Permanent Revolution - PURE REVOLUTION - LOIZOS MICHAIL
Trotskyism Study Group CPGB
In general terms, the transition from feudalism to capitalism involves a series
of economic, political
and ideological transformations, whose motor
is the class struggle, which destroys the conditions of existence
of feudal social
relations and establishes the conditions necessary for the reproduction of capitalist social relations. Because history
does not proceed
by logical stages
in a straight line, and because the economic,
political and ideological transformations which take place in any particular bourgeois
revolution are determined by the forms and outcomes of complex
class struggles at different
levels of social reality, which are never pre-given, either by any logic of historical development or by the character
of the class forces engaged in the struggle, then economic,
political and ideological transformations proceed at different
tempos — they have different
historical times.
The implication of this is
that there is no such thing
as a “pure” revolution,
either bourgeois or socialist — all revolutions are unique,
involving a specific combination of social transformations. In February 1917, a very distinct
political transformation took place in the Russian social formation — the capitalist class, with the support of the Anglo-
French alliance, and the voluntary acquiescence of the proletariat and the peasantry, took political power from the defeated Tsarist autocracy. This political
transformation signalled
the completion of a particular, concrete form of the Russian bourgeois revolution, which, however, did not involve
any economic transformations in the Russian countryside. Political liberties (Bourgeois democracy) were won in the towns,
but feudal relations
persisted in the countryside. In December 1918,
Lenin pointed out
Comrades, you are all very well aware that even the February
revolution — the revolution of the bourgeoisie, the revolution of the compromises — promised
the peasants victory over the landowners, and that this promise was not fulfilled. [145]
In the course of the Russian revolution, bourgeois
political freedoms
were won by the working masses, and power transferred to the bourgeoisie, in the towns, before the
peasant bourgeois revolution developed in the countryside.
Because
of the acute state of the contradictions produced by the imperialist war, the conditions were created in the urban centres whereby
the proletariat could seize political power from the bourgeoisie. This was a political transformation which eliminated one of the crucial conditions of existence
of the capitalist mode of production; furthermore, the removal
from power of the bourgeoisie also eliminated one of the political
and ideological obstacles
to the development of a radical peasant movement against
the landlords — the peasant
bourgeois revolution, which had already
begun prior to October 1917, coincided with, and was consummated by, the proletarian revolution in the towns. It was this very specific concurrence of urban socialist
revolution, with peasant-bourgeois revolution that constitutes the peculiarity of the
Russian revolution.
CONCLUSION
We should note two things in conclusion: 1) Lenin,
as far back as 1905, recognised that this combination of elements of “bourgeois” revolution with the socialist revolution, was quite possible, so that its realization in 1917-18 in no way represented a departure from his theoretical presentation of the problem.
...in actual historical circumstances, the elements
of the past become interwoven with those of the future;
the two paths cross ... But this does not in the least prevent
us from logically and historically distinguishing between the major stages of development. We all contrapose bourgeois revolution and socialist
revolution; we all insist
on the absolute necessity of strictly distinguishing between them; however, can it be denied that in the course of history individual, particular elements
of the two revolutions become interwoven ...
will not the • future socialist revolution in Europe still have to complete
a great deal left undone in the field of democratism?[146]
1) Secondly,
this characteristic form of the Russian revolution was not an effect of the nature
and role of particular class subjects active in the revolution — rather it was the outcome
of very specific
class struggles, set in the context
of the “weakest link” in the imperialist chain; it was
not an outcome
which could be concretely specified in advance
by an identification of the class agents present in the Russian social formation, or the forms of their struggles.
The factors which enabled
Lenin, in 1917, to conceive of the concrete stages of transition from the February democratic revolution, to the October
socialist revolution were not present
in the first Russian revolution. The decisive
difference in 1917, as compared to 1905, was not that the experiences of the class struggle forced
Lenin to re-think
the basic theoretical premises of his analysis
and to accept
the strategy of the Permanent Revolution, but that those experiences, provided him with the material with which he could pose, concretely, the relation
of the bourgeois revolution to the socialist revolution in the Russian social formation. In 1905, it had only been possible
to pose the question
of the forms of the bourgeois
revolution, whereas
their specific
relationship to the Russian socialist revolution could only be posed in a general,
abstract manner.
NOTES
1.
Trotsky is an example of this tendency, referring to the close approximation of his theory
of Permanent Revolution to the formula developed
by Lenin in 1905. Trotsky reduced the difference between himself
and Lenin to the question
of “...what party-political and state form the revolutionary cooperation of the proletariat and peasantry would assume..L. Trotsky, The Permanent Revolution and Results
and Prospects (hereafter PRRP), New York 1970, p. 197. See also the first volume of Deutscher’s biography of
Trotsky.
2.
D. Avenas, “Trotsky’s Marxism,” International. Vol. 3 No. 2, Winter
1976, p. 26. (She says of Lenin and
Trotsky in 1905 that “their
theories were quite dissimilar ...”). See also N. Geras, The Legacy
of Rosa Luxemburg. NLB 1976, Chap. 2.
3.
PRRP pp. 37-45 and
L. Trotsky, 1905, Harmondsworth 1973, pp. 21-41.
4.
ibid. p. 66 (Trotsky
is quoting, with approval,
Karl Kautsky).
5.
ibid. p. 67.
6.
ibid.
7. ibid. p.
132.
8. ibid. p.
71. 9. ibid. p. 222.
10.
Lenin, Collected Works (hereafter CW) 24, p. 150.
11.
Martynov, Dve diktatury, Geneva 1905, p. 58.
12.
ibid.
13.
Chetvertyi(Ob"ediniteTnyi) s”ezd RSDRP, protokoly, Moscow 1959, p.
112. 14. ibid. pp.
112-113.
15.
ibid. p. 248 (Aksel’rod); P. Maslov, Agrarnyi
vopros v Rossii,
Moscow 1917, vol. l, 5th ed.,
p. 360.
16.
Lenin, CW9, p. 55.
17.
ibid. p. 49,
18.
E.g. Lenin CW3.
19. Lenin, CW13, p. 239. Also
CW3, pp. 32-33.
20. Lenin, CW9, p. 55.
21.
ibid. p. 55.
22.
Tretii s’ezd RSDRP, protokoly, Moscow 1959, pp. 451-52.
23. Pervaya obshcherusskaya
Konferentsiya partiinykh rabotnikov, Otdel’noe prilozhenie, K No. 100 Iskry, Geneva, 1905, pp. 23-24.
24. Tretii S’ezd... pp. 451-452.
25. Pervaya obshcherusskaya ... p. 23.
26.
Lenin, CW9, p. 33.
27.
ibid. p. 47.
28.
Pervaya obshcherusskaya ... p. 24.
29. Martynov, op. cit. p. 55. His view was also endorsed
by Martov in Na ocheredi
Rabochaya partiya
i ’zakhvat vlasti’, Kak nasha blizhaishaya zadacha, Iskra No. 93, published in March 1905. What is interesting is that Trotsky, like the Mensheviks, derived an answer to the question
of Social-Democratic participation in a provisional government from the prior application of a principle, and not, as with the Bolsheviks from concrete analysis. See PRRP p. 70.
30. Martov,
loc. cit.
31. Martynov, op. cit. p. 55.
32.
Chetvertyi (Ob ‘edinitel’nyi)... p. 193.
33. ibid. p. 142.
34. “We have never thus presented the question”. Tretii s”ezd ... p. 186.
35.
Lenin, CW9, p. 25.
36.
Martynov, op. cit. p. 3.
37.
ibid. p. 9.
38. ibid. pp. 10-11.
39. Lenin, CW8, pp.
279-80.
40.
Trotsky, Do devyatogo yanvarya, s predisloviem Parvusa, Munich January 1905, p. XI.
41.
ibid.
42.
PRRP, p. 69. (My emphasis). 43. Lenin, CW8, pp. 291-92.
44.
Martynov, op. cit. p. 58.
45. Martov,
Iskra
No. 93, 17th March 1905.
46.
PRRP, p. 69.
47.
Lenin, CW9, p. 30.
48. Lenin, CW11, p. 413. 49. ibid.
pp. 572-73.
50. Lenin, CW12, p. 335.
51. Lenin, CW\1, p. 413.
52.
Lenin, CW3, p. 32.
53.
Martynov, op. cit. p. 3.
54.
Iskra No. 100.
55.
Iskra No. 93.
56.
PRRP, p. 29. 57. 1905, p. 308.
58. ibid. p. 303.
59. PRRP, p. 31.
60.
ibid.
61. 1905, p.
291.
62. ibid. p. 292.
63. ibid. p. 337.
64. Lenin, CW21, p. 419. 65. 1905, p. 292.
66.
PRRP, p. 72 (My emphasis).
67. Or the “Dictatorship of
the Proletariat supported
by the peasantry”.
68. PRRP, p. 189.
69. ibid. p. 190.
70. ibid. pp. 190-91.
71. ibid. pp. 72-73.
72. ibid. p. 193.
73.
ibid. p. 73.
74. Lenin,
CW15, p.
121. (My emphasis).
75. PRRP, p. 181.
76.
ibid. (My emphasis).
77.
ibid. p. 70. (My emphasis).
78.
ibid. p. 73. (My emphasis).
79.
Martov, Za
chto borot’sya?, Sotsial-Demokrat, No. 3. March 1909.
80. Lenin, CW15, p. 374. 81. Lenin,
CW8, pp. 291-92.
82.
Vtoroi s’ezd RSDRP,
protokoly, Moscow 1959, p. 423.
83.
Tretii s”ezd ... p. 454.
84.
Chetvertyi {ob”edinitel’nyi) ... p. 490.
85. Lenin, CW13,
p. 119.
86. Lenin, CW11, pp. 342-343.
(My emphasis).
87. ibid. p. 343.
88.
PRRP, p. 69.
89.
ibid. p. 72.
90. Lenin, CW8, pp. 403-04.
91. PRRP, p. 74.
92. Lenin, CW15,
p. 371. 93. ibid. pp. 373-74.
94. Martynov, Dve diktatury, p. 58.
(“... the impending revolution cannot realize any political forms whatever against the will of the entire bourgeoisie...”).
95.
I. Getzler, Martov: A Political Biography, 1967, p. 110.
96.
T. Dan, The Origins
of Bolshevism, London 1964, p. 343.
97.
See also Martov in Iskra No. 93.
98.
PRRP, p. 78.
99.
ibid. p. 80.
100. 1905.
101. ibid. p. 326.
102. ibid. p. 329.
103. ibid. p. 330.
104. ibid. p. 330.
105.
Pervaya obshcherusskaya ...
106.
Lenin, CJF8,
p. 298.
107. Lenin,
CW16, pp. 377-79. Lenin CW34, pp. 408-09.
108.
Plekhanov, Sochineniya XIII.
109.
“Address of the Central
Committee to the Communists League” in The Revolutions of 1848, Pelican 1973.
110.
Marx-Engels, Selected Correspondence, Moscow 1965, pp. 468-69.
111.
Plekhanov, p. 208.
112.
Lenin, CW8, p. 467.
113.
I. Deutscher, Stalin, Harmondsworth 1970, p. 285.
114.
For a defence
of the position that economic determinism was at the root of Lenin’s
strategy prior to 1917 see Avenas op. cit.
115.
K. Mavrakis, On Trotskyism, London 1976, p. 18.
116.
Lenin, CW9, p. 86.
117.
Lenin, CW24, p. 43.
118.
ibid. p. 44.
119. ibid.
p. 38, pp. 45-46.
120.
ibid p. 44.
121.
ibid.
122. PRRP, p. 190.
123. Lenin, CW24, p. 142.
124.
ibid. p. 46.
125.
ibid. p. 38. (“We must know how to supplement and amend old ‘formulas’ ... for while they have been found to be correct
on the whole, their concrete
realization has turned out to be different”).
126. PRRP, p. 225.
127. ibid. p. 228.
128.
Lenin, CW24, p. 44.
129.
Lenin, CW26, p. 53.
130.
Lenin CW24, p. 44.
131.
ibid.
132.
PRRP, p. 226. (My emphasis).
133.
Lenin, CW24, p. 46.
134.
ibid. p. 47.
135.
ibid.
136.
The fact of class collaboration.
137.
Lenin, CW24, p. 47.
138. Lenin, CW25, p. 310.
139. ibid. p. 311.
140. Lenin
CW8, p.
315. (My emphasis).
141. ibid. p. 301.
142. ibid. p. 314.
144. PRRP, p. 228.
145.
Lenin, CW28, p. 338. (My emphasis).
146.
Lenin, CW9, p. 85.
147.
SUGGESTED READING LIST
D. Avenas, “Trotsky’s Marxism”, International Vol. 3 Nos 2 & 3.
M. Gane, “Leninism and the Concept of the Conjuncture”, Theoretical Practice, No.
5, Spring ’72.
M. Johnstone, “The
Ideas of Leon Trotsky”,
Cogito 1969. (About to be reprinted).
N. Krasso, “Trotsky’s Marxism”, New Left Review 44
K. Mavrakis, On Trotskyism:
Problems of Theory and Practice.
J. Robens, Imperialism, Stalinism & Permanent
Revolution.
L. Trotsky, The Permanent
Revolution and Results
and Prospects.
P. Thompson & G. Lewis, The Revolution Unfinished? A Critique of Trotskyism.
© Loizos Michael
1977
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