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The Development and Extension of Leon Trotsky's Theory of Permanent Revolution International Communist League Pamphlet il ':'·"·i:~:f\:h"'" I International Communisf~e~gues:: Ine Down With Executi,veOffic:IJs of the Capitalist State! .. ............ AUSTRAlIA ... A$2 BRITAIN ... £1.50 CANADA ... CDN$2 IRELAND ... €1.50 SOUTH AFRICA ... R4 USA ... US$2 II, !Ii lill Ii - lilll - iii.. Introduction This pamphlet consists of three articles from the press of the Interna­ tional Communist League (Fourth Internationalist) and our American sec­ tion, the Spartacist League/U.S. "The Development and Extension of Leon Trotsky's Theory of Permanent Revolution" was originally published as a four-part series in the SUU.S. press (Workers Vanguard Nos. 901-904, 26 October-7 December 2007). It has also been published in Spanish in the press of our Mexican section, the Grupo Espartaquista de Mexico (Espartaco No. 29, April 2008). "Rearming Bolshevism-A Trotskyist Critique of Germany 1923 and the Comintern" was published in Sparta­ Gist ([English-language edition] No. 56, Spring 2001). Spartacist is the ICL's theoretical and documentary repository, published in English, Span­ ish, French and German. "Down With Executive Offices of the Capitalist State!" published here in slightly edited form consists of sections from the Spartacist article, "Maintaining a Revolutionary Program in the Post­ Soviet Period" (Spartacist[English-language edition] No. 60, Autumn 2007), which reported on the most recent international conference of the ICL. We also publish here (reprinted from the same issue of Spartacist) an excerpt dealing with the question of executive offices from the main docu­ ment adopted at that conference. These articles together constitute an introduction to the historically founded principles and program of Trotskyism, the continuity of revolu­ tionary Marxism in our time. Because they illustrate core elements of our program, built on the fight for complete and unconditional independence of the proletariat from all the parties and agencies of the capitalist class enemy, they illuminate the political gulf between the ICL and all the opportunists·who falsely claim to be Marxists and to represent the historic interests of the working class. The understanding that the revolutionary working class cannot reform the capitalist state to serve its own interests but must smash that state power and create its own state-a workers state-is fundamental to our outlook. In contrast, our political oppo­ nents on the left practice what Trotsky described as "the actual training of the masses to become imbued with the inviolability of the bourgeois state" (Lessons of October, 1924). Spartaclst Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 • April 2008 Cover graphic: Bolshevik slogans were prominent among banners celebrating May Day in Petrograd, 1917. Among those pictured: "For the Arming of the People/Long Live the International," "Russian Social Democratic Labor Party [Bolsheviks] of Kronstadt Proletarians." Inset: Leon Trotsky in Moscow shortly after the Russian Revolution. Cover credits: Novosti (main photo). Basil Blackwell Inc. (inset) --- 3 The Development, and Extension of leon Trotsk1'sTheory of Penrtane .t Revolution This month marks the 90th Just before Results and anniversary of the Russian Prospects appeared, the 1905 Revolution led by the Bol­ Russian Revolution had shak­ shevik Party of V. I. Lenin en the tsarist empire to its and Leon Trotsky. The Octo­ foundations and brought to ber Revolution was the defin­ the fore an intense debate over ing event of the 20th century. the future course of revolu­ tionary developments. Rus­ sia was an imperialist power PART ONE but also the weakest link in the imperialist chain, saddled Spurred especially by the car­ with an absolutist monarchy, nage of World War I, the work­ an encrusted landed aristoc­ ing class took state power, racy and a huge Russian Or­ establishing the dictatorship thodox state church. of the proletariat. In doing so, The young, vibrant bour­ the multinational proletariat geoisies of 17th-century Eng­ of Russia not only liberated land and 18th-century France itself from capitalist exploi­ had stood at the head of the tation but also led the peas­ urban and rural populace in antry, national minorities and bourgeois-democratic revo­ all the oppressed in driving Leon Trotsky in jail in aftermath of 1905 Revolution. lutions that swept away simi­ out feudal tyranny and impe­ Trotsky's 1906 Our Revolution (top inset) included lar feudal-derived fetters on rialist bondage. Results and Prospects, which explained theory of modern capitalist develop­ The young workers state . permanent revolution and was republished under ment and would give rise carried out an agrarian revo­ title shown (bottom inset) in Moscow in 1921. to an industrial proletariat. lution and recognized the right But the late-emerging Rus­ of self-determination of all nations in what had been the tsar­ sian bourgeoisie-subordinated to foreign industrialists and ist prison house of peoples. The soviet regime took Russia bankers, tied by a thousand threads to the aristocracy-was out of the interimperialist world war and inspired class­ weak and cowardly, fearful that it, too, would be swept away conscious workers in other countries to try to follow the should the worker and peasant masses rise up against the Bolshevik example. The Third (Communist) International, tsarist autocracy. which held its inaugural congress in Moscow in 1919, was Addressing this contradiction, Trotsky argued, as he later founded to lead the proletariat internationally in the struggle summarized in the August 1939 article "Three Conceptions for socialist revolution. of the Russian Revolution" (also known as ''Three Concepts"): The October Revolution was a stunning confirmation of "The complete victory of the democratic revolution in Russia is the theory and perspective of permanent revolution devel­ inconceivable otherwise than in the form of the dictatorship of oped by Trotsky. In his 1906 work Results and Prospects, the proletariat basing itself on the peasantry. The dictatorship of Trotsky projected that because Russia, despite its economic the proletariat, which will inescapably place on the order of the day not only democratic but also socialist tasks, will at the same backwardness, was already part of a world capitalist econ­ time provide a mighty impulse to the international socialist revo­ omy that was ripe for socialism, the workers could come to lution. Only the victory of the proletariat in the West will shield power there before an extended period of capitalist develop­ Russia from bourgeois restoration and secure for her the pos­ ment. Indeed, the workers would have .to come to power if sibility of bringing the socialist construction to its conclusion." Russia was to be liberated from its feudal past. At the heart As the Bolsheviks anticipated, the October Revolution of the Bolsheviks' success in 1917 was the coming together inspired proletarian upheavals in Europe, particularly Ger­ of Trotsky's program of permanent revolution with Lenin's many, as well as anti-colonial and national liberation strug­ single-minded struggle to build a programmatically steeled gles in Asia and elsewhere. But despite the revolutionary fer­ and tested vanguard party against all manner of reconcilia­ ment, the proletariat did not come to power in any of the tion with the capitalist order. advanced capitalist countries of the West. Russia, bled white 4 Combined and uneven development in Mexico: GM plant in Matamoros (left), peasants plowing cornfield using horses and wooden Implements in the state of Mexico, May 2007. by imperialist war and the bloody Civil War that erupted a few capitalism extended its tentacles into ever more remote months after the Bolsheviks took power, remained isolated. regions of the globe. This was seen decisively in China, Conditions of great material scarcity produced strong objec­ where a young urban proletariat had emerged in the years tive pressures toward bureaucratism. The failure to consum­ during and after World War I. But unlike the Bolshevik Revo­ mate an exceptional opportunity for socialist revolution in lution, the Chinese Revolution of 1925-27 went down to Germany in 1923 allowed a restabilization of the world capi­ bloody defeat. The crucial reason, as we will detail later in talist order and led to profound demoralization among Soviet this article, is that the proletariat was subordinated to the workers. This facilitated a political counterrevolution and the bourgeoisie instead of fighting for power in its own name and rise of a privileged bureaucratic caste around Joseph Stalin. leading the mass of the peasantry. Drawing the lessons of that In late 1924, Stalin promulgated the dogma of "socialism defeat, in The Third International After Lenin (1928) and The in one country." This flouted the Marxist understanding that Permanent Revolution (1930), Trotsky generalized the the­ socialism-a classless society of material abundance--could ory of permanent revolution to all countries of belated capi­ only be built on the basis of the most modem technology and talist development in the imperialist epoch. an international division of labor, requiring proletarian revo­ The validity of this revolutionary perspective has been lutions in at least a number of the most advanced capitalist repeatedly demonstrated in the decades since. Dozens of for­ countries. Stalin and his henchmen suppressed proletarian mer colonies have achieved independent statehood, including democracy and, over the years, transformed
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