Permanent Revolution - TROTSKY AND MENSHEVISM - Loizos Michael

Permanent Revolution a Critique

TROTSKY AND MENSHEVISM

I want to show in my following remarks that Trotsky employed a similar mode of reasoning, one which did not fundamentally depart from the Menshevik “problematic”. From the general truth of the leading role of the proletariat inv the Russian democratic revolution, he was to constitute the proletariat as the subject of the process of transition from bourgeois to socialist revolution, deducing a direct, logical connection between two essentially different processes.

Before going back to Trotsky’s analysis of the Russian revolution, I want to briefly examine an aspect of Menshevik theory which has received little attention in most histories of Russian Social-Democracy. We have seen that the Mensheviks were opposed to any attempt at a seizure of power by Social-Democracy in the bourgeois revolution because they would be placed in the impossible situation of having to implement their maximum programme in an economically backward country, where the level of development of the productive forces could not sustain the socialisation of the means of production. However, there were two concrete conditions in which the Mensheviks would have advocated the kind of seizure of power formulated by Trotsky and Parvus, and which was ascribed to Lenin by Martynov, Martov and Plekhanov etc. These were:

1)  in the event of a socialist revolution breaking out, in the advanced countries of Western Europe; 2) in the event that the liberal bourgeoisie proved unwilling or unable, to “lead” the bourgeois revolution to its conclusion.

2)   

The resolution which we have already cited, adopted by the Mensheviks at their conference in 1905, specified that:

In only one case should Social-Democracy take the initiative and direct its efforts towards seizing power and holding it as long as possible — and that is if the revolution should spread to the advanced capitalist countries of Western Europe where conditions for the realisation of socialism have already attained a certain degree of maturity. In such a case ... it may   become possible to set out on the path of socialist reforms. [54]

And Martov, in a polemic directed partly against Trotsky and Parvus, and partly against Lenin, conceded that if it was necessary for the triumph of the revolution and the democratic republic, then Social- Democracy would “renounce its political independence”, and take into its hands

“the direction of the ‘Ship of State’ ”. The concrete situation in which Martov thought it might be necessary for Social-Democracy to seize political power was if...

...all the strong bourgeois-revolutionary parties fade, not having time to flourish. And in that event, the proletariat cannot turn its back on political power. But of course, having attained  it in the course of social struggle, it cannot limit its use to the limits of the bourgeois revolution. If it receives power as a class (and we, with comrade Trotsky, speak only about such a possession of power) it must lead the revolution further, it must strive towards the REVOLUTION IN PERMANENZ — towards the direct struggle with the whole of bourgeois society. Concretely, this means — either a new repetition of the Paris Commune, or the beginning of the socialist revolution “in the West” and its transition to Russia. And we will be obliged to strive for the second. [55]

Do we not have here the theory of Permanent Revolution conceived by the Mensheviks as a suitable strategy for the exceptional case that the bourgeoisie — as the “subject” of the “bourgeois” revolution — might prove incapable of carrying the revolution to its conclusion? Was not Trotsky’s theory of the Permanent Revolution developed precisely on a generalization of this “exceptional case” — on the incapacity of the bourgeoisie to lead a nation-wide democratic struggle against Tsarism because of the peculiarities of Russia’s historical development, which reduced “... the role of bourgeois democracy to insignificance...”? [56]

“... there exists no bourgeois class that can place itself at the head of the popular masses...” [57] claimed Trotsky, therefore, there existed in Russia the “... potential historical situation in which the victory of a “ ‘bourgeois’ revolution is rendered possible only by the proletariat gaining revolutionary power ...”[58] Furthermore, “Once in power, the proletariat not only will not want, but will not be able to limit itself to a bourgeois democratic programme. It will be able to carry through the Revolution to the end only in the event of the Russian Revolution being converted into a Revolution of the European proletariat.” [59] And in words reminiscent of

Martov’s:

...once having won power, the proletariat cannot keep within the limits of bourgeois democracy. It must adopt the tactics of permanent revolution, i.e., must destroy the barriers between the minimum and maximum programme of Social-Democracy ... and seek direct and immediate support in revolution in Western Europe. [60]

At the London congress of the R.S.D.L.P. in 1907, Trotsky asked of the Mensheviks, “What if there is no bourgeois democracy capable of marching at the head of the bourgeois revolution?” [61] “Where”, he said, “is the social class in Russia that could raise up a revolutionary bourgeoisie on its shoulders, could put it in power.... in opposition to the proletariat?” [62]

Trotsky in fact, remained trapped in the same theoretical “space” as the Mensheviks — that of the “subject” of the revolution (“Who leads?”) There was no posing, in his theoretical framework, of the question of the specific forms of the Russian bourgeois revolution as a result of a specification of the possible outcome of determinate class struggles between the contending social and political forces in the Russian social formation.

It was because Trotsky shared the same theoretical framework as the Mensheviks, differing from them only in his assessment of the revolutionary capacity of the bourgeoisie, that he could claim in October 1915, in the paper “Nashe Slovo”:

A national bourgeois revolution in Russia is impossible because of the absence of a genuinely revolutionary bourgeois democracy. [63]

And it was precisely because Lenin distanced himself theoretically from both Trotsky and the Mensheviks, that he replied to Trotsky by saying:

Trotsky has not realised that if the proletariat induces the non-proletarian masses to confiscate the landed estates and overthrow the monarchy, then that will be the consummation of the “national bourgeois revolution" in Russia; it will be a revolutionary- democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry. [64]

THE PEASANTRY

It needs to be said that Trotsky was not “blind” to the presence of a huge mass of peasants in the Russian social formation. But, according to Trotsky:

...the peasantry, however revolutionary it may be, is not capable of playing an independent, still less a leading, political role. Undoubtedly the peasantry can prove to be a tremendous force in the service of the revolution, but it would be unworthy of a Marxist to believe that a party of Muzhiks can place itself at the head of a bourgeois revolution. [65]

Notice that for Trotsky, the paramount question is who leads the revolution; everything is reduced to this. The peasantry cannot create an independent party capable of leading the revolution; only the proletariat can do this ... therefore ... it is the proletariat which wields state power in the democratic revolution...

...the representative body of the nation, convened under the leadership of the proletariat, which has secured the support of the peasantry, will be nothing else than a democratic dress for the rule of the proletariat. [66]

In the polemics that took place in the communist party after the death of Lenin, one of the criticisms made of Trotsky was that he had underestimated the revolutionary potential and role of the peasantry in the Russian bourgeois-democratic revolution. Trotsky always denied this,

pointing, for instance, to the speech he made at the London Congress, and which we have already cited, as an example of his awareness and full appreciation of the role of the peasantry. In the post-revolution period, Trotsky claimed that there had been an identity of views between himself and Lenin on the question of the role of the peasantry and its relation to the proletariat. In his book The Permanent Revolution, Trotsky maintained that the sole, specific difference between his slogan of the “Dictatorship of the Proletariat relying on the peasantry”, [67] and Lenin’s slogan of the “Revolutionary-Democratic Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Peasantry”, was over the...

.. .political mechanics of the collaboration of the proletariat and the peasantry in the democratic revolution. [68]

According to this argument, Lenin

...refused for a number of years to prejudge the question of what the party-political and state organisation of the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry would look like... [69]

By “party-political mechanics” of the class cooperation between the proletariat and the peasantry, Trotsky meant the relationship, in a provisional revolutionary government, between a party representing the proletariat (Social-Democracy), and a party representing the peasantry.

The question thus becomes — which party constitutes the majority, thereby establishing the class character of the state power? [70] According to Trotsky, the “algebraic” character of Lenin’s analysis rested on the fact that he refused to pre-judge this question. For Trotsky, the prime question was: can the peasants create an independent party representing their class interests in the democratic revolution? He derived a negative answer from the characteristics he ascribed to the peasantry as a class. [71] The significance of this, is that in Trotsky’s mode of analysis, the correctness or relevance of Lenin’s theses rested on whether or not the peasants could create an independent political party.

Were the peasants capable of creating their own independent party in the epoch of the democratic revolution, then the democratic dictatorship could be realized in its truest and most direct sense ... [72]

If there were unable to do so, then the democratic-dictatorship was unrealizable, [73] and the actual class content of state power n a victorious democratic revolution would be a workers’ dictatorship. History, according to Trotsky, proved the correctness of his position, so that in the 1917 revolution, all the differences between himself and Lenin on the theory of Permanent Revolution were resolved. We shall return to this question.

In his post-revolution writings, Trotsky displaced the site of his difference with Lenin on the question of the role of the peasantry in the bourgeois-democratic revolution: firstly, he maintained that he had always upheld the revolutionary capacity of the peasantry and the need for a worker peasant alliance; secondly, he identified the sole difference between himself and    Lenin on this question as consisting of the party- political forms of this alliance. On this second proposition advanced by Trotsky in defence of his theory of Permanent Revolution, we should note that Lenin proceeded from a fundamentally different theoretical perspective. Trotsky denied that the peasantry was capable of creating an independent party able to represent its class  interests in the bourgeois-democratic revolution. Trotsky deduced this from the historical characteristics of the peasantry as a class (its lack of homogeneity, its conditions of existence etc.). Lenin, however, believed that the practice of the peasants class struggles against the semi-feudal landowners would provide the answer to this question, and not deductions from the assumed characteristics of the peasants as a class. The answer to the question of whether or not parties would develop capable of articulating the class interests of the peasants could not be deduced from abstract principles, but from the practice of concrete class struggles. Again, whether or not peasant parties would constitute a majority or minority in a provisional revolutionary government would depend on the way the class struggle developed — its forms and outcomes — and, in any case would in no way effect the class character of the state power that would emerge in the event of a successful bourgeois-democratic revolution. No one, said Lenin,

...at this stage can tell what forms bourgeois democracy in Russia will assume in the future. Possibly, the bankruptcy of the Cadets may lead to the formation of a peasant democratic party, a truly mass party, and not an organisation of terrorists such as the Socialist- Revolutionaries ... It is also possible that the objective difficulties of achieving political unity among the petty-bourgeoisie will prevent such a party from being formed... [74]

Because Trotsky made Lenin’s analysis of the “democratic dictatorship” hinge on whether or not an independent peasant party would be formed, he could claim that history had verified his analysis and not Lenin’s, because in the revolutions of 1917, no such (independent peasant parties were formed. Leaving aside the question of the role of the Socialist-Revolutionaries in 1917, it is necessary to insist in the strongest terms, that Lenin’s theses concerning the revolutionary- democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry did not hinge on the possibility of a powerful, independent peasant party, and consequently, the proof of the validity of Lenin’s “pre-April 1917” theses do not rest on whether or not such a party concretely existed in 1917. Our reasons for insisting on this point will shortly become clearer.

On the first proposition advanced by Trotsky in his defence, if we examine the way in which he posed the question of the relationship between the proletariat and the peasantry, we can see that there were fundamental differences between his theses and those developed by Lenin. “The peasantry as a whole”, said Trotsky, “represents an elemental force in rebellion. ”[75] But significantly, he went on to say:

It can be put at the service of the revolution only by a force that takes state power into its hands. [76]

The peasantry can play a revolutionary role (“put at the service of the revolution”) only after state power has been captured by the proletariat. Trotsky’s slogan of the “Dictatorship of the Proletariat relying on — or supported by — the peasantry, refers to a class relationship after the “single combat” between the autocracy and the proletariat has been resolved in favour of the proletariat. On the other hand, Lenin’s slogan of the “Democratic-Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Peasantry” refers to the classes capable of consummating a particular form of the bourgeois-democratic revolution. In Lenin’s analysis, the crucial political conditions for the decisive destruction of the tsarist state and all feudal relations, was the awakening of the peasantry to political life; the extent to which the proletariat managed to lead it against Tsarism would, in large measure, determine the kind of bourgeois revolution realized in the Russian social formation. In contrast to Lenin’s analysis, Trotsky believed that:

Many sections of the working masses, particularly in the countryside, will be drawn into the revolution and become politically organized only after ... the urban proletariat, stands at the helm of state. [77]

If the decisive struggle against the Tsarist autocracy is resolved solely by the proletariat which seizes state power, and if large sections of the peasants do not have to be drawn into the revolution as a condition for its victory, then it is not surprising that Trotsky could write:

In such a situation, created by the transference of power to the proletariat, nothing remains for the peasantry to do but to rally to the regime of worker’s democracy. It will not matter much even if the peasantry does this with a degree of consciousness not larger than that with which it usually rallies to the bourgeois regime. [78]

The radical difference between Lenin and Trotsky was revealed by Lenin himself in a polemic against Martov who repeated Trotsky’s mistakes. [79] According to Lenin, the passage we have quoted above was “...the most fallacious of Trotsky’s opinions that comrade Martov quotes....

The proletariat cannot count on the ignorance and prejudices of the peasantry as the powers that be under a bourgeois regime count and depend on them...” [80] Lenin believed that a radical bourgeois revolution was only possible to the extent that the proletariat succeeded in raising up the peasantry as a revolutionary force against Tsarism — that is, before the transfer of political power to the people — as a precondition for the establishment of the political terrain required by the proletariat to make its own socialist revolution.

Next ; INDEPENDENT AND LEADING ROLE