Trotsky‟S Struggle Against Stalinism
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Leon Trotsky Three Concepts of the Russian Revolution 1
Leon Trotsky Three Concepts of the Russian Revolution 1 The Revolution of 1905 came to be not only the “general rehearsal” of 1917 but also the laboratory in which all the fundamental groupings of Russian political life were worked out and all the tendencies and shadings inside Russian Marxism were projected. At the core of the arguments and divergences was, needless to say, the question concerning the historical nature of the Russian Revolution and its future course of development. That conflict of concepts and prognoses has no direct bearing on the biography of Stalin, who did not participate in it in his own right. The few propagandist articles he wrote on that subject are utterly devoid of theoretical interest. Scores of Bolsheviks who plied the pen popularised the same thoughts, and did it considerably better. Any critical exposition of Bolshevism’s revolutionary concepts naturally belongs in a biography of Lenin. But theories have their own fate. Although during the period of the First Revolution [1905] and subsequently, as late as 1923, at the time when the revolutionary doctrines were elaborated and applied, Stalin had no independent position whatever, a sudden change occurred in 1924, which opened an epoch of bureaucratic reaction and radical transvaluation of the past. The film of the revolution was unwound in reverse order. Old doctrines were subjected either to a new evaluation or a new interpretation. Thus, rather unexpectedly at first glance, attention was focused on the concept of “permanent revolution” as the prime source of all the fallacies of “Trotskyism”. For many years to come criticism of that concept formed the main content of all the theoretical – sit venio verbo – writings of Stalin and his collaborators. -
Salgado Munoz, Manuel (2019) Origins of Permanent Revolution Theory: the Formation of Marxism As a Tradition (1865-1895) and 'The First Trotsky'
Salgado Munoz, Manuel (2019) Origins of permanent revolution theory: the formation of Marxism as a tradition (1865-1895) and 'the first Trotsky'. Introductory dimensions. MRes thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/74328/ Copyright and moral rights for this work are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This work cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Enlighten: Theses https://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] Origins of permanent revolution theory: the formation of Marxism as a tradition (1865-1895) and 'the first Trotsky'. Introductory dimensions Full name of Author: Manuel Salgado Munoz Any qualifications: Sociologist Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements of the Degree of Master of Research School of Social & Political Sciences, Sociology Supervisor: Neil Davidson University of Glasgow March-April 2019 Abstract Investigating the period of emergence of Marxism as a tradition between 1865 and 1895, this work examines some key questions elucidating Trotsky's theoretical developments during the first decade of the XXth century. Emphasizing the role of such authors like Plekhanov, Johann Baptists von Schweitzer, Lenin and Zetkin in the developing of a 'Classical Marxism' that served as the foundation of the first formulation of Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution, it treats three introductory dimensions of this larger problematic: primitive communism and its feminist implications, the debate on the relations between the productive forces and the relations of production, and the first apprehensions of Marx's economic mature works. -
Joseph Hansen Papers
http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf78700585 No online items Register of the Joseph Hansen papers Finding aid prepared by Joseph Hansen Hoover Institution Archives 434 Galvez Mall Stanford University Stanford, CA, 94305-6003 (650) 723-3563 [email protected] © 1998, 2006, 2012 Register of the Joseph Hansen 92035 1 papers Title: Joseph Hansen papers Date (inclusive): 1887-1980 Collection Number: 92035 Contributing Institution: Hoover Institution Archives Language of Material: English Physical Description: 109 manuscript boxes, 1 oversize box, 3 envelopes, 1 audio cassette(46.2 linear feet) Abstract: Speeches and writings, correspondence, notes, minutes, reports, internal bulletins, resolutions, theses, printed matter, sound recording, and photographs relating to Leon Trotsky, activities of the Socialist Workers Party in the United States, and activities of the Fourth International in Latin America, Western Europe and elsewhere. Physical Location: Hoover Institution Archives Creator: Hansen, Joseph, Access The collection is open for research; materials must be requested at least two business days in advance of intended use. Publication Rights For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Archives. Preferred Citation [Identification of item], Joseph Hansen papers, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Archives. Acquisition Information Acquired by the Hoover Institution Archives in 1992. Accruals Materials may have been added to the collection since this finding aid was prepared. To determine if this has occurred, find the collection in Stanford University's online catalog at http://searchworks.stanford.edu . Materials have been added to the collection if the number of boxes listed in the online catalog is larger than the number of boxes listed in this finding aid. -
How Useful Is the Theory of Permanent Revolution Today?
How useful is the Theory of Permanent Revolution Today? Theory of Permanent Revolution When Trotsky summarized his theory of Permanent Revolution in a book of the same title in 1929, he emphasized there are three aspects to this theory: "To dispel the chaos that has been created around the theory of the permanent revolution, it is necessary to distinguish three lines of thought that are united in this theory"1. The first aspect - according to Trotsky himself, "the central idea of the theory" - deals with "the problem of transition from the democratic revolution to the socialist"2. "there is established between the democratic revolution and the socialist reconstruction of society a permanent state of revolutionary development" and that "the democratic tasks of the backward bourgeois nations lead directly, in our epoch, to the dictatorship of proletariat and that the dictatorship of proletariat puts socialist tasks on the order of the day"3. In its general form this theory has been most helpful in explaining how in our epoch revolutionary movements in backward countries, even when seemingly beginning around democratic tasks, can grow over into socialist revolutions. It is this central aspect of the theory of permanent revolution that is our concern here. More precisely, the aim here is to investigate how useful is this theory today for formulating a revolutionary strategy for the periphery of the world capitalist system? Let us emphasize, the other two "lines of thought" within this theory, dealing with the revolutionary process of transition to socialism itself and the need for its extension internationally, are neither particularly specific to Trotsky nor in contention here.4 Furthermore, the superiority of this theory, when first expounded in 1904-06, in relation to both Menshevik and Bolshevik views of the impending Russian revolution has the proof of the October Revolution itself and is not being questioned here. -
Trotsky's 1918-Volume 1, Military Writings Table of Contents the Military Writings of LEON TROTSKY
Trotsky's 1918-Volume 1, Military Writings Table of Contents The Military Writings of LEON TROTSKY Volume 1, 1918 HOW THE REVOLUTION ARMED These writings were first published in 1923 by the Soviet Government. They were translated by Brian Pearce. Annotation is by Brian Pearce. Footnotes are from the original Russian edition. Transcribed for the Trotsky Internet Archive, now a subarchive of the Marxist writers' Internet Archive, by David Walters in 1996 with permission from Index Books/Trade Union Printing Services, 28 Charlotte St, London, W1P 1HJ Introduction to the on-line version This five volume collection of Leon Trotsky's military writings are a major contribution to Revolutionary Marxism. Trotsky was Commissar of Military and Navel Affairs for the newly formed Soviet Republic. In this capacitiy he lead the organization of the Red Army and Navy. This workers' and peasants' army, the first regular army of a workers' state, was to immediatly face its first confict with Imperialism and it's Russian represtitives in 1918. The five volumes represents the sum total of Trotsky's articles, essays, lectures and polemics as the leader of the Red Army. Some of the writings here were given at Red Army academies, at Bolshevik Party meetings and at national and local soviets. These writing represent official Soviet policy in general and Bolshevik Party positions specifically. All the writings represents Trotsky's thoughts in reaction to the events as they were transpiring around him from 1918 through 1922: war, revolution, counter-revolution, all without the calm reflection a historian, for example, would have enjoyed in writing about such events with the advantage of 20/20 hindsight. -
The Dewey-Trotsky Encounter in Politics and Praxis by Kevin S
In London Street: The Dewey-Trotsky Encounter in Politics and Praxis by Kevin S. Decker In London Street: The Dewey-Trotsky Encounter in Politics and Praxis by Kevin S. Decker English Abstract No one who has looked closely can fail to see a remarkable congruency between the synthesis of ideas that represents the culmination of classical pragmatism, on the one hand, and Marx’s early humanist program on the other. Despite this ground for potential commensurability, Trotsky and Dewey, while historical near-contemporaries, were fundamentally polar opposites; their contributions to “Their Morals and Ours,” Dewey and Trotsky found themselves on opposing theoretical positions with regard to the idea that, as one student of socialism claims, “as certainty about the future dissipates, ethics becomes necessary.” Despite the fact that one philosophized about civil society while the other acted in lieu of an established civil society, Dewey and Trotsky both recognized valid reasons for the crisis of public authority in Western liberalism. I argue that what unites the politics of Dewey with the early Marx, a view of praxis that demonstrates human intelligence as crystallized in social and technical practices, is precisely what Trotsky (and other Bolshevik leaders) abandoned in an effort to impose an over-intellectualized ideological framework on Russian society and culture. From this perspective, the Bolshevik experiment was bound to fail. The reasons for this entail lessons for how to address the “democratic deficit” in Western politics in general today. Resumen en español Nadie que haya mirado de cerca se puede dejar de ver una congruencia notable entre la síntesis de las ideas que representa la culminación del pragmatismo clásico, por un lado, y pronto programa humanista de Marx sobre el otro. -
Movement for a Revolutionary Socialist International -The Fourth
Manifesto for a Movement for a Revolutionary Socialist International -The Fourth International - The current Manifesto was approved by the Eighth International Conference of the Trotskyist Fraction - Fourth International, in August 2013 in Buenos Aires. The Trotskyist Fraction - Fourth International is composed of the: PTS (Partido de los Trabajadores Socialistas), Argentina; LTS-CC (Liga de Trabajadores por el Socialismo), México; LOR-CI (Liga Obrera Revolucionaria por la Cuarta Internacional), Bolivia; LER-QI (Liga Estratégia Revolucionária), Brazil; PTR (Partido de Trabajadores Revolucionarios), Chile; LTS (Liga de Trabajadores por el Socialismo), Venezuela; LRS (Liga de la Revolución Socialista), Costa Rica; CcC (Clase Contra Clase), Spain; Grupo RIO (Revolutionäre Internationalistische Organisation), Germany; Militants of the FT-CI in Uruguay; Militants of the FT in the CCR/Platform Z in the NPA, France. Build a Movement for a Revolutionary Socialist International – The Fourth International! The world capitalist system is going through the sixth year of an economic, po- litical and social crisis of historic dimensions. Under the blows of the crisis and the attacks of the governments and the capitalists, the struggle of the exploited is returning to the political stage. The ‘Arab Spring’ opened a new, upward cycle of the class struggle, after decades of retreat and a bourgeois offensive. The resistance of workers, young people and the poor is going through the centres of world capitalism, mainly in countries of the European Union subjected to austerity plans, like Greece, Spain or Portugal. From the uprisings in the Arab world to the students› struggle in Chile, going through the ‘Indignados’ in Spain, the young people of the movement ‘#yosoy132 in Mexico’, the Occupy Wall Street movement in the United States, the Taksim Square mobilisations in Turkey and the hundreds of thousands that flooded tine cities of Brazil, young people are acting like a sounding board for the social con- tradictions, in many cases, anticipating class conflicts. -
In Defence of Trotskyism No.2
In Defence of Trotskyism Price: Waged: £2.00, 3€ Concessions: 50p, Number 2 Summer 2011 Imperialism’s offensive against the world’s working class has sharply intensified since the credit crunch crisis began in 2008. Hand in hand with this goes the offensive against the ideol- ogy of global working class liberation, revolutionary Trotskyism. The political and ideological collapse of all the soft left groups who refuse to call for an anti-Imperialist United Front with- out political support with Gaddafi and who continue to back the counter-revolutionary rebels of Benghazi and demand the overthrow of Gaddafi on behalf of Imperialism is shocking. Today new ideologues and renegades join the old swamp of opportunism; Karl Kautsky finds a new champion in Lars T Lih. Max Shachtman and Raya Dunayevskaya, previously only de- fended by Sean Matgamna, find new adherents in Cyril Smith, The Commune, Permanent Revolution, the Movement for Socialism, etc. István Mészáros and Cliff Slaughter et al seek to trump the Bolshevism of Lenin and Trotsky with the counter-revolutionary reformist dross of history from the likes of Kautsky. IDOT does battle with all these petty bourgeois ideologues, enemies of humanity's communist future. Bibliography In Defence of Trotskyism is published by the Socialist Fight Group. Contact: PO Box 59188, London, NW2 9LJ. Email: [email protected] đoàn kết là ,اتحاد قدرت است . ,Unity is strength, L'union fait la force, Es la unidad fuerza, Η ενότητα είναι δύναμη sức mạnh, Jedność jest siła, ykseys on kesto, યુનિટિ થ્રૂ .િા , Midnimo iyo waa awood, hundeb ydy chryfder, Einheit ist unità è la ,אחדות היא כוח ,Stärke, एकता शक्ति, है единстве наша сила, vienybės jėga, bashkimi ben fuqine Ní neart go ,الوحدة هو القوة ,resistenza, 団結は力, A unidade é a força, eining er styrkur, De eenheid is de sterkte chur le céile, pagkakaisa ay kalakasan, jednota is síla, 일성은 이다 힘 힘, Workers of the World Unite! In Defence of Trotskyism page 2 Revolution. -
The Historical and International Foundations of the Socialist Equality Party
The Historical and International Foundations of the Socialist Equality Party Adopted by the SEP Founding Congress August 3-9, 2008 © 2008 Socialist Equality Party Contents The Principled Foundations of the Socialist Equality Party ......................................................................................................................1 The Origins and Development of Marxism .................................................................................................................................................2 The Origins of Bolshevism ..........................................................................................................................................................................3 The Theory of Permanent Revolution ........................................................................................................................................................4 Lenin’s Defense of Materialism ...................................................................................................................................................................5 Imperialist War and the Collapse of the Second International ..................................................................................................................6 The Russian Revolution and the Vindication of Permanent Revolution ..................................................................................................8 The Communist International ..................................................................................................................................................................10 -
On the WSWS's “Curious Fumble” on Iraq and Other Matters
An exchange with an apologist for the SEP leadership: On the WSWS’s “curious fumble” on Iraq and other matters I’m posting here some comments by a reader, mdv, and my response. Judging from mdv’s remarks, it is fair to characterize him as an apologist for the SEP leadership. But what is interesting is that unlike David North (or the Talbots), mdv tries to address some of the substantive criticisms we made of the SEP’s political line and practice. His efforts to defend the SEP leadership on these issues lead him to make, albeit inadvertently, some revealing statements which deserve to be brought to the attention of our readers. Another reason for responding to mdv is that the views he expresses are probably shared by others in and around the SEP. These comments by mdv are the latest installment of an exchange he was having with Andrew River over a blog River wrote for permanent-revolution.org concerning a speech by North to a Slavic studies conference.1 As far as this exchange goes, I have nothing to add to what River has said, and mdv’s latest remarks raise nothing new on this score. From the second paragraph on, however, mdv moves to a more broad-based defense of the SEP leadership, and it is these remarks that concern me here. Frank Brenner * * * * * Mdv’s comments: I think you're grasping at straws to come up with an indictment of North that fits the narrative that Steiner, Brenner and yourself have already constructed. You, once again, harp on the grand ideological conclusions you deduce from what is frankly a less-than-questionable phrasing in North's comments (which you morph into a "schema" at odds with the ABCs of Marxism), lecturing me on how "History" doesn't automatically solve the problems of revolution, socialism and so on. -
Opportunism and Empiricism
Introduction We are making available an online version of one of the bedrock documents of the International Committee, Opportunism and Empiricism. This historical document played a key role in educating a generation of Trotskyists about the difference between revolutionary Marxism and petty-bourgeois opportunism. It first appeared as an internal bulletin during the split between the International Committee and the Socialist Workers Party in 1963. Largely drafted by Cliff Slaughter, it emerged out of the deliberations of the National Committee of the Socialist Labour League, then the British section of the International Committee of the Fourth International. It was later reprinted in the theoretical journal of the International Committee, Fourth International, in the summer of 1965. It was once again reprinted in the anthology, Trotskyism versus Revisionism, published by New Park Publications in 1974. It has not been reprinted since. That this long out of print key document from the annals of the International Committee has not been made available for over three decades speaks volumes about the lack of commitment of the present leadership of the International Committee to training the movement in the history and principles of Trotskyism. As with all important polemics in the history of Marxism, an event of considerable historical significance was the trigger. The period from 1961 to 1963 saw the American Socialist Workers Party making a decisive break from Marxism. With long-time leader James P. Cannon in semi-retirement in California, the reins of the party leadership passed to Joseph Hansen and Farrell Dobbs. Hansen had for a long time represented a right wing tendency within the party leadership. -
Read the Introduction
5. Was the “Democratic Dictatorship” Realized in Our Country? If So, When? 253 Introduction 6. On the Skipping of Historical Stages 269 by Luma Nichol 7. What Does the Slogan of the Democratic Permanent revolution today takes aim at the capitalist Dictatorship Mean Today for the East? 275 state, its institutions, and the vast interlocking system of hu- 8. From Marxism to Pacifism 294 man and social relations that form the matrix of world bour- 9. Epilogue 305 geois oppression. It recognizes the proletariat as the motor 10. What is the Permanent Revolution? force of world economy and the strategic spearhead of inter- Basic Postulates 310 national revolution. And it bases itself on the mutual interde- pendence of the proletarian struggle and all other liberation GLOSSARY 316 movements. INDEX 332 —Murry Weiss* Anyone reaching the conclusion that the future of Mother Earth and her inhabitants depends on a total overhaul of the current system will ask: “How do we change the world? And what’s a better way to operate?” Permanent revolution, both the book and the theory, answers these questions with a thor- ough historical analysis of the dynamics of revolution, an anal- ysis that has stood the test of time. The concept of permanent revolution was developed by Leon Trotsky, who used it to foresee key elements of the world’s first successful overturn of capitalism, the Russian Revolution of 1917, in which he was a central leader. Today the axioms of his theory still hold true: Every fight to end poverty, increase human rights or achieve national liberation requires the lead- ership of the working class and socialism in order to have last- ing success.