The Permanent Revolution
IX. Europe and Revolution
Transcribed and HTML markup for the Trotsky Internet Archive , a subarchive of the Marxists’ Internet Archive , by Sally Ryan in 1996.
I n June 1905 we wrote:
‘More than half a century has passed since 1848, half a century of unceasing conquests by capitalism throughout the whole world; half a century of mutual adaptation between the forces of bourgeois reaction and of feudal reaction; half a century during which the bourgeoisie has revealed its mad lust for domination and its readiness to fight savagely for this.
‘Just as a seeker after perpetual motion comes up against ever fresh obstacles, and piles up machine after machine for the purpose of overcoming them, so the bourgeoisie has changed and reconstructed its state apparatus while avoiding “extra-legal” conflict with the forces hostile to it. But just as our seeker after perpetual motion eventually comes up against the final insurmountable obstacle of the law of the conservation of energy, so the bourgeoisie must eventually come up against the final insurmountable obstacle in its path: the class antagonism, which will inevitably be settled by conflict.
‘Binding all countries together with its mode of production and its commerce, capitalism has converted the whole world into a single economic and political organism. Just as modern credit binds thousands of undertakings by invisible ties and gives to capital an incredible mobility which prevents many small bankruptcies but at the same time is the cause of the unprecedented sweep of general economic crises, so the whole economic and political effort of capitalism, its world trade, its system of monstrous state debts, and the political groupings of nations which draw all the forces of reaction into a kind of world-wide joint-stock company, has not only resisted all individual political crises, but also prepared the basis for a social crisis of unheard-of dimensions. Driving all the processes of disease beneath the surface, avoiding all difficulties, putting off all the profound questions of internal and international politics, and glossing over all contradictions, the bourgeoisie has managed to postpone the denouement, but thereby has prepared a radical liquidation of its rule on a world-wide scale. The bourgeoisie has greedily clutched at every reactionary force without inquiring as to its origin. The Pope and the Sultan were not the least of its friends. The only reason why it did not establish bonds of “friendship” with the Emperor of China was because he did not represent any force. It was much more advantageous for the bourgeoisie to plunder his dominions than to maintain him in its service as its gendarme, paying him out of its own coffers. We thus see that the world bourgeoisie has made the stability of its State system profoundly dependent on the unstable pre-bourgeois bulwarks of reaction.
‘This immediately gives the events now unfolding an international character, and opens up a wide horizon. The political emancipation of Russia led by the working class will raise that class to a height as yet unknown in history, will transfer to it colossal power and resources, and will make it the initiator of the liquidation of world capitalism, for which history has created all the objective conditions.’ [1]
If the Russian proletariat, having temporarily obtained power, does not on its own initiative carry the revolution on to European soil, it will be compelled to do so by the forces of European feudal-bourgeois reaction. Of course it would be idle at this moment to determine the methods by which the Russian revolution will throw itself against old capitalist Europe. These methods may reveal themselves quite unexpectedly. Let us take the example of Poland as a link between the revolutionary East and the revolutionary West, although we take this as an illustration of our idea rather than as an actual prediction.
The triumph of the revolution in Russia will mean the inevitable victory of the revolution in Poland. It is not difficult to imagine that the existence of a revolutionary regime in the ten provinces of Russian Poland must lead to the revolt of Galicia and Poznan. The Hohenzollern and Habsburg Governments will reply to this by sending military forces to the Polish frontier in order then to cross it for the purpose of crushing their enemy at his very centre – Warsaw. It is quite clear that the Russian revolution cannot leave its Western advance-guard in the hands of the Prusso-Austrian soldiery. War against the governments of Wilhelm II and Franz Josef under such circumstances would become an act of self-defence on the part of the revolutionary government of Russia. What attitude would the Austrian and German proletariat take up then? It is evident that they could not remain calm while the armies of their countries were conducting a counterrevolutionary crusade. A war between feudal-bourgeois Germany and revolutionary Russia would lead inevitably to a proletarian revolution in Germany. We would tell those to whom this assertion seems too categorical to try and think of any other historical event which would be more likely to compel the German workers and the German reactionaries to make an open trial of strength.
When our October ministry unexpectedly placed Poland under martial law, a highly plausible rumour went round to the effect that this was done on direct instructions from Berlin. On the eve of the dispersal of the Duma the government newspapers published, presenting them as threats, communications concerning negotiations between the governments of Berlin and Vienna with a view to armed intervention in the internal affairs of Russia, for the purpose of suppressing sedition. No ministerial denial of any sort could wipe out the effect of the shock which this communication gave. It was clear that in the palaces of three neighbouring countries a bloody counter-revolutionary revenge was being prepared. How could things be otherwise? Could the neighbouring semi-feudal monarchies stand passively by while the flames of revolution licked the frontiers of their realms?
The Russian revolution, while as yet far from being victorious, had already had its effect on Galicia through Poland. ‘Who could have foreseen a year ago’, cried Daszynski, at the conference of the Polish Social-Democratic Party in Lvov in May this year, ‘what is now taking place in Galicia? This great peasant movement has spread astonishment throughout the whole of Austria. Zbaraz elects a Social-Democrat as vice-marshal of the regional council. Peasants publish a socialist-revolutionary newspaper for peasants, entitled The Red Flag , great mass meetings of peasants, 30,000 strong, are held, processions with red flags and revolutionary songs parade through Galician villages, once so calm and apathetic ... What will happen when from Russia the cry of the nationalization of the land reaches these poverty-stricken peasants?’. In his argument with the Polish Socialist Lusnia, more than two years ago, Kautsky pointed out that Russia must no longer be regarded as a weighted ball on the feet of Poland, or Poland regarded as an Eastern detachment of revolutionary Europe thrust like a wedge into the steppes of Muscovite barbarism. In the event of the development and the victory of the Russian revolution, the Polish question, according to Kautsky, ‘will again become acute, but not in the sense that Lusnia thought. It will be directed not against Russia but against Austria and Germany, and in so far as Poland will serve the cause of revolution its task will be not to defend the revolution against Russia, but to carry it further into Austria and Germany’. This prophecy is much nearer realization than Kautsky may have thought.
But a revolutionary Poland is not at all the only starting-point for a revolution in Europe. We pointed out above that the bourgeoisie has systematically abstained from solving many complex and acute questions affecting both internal and foreign politics. Having placed huge masses of men under arms, the bourgeois governments are unable, however, to cut with the sword through the tangle of international politics. Only a government which has the backing of the nation whose vital interests are affected, or a government that has lost the ground from under its feet and is inspired by the courage of despair, can send hundreds and thousands of men into battle. Under modern conditions of political culture, military science, universal suffrage and universal military service, only profound confidence or crazy adventurism can thrust two nations into conflict. In the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 we had on the one side Bismarck struggling for the Prussianizing of Germany, which after all meant national unity, an elementary necessity recognized by every German, and on the other hand the government of Napoleon III, impudent, powerless, despised by the nation, ready for any adventure that promised to secure for it another 12 months’ lease of life. The same division of roles obtained in the Russo-Japanese war. On the one hand we had the government of the Mikado, as yet unopposed by a revolutionary proletariat, fighting for the domination of Japanese capital in the Far East, and on the other an autocratic government which had outlived its time striving to redeem its internal defeats by victories abroad.
In the old capitalist countries there are no ‘national’ demands, i.e., demands of bourgeois society as a whole , of which the ruling bourgeoisie could claim to be the champions. The governments of France, Britain, Germany and Austria are unable to conduct national wars. The vital interests of the masses, the interests of the oppressed nationalities, or the barbarous internal politics of a neighbouring country are not able to drive a single bourgeois government into a war which could have a liberating and therefore a national character. On the other hand, the interests of capitalist grabbing, which from time to time induce now one and now another government to clank its spurs and rattle its sabre in the face of the world, cannot arouse any response among the masses. For that reason the bourgeoisie either cannot or will not proclaim or conduct any national wars. What modern anti-national wars will lead to has been seen recently from two experiences – in South Africa and in the Far East.
The severe defeat of imperialist Conservatism in Britain is not in the last resort due to the lesson of the Boer war; a much more important and more menacing consequence of imperialist policy (menacing to the bourgeoisie) is the political self-determination of the British proletariat, which, once begun, will advance with seven-league strides. As for the consequences of the Russo-Japanese war for the Petrograd Government, these are so well known that it is not necessary to dwell on them. But even without these two experiences, European governments, from the moment the proletariat began to stand on its own feet, have always feared to place before it the choice of war or revolution. It is precisely this fear of the revolt of the proletariat that compels the bourgeois parties, even while voting monstrous sums for military expenditure, to make solemn declarations in favour of peace, to dream of International Arbitration Courts and even of the organization of a United States of Europe. These pitiful declarations can, of course, abolish neither antagonisms between states nor armed conflicts.
The armed peace which arose in Europe after the Franco-Prussian War was based on a European balance of power which presupposed not only the inviolability of Turkey, the partition of Poland and the preservation of Austria, that ethnographical harlequin’s cloak, but also the maintenance of Russian despotism, armed to the teeth, as the gendarme of European reaction. The Russo-Japanese war, however, delivered a severe blow to this artificially maintained system in which the autocracy occupied a foremost position. Russia for a time fell out of the so-called concert of powers. The balance of power was destroyed. On the other hand, Japan’s successes aroused the aggressive instincts of the capitalist bourgeoisie, especially the stock exchanges, which play a very big part in contemporary politics. The possibility of a war on European territory grew to a very high degree. Conflicts are ripening everywhere, and if up till now they have been allayed by diplomatic means, there is no guarantee, however, that these means can be successful for long. But a European war inevitably means a European revolution.
During the Russo-Japanese war the Socialist Party of France declared that if the French Government intervened in favour of the autocracy, it would call upon the proletariat to take most resolute measures, even to the extent of revolt. In March 1906, when the Franco-German conflict over Morocco was coming to a head, the International Socialist Bureau resolved, in the event of a danger of war, to ‘lay down the most advantageous methods of action for all international socialist parties and for the whole organized working class in order to prevent war or bring it to an end’. Of course this was only a resolution. It requires a war to test its real significance, but the bourgeoisie has every reason to avoid such a test. Unfortunately for the bourgeoisie, however, the logic of international relations is stronger than the logic of diplomacy.
The State bankruptcy of Russia, no matter whether it be the result of the continued management of affairs by the bureaucracy or whether it be declared by a revolutionary government which will refuse to pay for the sins of the old regime, will have a terrible effect upon France. The Radicals, who now have the political destiny of France in their hands, in taking power have also undertaken all the functions of protecting the interests of capital. For that reason there is every ground for assuming that the financial crisis arising from the bankruptcy of Russia will directly repeat itself in France in the form of an acute political crisis which can end only with the transference of power into the hands of the proletariat. In one way or another, either through a revolution in Poland, through the consequences of a European war, or as the result of the State bankruptcy of Russia, revolution will cross into the territories of old capitalist Europe.
But even without the outside pressure of events such as war or bankruptcy, revolution may arise in the near future in one of the European countries as a consequence of the extreme sharpening of the class struggle. We will not attempt to build assumptions now as to which of the European countries will be the first to take the path of revolution; of one thing there is no doubt, and that is that the class contradictions in all European countries during recent times have reached a high level of intensity.
The colossal growth of Social Democracy in Germany, within the framework of a semi-absolutist constitution, will with iron necessity lead the proletariat to an open clash with the feudal-bourgeois monarchy. The question of offering resistance to a political coup d’etat by means of a general strike has in the last year become one of the central questions in the political life of the German proletariat. In France, the transition of power to the Radicals decisively unties the hands of the proletariat, which were for a long time bound by co-operation with the bourgeois parties in the struggle against nationalism and clericalism. The Socialist Party, rich in the deathless traditions of four revolutions, and the conservative bourgeoisie, screening themselves behind the mask of Radicalism, stand face to face. In Britain, where for a century the two bourgeois parties have been regularly operating the see-saw of parliamentarism, the proletariat under the influence of a whole series of factors have just recently taken the path of political separation. While in Germany this process took four decades, the British working class, possessing powerful trade unions and being rich in experience of economic struggle, may in a few leaps overtake the army of continental socialism.
The influence of the Russian revolution upon the European proletariat is tremendous. Besides destroying Russian absolutism, the main force of European reaction, it will create the necessary prerequisites for revolution in the consciousness and temper of the European working class.
The function of the socialist parties was and is to revolutionize the consciousness of the working class, just as the development of capitalism revolutionized social relations. But the work of agitation and organization among the ranks of the proletariat has an internal inertia. The European Socialist Parties, particularly the largest of them, the German Social-Democratic Party, have developed their conservatism in proportion as the great masses have embraced socialism and the more these masses have become organized and disciplined. As a consequence of this, Social Democracy as an organization embodying the political experience of the proletariat may at a certain moment become a direct obstacle to open conflict between the workers and bourgeois reaction. In other words, the propagandist-socialist conservatism of the proletarian parties may at a certain moment hold back the direct struggle of the proletariat for power. The tremendous influence of the Russian revolution indicates that it will destroy party routine and conservatism, and place the question of an open trial of strength between the proletariat and capitalist reaction on the order of the day. The struggle for universal suffrage in Austria, Saxony and Prussia has become acute under the direct influence of the October strikes in Russia. The revolution in the East will infect the Western proletariat with a revolutionary idealism and rouse a desire to speak to their enemies ‘in Russian’. Should the Russian proletariat find itself in power, if only as the result of a temporary conjuncture of circumstances in our bourgeois revolution, it will encounter the organized hostility of world reaction, and on the other hand will find a readiness on the part of the world proletariat to give organized support.
Left to its own resources, the working class of Russia will inevitably be crushed by the counter-revolution the moment the peasantry turns its back on it. It will have no alternative but to link the fate of its political rule, and, hence, the fate of the whole Russian revolution, with the fate of the socialist revolution in Europe. That colossal state-political power given it by a temporary conjuncture of circumstances in the Russian bourgeois revolution it will cast into the scales of the class struggle of the entire capitalist world. With state power in its hands, with counter-revolution behind it and European reaction in front of it, it will send forth to its comrades the world over the old rallying cry, which this time will be a call for the last attack: Workers of all countries, unite!
1. See my foreword to F. Lassalle’s Address To the Jury , published by Molot . – L.T.
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The Struggle for Power
Leon Trotsky
Results and Prospects
X. The Struggle for Power [1]
Transcribed and HTML markup for the Trotsky Internet Archive , a subarchive of the Marxists’ Internet Archive , by Sally Ryan in 1996.
W e have before us a leaflet on our programme and tactics entitled: The Tasks Confronting the Russian Proletariat – A Letter to Comrades in Russia . This document is signed by P. Axelrod, Astrov, A. Martynov, L. Martov and S. Semkovsky.
The problem of the revolution is outlined in this ‘letter’ in very general fashion, clarity and precision disappearing in proportion as the authors turn from describing the situation created by the war to the political prospects and tactical conclusions; the very terminology becomes diffuse and the social definitions ambiguous.
Two moods seem from abroad to prevail in Russia: in the first place, concern for national defence – from the Romanovs to Plekhanov – and secondly, universal discontent – from the oppositional bureaucratic Fronde to the outbreaks of street rioting. These two pervading moods also create an illusion of a future popular freedom which is to arise out of the cause of national defence. But these two moods are in large measure responsible for the indefiniteness with which the question of ‘popular revolution’ is presented, even when it is formally counterposed to ‘national defence’.
The war itself, with its defeats, has not created the revolutionary problem nor any revolutionary forces for its solution. History for us does not commence with the surrender of Warsaw to the Prince of Bavaria. Both the revolutionary contradictions and the social forces are the same as those which we first encountered in 1905, only very considerably modified by the ensuing ten years. The war has merely revealed in a mechanically graphic way the objective bankruptcy of the regime. At the same time it has brought confusion into the social consciousness, in which ‘everybody’ seems infected with the desire to resist Hindenburg as well as with hatred towards the regime of 3rd June. But as the organization of a ‘people’s war’ from the very first moment comes up against the Tsarist police, thereby revealing that the Russia of 3rd June is a fact, and that a ‘people’s war’ is a fiction, so the approach to a ‘people’s revolution’ at the very threshold comes up against the socialist police of Plekhanov, whom, together with his entire suite, one might regard as a fiction if behind him there did not stand Kerensky, Milyukov, Guchkov and in general the non-revolutionary and anti-revolutionary national-democrats and national-liberals.
The ‘letter’ cannot of course ignore the class division of the nation, or that the nation must by means of revolution save itself from the consequences of the war and the present regime. ‘The nationalists and Octobrists, the progressists, the Cadets, the industrialists and even part (!) of the radical intelligentsia proclaim with one voice the inability of the bureaucracy to defend the country and demand the mobilization of social forces for the cause of defence ...’ The letter draws the correct conclusion regarding the anti-revolutionary character of this position, which assumes ‘unity with the present rulers of Russia, with the bureaucrats, nobles and generals, in the cause of defence of the State’. The letter also correctly points out the anti-revolutionary position of ‘bourgeois patriots of all shades’; and we may add, of the social-patriots, of whom the letter makes no mention at all.
From this we must draw the conclusion that the Social-Democrats are not merely the most logical revolutionary party but that they are the only revolutionary party in the country; that, side by side with them, there are not only groups which are less resolute in the application of revolutionary methods, but also non-revolutionary parties. In other words, that the Social- Democratic Party, in its revolutionary way of presenting problems, is quite isolated in the open political arena , in spite of the ‘universal discontent’. This first conclusion must be very carefully taken into account.
Of course, parties are not classes. Between the position of a party and the interests of the social stratum upon which it rests, there may be a certain lack of harmony which later on may become converted into a profound contradiction. The conduct of a party may change under the influence of the temper of the masses. This is indisputable. All the more reason therefore for us, in our calculations, to cease relying on less stable and less trustworthy elements such as the slogans and tactics of a party, and to refer to more stable historical factors: to the social structure of the nation, to the relation of class forces and the tendencies of development.
Yet the authors of the ‘letter’ completely avoid these questions. What is this ‘people’s revolution’ in the Russia of 1915? Our authors simply tell us that it ‘must’ be made by the proletariat and the democracy. We know what the proletariat is, but what is ‘the democracy’? Is it a political party? From what has been said above, evidently not. Is it then the masses? What masses? Evidently it is the petty industrial and commercial bourgeoisie, the intelligentsia and the peasantry – it can only be of these that they are speaking.
In a series of articles entitled ‘The War Crisis and Political Prospects’ we have given a general estimation of the possible revolutionary significance of these social forces. Basing ourselves on the experience of the last revolution, we inquired into the changes which the last ten years have brought about in the relation of forces that obtained in 1905: have these been in favour of democracy (the bourgeoisie) or against it? This is the central historical question in judging the prospects of the revolution and the tactics of the proletariat. Has bourgeois democracy in Russia become stronger since 1905, or has it still further declined? All our former discussions centred round the question of the fate of bourgeois democracy, and those who are still unable to give a reply to this question are groping in the dark. We reply to this question by saying that a national bourgeois revolution is impossible in Russia because there is no genuinely revolutionary bourgeois democracy . The time for national revolutions has passed – at least for Europe – just as the time for national wars has passed. Between the one and the other there is an inherent connection. We are living in an epoch of imperialism which is not merely a system of colonial conquests but implies also a definite regime at home. It does not set the bourgeois nation in opposition to the old regime, but sets the proletariat in opposition to the bourgeois nation.
The petty-bourgeois artisans and traders already played an insignificant role in the revolution of 1905. There is no question that the social importance of this class has declined still further during the last ten years. Capitalism in Russia deals much more radically and severely with the intermediate classes than it does in the countries with an older economic development. The intelligentsia has undoubtedly grown numerically, and its economic role also has increased. But at the same time even its former illusory ‘independence’ has entirely disappeared. The social significance of the intelligentsia is wholly determined by its functions in organizing capitalist industry and bourgeois public opinion. Its material connection with capitalism has saturated it with imperialist tendencies. As already quoted, the ‘letter’ says, ‘even part of the radical intelligentsia ... demands the mobilization of social forces for the cause of defence’. This is absolutely untrue; not a part , but the whole of the radical intelligentsia; in fact, one should say, not only the whole radical section, but a considerable, if not the greater part of the socialist intelligentsia. We shall hardly increase the ranks of ‘democracy’ by painting-up the character of the intelligentsia.
Thus the industrial and commercial bourgeoisie has declined still further while the intelligentsia have abandoned their revolutionary position. Urban democracy as a revolutionary factor is not worth mentioning. Only the peasantry remains, but as far as we know, neither Axelrod nor Martov ever set great hopes upon its independent revolutionary role. Have they come to the conclusion that the unceasing class differentiation among the peasantry during the last ten years has increased this role? Such a supposition would be flying in the face of all theoretical conclusions and all historical experience.
But in that case, what kind of ‘democracy’ does the letter mean? And in what sense do they speak of ‘people’s revolution’?
The slogan of a constituent assembly presupposes a revolutionary situation. Is there one? Yes, there is, but it is not in the least expressed in the supposed birth, at last, of a bourgeois democracy which is alleged to be now ready and able to settle accounts with Tsarism. On the contrary, if there is anything that this war has revealed quite clearly, it is the absence of a revolutionary democracy in the country.
The attempt of the Russia of 3rd June to solve the internal revolutionary problems by the path of imperialism has resulted in an obvious fiasco. This does not mean that the responsible or semi-responsible parties of the 3rd June regime will take the path of revolution, but it does mean that the revolutionary problem laid bare by the military catastrophe, which will drive the ruling class still further along the path of imperialism, doubles the importance of the only revolutionary class in the country.
The bloc of 3rd June is shaken, rent by internal friction and conflict. This does not mean that the Octobrists and Cadets are considering the revolutionary problem of power and preparing to storm the positions of the bureaucracy and the united nobility. But it does mean that the government’s power to resist revolutionary pressure undoubtedly has been weakened for a certain period.
The monarchy and the bureaucracy are discredited, but this does not mean that they will give up power without a fight. The dispersal of the Duma and the latest ministerial changes showed whoever needed showing how far from the facts this supposition is. But the policy of bureaucratic instability, which will develop still further, should greatly assist the revolutionary mobilization of the proletariat by the Social Democrats.
The lower classes of the towns and villages will become more and more exhausted, deceived, dissatisfied and enraged. This does not mean that an independent force of revolutionary democracy will operate side by side with the proletariat. For such a force there is neither social material nor leading personnel; but it undoubtedly does mean that the deep dissatisfaction of the lower classes will assist the revolutionary pressure of the working class.
The less the proletariat waits upon the appearance of bourgeois democracy, the less it adapts itself to the passivity and limitations of the petty bourgeoisie and peasantry, the more resolute and irreconcilable its fight becomes, the more obvious becomes its preparedness to go to ‘the end’, i.e., to the conquest of power, the greater will be its chances at the decisive moment of carrying with it the non-proletarian masses. Nothing, of course, will be accomplished by merely putting forward mere slogans such as ‘for the confiscation of land’, etc. This to a still greater extent applies to the army, by which the government stands or falls. The mass of the army will only incline towards the revolutionary class when it becomes convinced that it is not merely grumbling and demonstrating, but is fighting for power and has some chances of winning it. There is an objective revolutionary problem in the country – the problem of political power – which has been glaringly revealed by the war and the defeats. There is a progressive disorganization of the ruling class. There is a growing dissatisfaction among the urban and rural masses. But the only revolutionary factor which can take advantage of this situation is the proletariat – now to an incomparably greater degree than in 1905.
The ‘letter’ would appear, in one phrase, to approach this central point of the question. It says that the Russian Social-Democratic workers should take ‘the lead in this national struggle for the overthrow of the monarchy of 3rd June’. What ‘national’ struggle may mean we have just indicated. But if ‘take the lead’ does not merely mean that the advanced workers should magnanimously shed their blood without asking themselves for what purpose, but means that the workers must take the political leadership of the whole struggle, which above all will be a proletarian struggle, then it is clear that victory in this struggle must transfer power to the class that has led the struggle, i.e, the Social-Democratic proletariat .
The question, therefore, is not simply one of a ‘revolutionary provisional government’ – an empty phrase to which the historical process will have to give some kind of content, but of a revolutionary workers’ government , the conquest of power by the Russian proletariat. The demands for a national constituent assembly, a republic, an eight-hour day, the confiscation of the land of the landlords, together with the demands for the immediate cessation of the war, the right of nations to self-determination, and a United States of Europe will play a tremendous part in the agitational role of the Social Democrats. But revolution is first and foremost a question of power – not of the state form (constituent assembly, republic, united states) but of the social content of the government. The demands for a constituent assembly and the confiscation of land under present conditions lose all direct revolutionary significance without the readiness of the proletariat to fight for the conquest of power; for if the proletariat does not tear power out of the hands of the monarchy nobody else will do so.
The tempo of the revolutionary process is a special question. It depends upon a number of military and political, national and international factors. These factors may retard or hasten developments, facilitate the revolutionary victory or lead to another defeat. But whatever the conditions may be the proletariat must clearly see its path and take it consciously. Above everything else it must be free from illusions. And the worst illusion in all its history from which the proletariat has up till now suffered has always been reliance upon others.
1. From Nashe Slovo (Paris), October 17, 1915. – L.T.
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The Permanent Revolution
Leon Trotsky
The Permanent Revolution
(1931)
Transcribed and HTML markup for the Trotsky Internet Archive , a subarchive of the Marxist writers’ Internet Archive , by Sally Ryan in 1996.
Permanent Revolution was first published by the Left Opposition in Russian in Berlin in 1930.
First English and American editions of Permanent Revolution 1931, re-translated by John G. Wright, for Progress Publishers/Militant Publishing Association.
- Introduction to the First (Russian) Edition
- Introduction to the German Edition
- 1. The Enforced Nature of This Work and Its Aim
- 2. The Permanent Revolution is Not a “Leap” by the Proletariat, but the Reconstruction of the Nation under Leadership of the Proletariat
- 3. Three Elements of the “Democratic Dictatorship”: Classes, Tasks and Political Mechanics
- 4. What did the Theory of the Permanent Revolution Look Like in Practice?
- 5. Was the “Democratic Dictatorship” Realized in Our Country? If so, When?
- 6. On the Skipping of Historical Stages
- 7. What does the Slogan of the Democratic Dictatorship Mean Today for the East
- 8. From Marxism to Pacifism
- 9. Epilogue
- 10. What is the Permanent Revolution? Basic Postulates
Permanent Revolution Index
Last updated on: 3.3.2007
Introduction to the First (Russian) Edition
Leon Trotsky
The Permanent Revolution
Introduction to
the First (Russian) Edition