. One's a method for revolution, the other is a retreat from it and an utter revision of marxism.

They serve different interests.

[Kalinin's Facial Hair]

Well, if we are to choose, Socialism in all countries is 'better'.

But the world revolution does not depend on our will. I mean, if world revolution fails, we must try to find our own ways.

I'm sure there will be more enlightening posts, unlike mine.

[Goblin]

Socialism is a world system. It cant be achieved in one country.

[Brutus]

DOTP can, but it is undesirable to confine the revolution to one county

[Khalid]

Marxist-Leninist theory of SiOC stands for building socialism in one or several countries if the world revolution fails. It's like forming revolutionary base areas for international world revolution.

Trotskyist theory of Permanent Revolution is against establishing socialist states if the revoltuion fails in other countries or if the world revoltion is prolonged.

[feeLtheLove]

Marxist-Leninist theory of SiOC stands for building socialism in one or several countries if the world revolution fails. It's like forming revolutionary base areas for international world revolution.

Trotskyist theory of Permanent Revolution is against establishing socialist states if the revoltuion fails in other countries or if the world revoltion is prolonged.

Please explain. Because I find this the other way around. First of all Socialism in one country is counter revolutionary because well...it's socialism in one country. It lives up to its name. And second permanent revolution was created and a theory of Marx. Leon Trotsky put an emphasis on it. And who is a better marxist? Stalin or Marx himself?

Pick the latter. It makes more sense

[subcp]

And second permanent revolution was created and a theory of Marx. Leon Trotsky put an emphasis on it. And who is a better marxist? Stalin or Marx himself?

That's not exactly accurate. Marx wrote (I think) 2 lines (or else very, very little) that used the phrase 'permanent revolution'- and if memory serves, his description sounds a lot more like communisation than Trotsky and Parvus' theory of permanent revolution.

[vanukar]

Marxist-Leninist theory of SiOC stands for building socialism in one or several countries if the world revolution fails. It's like forming revolutionary base areas for international world revolution.

Trotskyist theory of Permanent Revolution is against establishing socialist states if the revoltuion fails in other countries or if the world revoltion is prolonged.

If "the world revolution" fails then there is no revolution anywhere. You continue having capitalism and always will until the glorious Marxist-Leninist dotp is overthrown.

[Kindness]

Socialism in one country is doomed to failure, because capitalist countries will band together to crush the socialist nation and bring it back into the fold of exploitation. We saw this happen during the 20th century when the Western world sanctioned / sabotaged the Soviet Union and China, leading to the stagnation and eventual fall of the communist project. This dynamic is at work today with Cuba and Venezuela, with outside capitalist pressures forcing them to move toward a free-market model. Permanent (peaceful / nonviolent) revolution is the only way to a successful transition away from capitalism and toward a more just state of social organization.

Side note: I am in no way condoning the violence done by the Stalin and Mao regimes, only using them as examples of the flaws of socialism in one country.

[Kamo's Parrot]

Socialism in one country is doomed to failure, because capitalist countries will band together to crush the socialist nation and bring it back into the fold of exploitation. We saw this happen during the 20th century when the Western world sanctioned / sabotaged the Soviet Union and China, leading to the stagnation and eventual fall of the communist project. This dynamic is at work today with Cuba and Venezuela, with outside capitalist pressures forcing them to move toward a free-market model. Permanent (peaceful / nonviolent) revolution is the only way to a successful transition away from capitalism and toward a more just state of social organization.

Side note: I am in no way condoning the violence done by the Stalin and Mao regimes, only using them as examples of the flaws of socialism in one country.
I agree. Socialism in one country simply cannot be maintained. Sure, if you attempt to revolutionize globally, you risk defeat, but if you attempt to turn a single country into a socialist state, while still surrounded by capitalism, you ultimately accept your defeat.

[hashem]

Socialism is a world system. It cant be achieved in one country.

thus, if revolution failed in many countries but by pure accident it succeeded in one country, proletariat of that country should say sorry to capitalists and give back the power!

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

thus, if revolution failed in many countries but by pure accident it succeeded in one country, proletariat of that country should say sorry to capitalists and give back the power!

Who thinks that? The Shachtmanites maybe, but Trotskyists have always stressed the necessity of defending internationally isolated workers' states, even while criticising their bureaucratic degeneration. On its own, no state can reach even the lower stages of communist society, but even an isolated workers' state, if the bureaucratic degeneration gives way to a proletarian democracy, can serve as the base and instigator of worldwide revolution.

[hashem]

Trotskyists have always stressed the necessity of defending internationally isolated workers' states, even while criticising their bureaucratic degeneration. On its own, no state can reach even the lower stages of communist society, but even an isolated workers' state, if the bureaucratic degeneration gives way to a proletarian democracy, can serve as the base and instigator of worldwide revolution.

thus, a worker state should avoid socialism and maintain capitalist relationships until revolution succeeds in other countries, even if it takes decades or centuries! plus, a state which avoids socialism and maintains capitalist relationships for that long, can remain a worker state!


" Reading things like these, one cannot help asking oneself: is it from a lunatic asylum that such voices come? "

Lenin (after reading works of Trotsky!)
DISRUPTION OF UNITY UNDER COVER OF OUTCRIES FOR UNITY
collected works, volume 20

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

thus, a worker state should avoid socialism and maintain capitalist relationships until revolution succeeds in other countries, even if it takes decades or centuries! plus, a state which avoids socialism and maintains capitalist relationships for that long, can remain a worker state!

Again, who claims that a workers' state should "avoid" socialism? Every effort should be undertaken to progress in the economic sphere; every step closer to the lower stages of the communist society is valuable. But in isolation, these efforts can not succeed in reaching these lower stages. Maybe the world would be a better place if they could. I would certainly like it if they could. But they can't.

As for certain capitalist relations, I think that their existence in workers' states, even over periods of tens of years or more, is fairly accepted in Marxist-Leninist literature. Consider Stalin's "Dizzy with Success", or Zhang Chunqiao's "On Exercising All Round Dictatorship Over the Bourgeoisie".


" Reading things like these, one cannot help asking oneself: is it from a lunatic asylum that such voices come? "

Lenin (after reading works of Trotsky!)
DISRUPTION OF UNITY UNDER COVER OF OUTCRIES FOR UNITY
collected works, volume 20

Come, now, we both know the context of that quote. No one is defending liquidationism or Menshevism; Trotskyists are under no obligation to defend every single thing Trotsky did or said, particularly considering that his actions in the liquidationist and August Block period are incompatible with his later work that Trotskyists uphold.

Someone would really have to be in a lunatic asylum to defend everything L. D. Trotsky did; the same goes for Stalin, Bukharin etc. etc.

[hashem]

Every effort should be undertaken to progress in the economic sphere; every step closer to the lower stages of the communist society is valuable. But in isolation, these efforts can not succeed in reaching these lower stages. Maybe the world would be a better place if they could. I would certainly like it if they could. But they can't.

practical result: why should workers in one country strive for a revolution when its doomed to failure? and why should workers of the world strive for revolutions when contemporaneous revolutions in most of countries are impossible because of different degrees of development (in fields of economy, class consciousness, organization and ...)?
instead of trying to accomplish an impossible task, workers should accept the current system and politely ask for reforms.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

practical result: why should workers in one country strive for a revolution when its doomed to failure? and why should workers of the world strive for revolutions when contemporaneous revolutions in most of countries are impossible because of different degrees of development (in fields of economy, class consciousness, organization and ...)?
instead of trying to accomplish an impossible task, workers should accept the current system and politely ask for reforms.

There are such things as international labour solidarity; revolution in one country puts enormous pressures on the bourgeois governments of other countries and facilitates the seizure of power by the proletariat in those other countries; every link that snaps in the monstrous system of imperial capital weakens the entire chain.

And countries do not exist in a vacuum; a revolution in an extremely backward state can be facilitated by a neighboring workers' state. Consider the situation in Tannu Tuva for example.

And besides, to the average worker, even a degenerated or deformed workers' state is far preferable to the bourgeois system and its murderous satellites. And even reforms are not something the bourgeoisie are willing to consider unless their delicate necks are threatened.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Marxist-Leninist theory of SiOC stands for building socialism in one or several countries if the world revolution fails. It's like forming revolutionary base areas for international world revolution.

Trotskyist theory of Permanent Revolution is against establishing socialist states if the revoltuion fails in other countries or if the world revoltion is prolonged.
No. PR recognizes the impossibility of establishing socialism in one country, especially an economically backward one. It recognizes the fact of combined and uneven development. It basically says that in the historical epoch of Imperialism, the tasks of the bourgeois revolution, including land to the tiller, universal suffrage, etc., cannot be carried out by the bourgeoisie -- only the proletariat can do it. Having succeeded in bringing about these revolutionary democratic demands, the proletariat cannot stop and declare a bourgeois republic and go home -- they must smash the state and create the d of the p.

SOIC is historically pretty specific. It represented a retreat by the Soviet bureaucracy led by Stalin and Bukharin from fighting for international revolution. It has led to the syphilis of nationalism being further fostered in the international workers movement. It was/is not simply a practical approach to an historical situation. Lenin/Trotsky were realists in the sense that they wanted to have the Soviet State survive and thrive as best it could under the circumstances. In no way did this mean abandonment of internationalism or the international revolution. For Stalin and the epigones, it most certainly did. For the Leninists the focus was always on international revolution.

[RedMaterialist]

The problem with socialism in one country is that it is too successful. Once it succeeds in destroying the capitalist class in its own country the proletariat state has no other class to suppress; at that point the state collapses, as with the Soviet Union. Then international capitalism is free to come in and reestablish the capitalist relation. One possible way out is for the socialist/communist state to allow a partial reintroduction or continuance of capitalism, with however, the conscious realization that the capitalist class must be strictly controlled or suppressed. This may be happening in China, Venezuela, Cuba, etc.

But I think China must take the lead in establishing world socialism. It is the only country capable of defeating the U.S. militarily and economically. It should create an international community, forums, etc. for international socialist solidarity. A continuance of the internationals of the past.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

The problem with socialism in one country is that it is too successful. Once it succeeds in destroying the capitalist class in its own country the proletariat state has no other class to suppress; at that point the state collapses, as with the Soviet Union. Then international capitalism is free to come in and reestablish the capitalist relation. One possible way out is for the socialist/communist state to allow a partial reintroduction or continuance of capitalism, with however, the conscious realization that the capitalist class must be strictly controlled or suppressed. This may be happening in China, Venezuela, Cuba, etc.

But I think China must take the lead in establishing world socialism. It is the only country capable of defeating the U.S. militarily and economically. It should create an international community, forums, etc. for international socialist solidarity. A continuance of the internationals of the past.
Socialism was never established in the USSR. They had the dictatorship of the proletariat, but political control was taken over by the Stalinist bureaucracy in the 1920s. Capitalism was restored in 1992. This was not the withering of the state, comrade, this was counterrevolution.

[AConfusedSocialDemocrat]

If you're already being attacked, PR, if not, try and sneak socialism through.