(vii) The endeavor of the Comintern to foist upon the Eastern countries the slogan of the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry, finally and long ago exhausted by history, can have only a reactionary effect. In so far as this slogan is counter-posed to the slogan of the dictatorship of the proletariat, it contributes to the dis- solution of the proletariat into the petty bourgeois masses and in this manner* creates better conditions for the hege- mony of the national bourgeoisie and consequently for the collapse of the democratic revolution. The introduction of this slogan into the program of the Comintern is a direct betrayal of Marxism and of the October traditions of Bol- shevism.
(viii) The dictatorship of the proletariat which has risen to power as the leader of the democratic revolution is in- evitably and very quickly placed before tasks that are bound up with deep inroads into the rights of bourgeois property. The democratic revolution grows over immedi- ately into the socialist, and thereby becomes a permanent revolution.
(ix) The conquest of power by the proletariat does not FUNDAMENTAL THESES terminate the revolution, but only opens it. Socialist con- struction is conceivable only on the foundation of the class struggle, on a national and international scale. This struggle, under the ^conditions of an overwhelming pre- dominence of capitalist relationships on the world arena, will inevitably lead to explosions, that is, internally to civil wars, and externally to revolutionary wars. Therein lies the permanent character of the socialist revolution as such, regardless of whether it is a backward country that is in- volved, which only yesterday accomplished its democratic revolution, or an old capitalist country, which already has behind it a long epoch of democracy and parliamentarism.
(x) The completion of the socialist revolution within national limits is unthinkable. One of the basic reasons for the crisis in bourgeois society is the fact that the pro- ductive forces created by it conflict with the framework of the national state. From this follow, on the one hand, imperialist wars, and on the other, the Utopia of the bour- geois United States of Europe. The socialist revolution commences on the national arena, is developed further on the inter-state and finally on the world arena. Thus, the socialist revolution becomes a permanent revolution in a newer and broader sense of the word; it attains completion only in the final victory of the new society on our entire planet.
(xi) The above outlined schema of the development of the world revolution eliminates the question of the countries that are "mature" or "immature" for socialism in the spirit of that pedantic, lifeless classification given by the present program of the Comintern. In so far as capitalism has created the world market, the division of labor and pro- ductive forces throughout the world, it has also prepared world economy for socialist transformation.
The various countries will go through this process at different tempos. Backward countries, under certain con- ditions, can arrive at the dictatorship of the proletariat sooner than the advanced countries, but they come later PERMANENT REVOLUTION than the latter to socialism.
tA. backward colonial or semi-colonial countyry, whose proletariat is insufficiently prepared to unite the peasantry and seize power, is thereby incapable $f bringing the demo- cratic revolution to its conclusion. On the contrary, in a country where the proletariat has power in its hands as the result of the democratic revolution, the subsequent fate of the/ dictatorship and socialism is not only and not so much dependent in the final analysis upon the national productive forces, as it is upon the development of the international socialist revolution.
(xii) The theory of socialism in one country which rose on the yeast of the reaction against October is the only theory that consistently, and to the very end, opposes the theory of the permanent revolution.
The attempt of the epigones, under the blows of our criticism, to confine the application of the theory of social- ism in one country exclusively to Russia, because of its specific characteristics (its extensiveness and its natural resources) does not improve matters but only makes them worse. The break with the international position always leads to a national messianism, that is, to attribute special prerogatives and peculiarities to one's own country, which would permit it to play a role that other countries cannot attain.
The world division of labor, the dependence of Soviet industry upon foreign technique, the dependence of the productive forces of the advanced countries of Europe upon Asiatic raw materials, etc., etc., make the construction of a socialist society in any single country impossible.
(xiii) The theory of Stalin-Bucharin not only contrasts the democratic revolution quite mechanically to the socialist revolution, but also tears the national revolution from the international path.
This theory sets the revolution in the backward countries the task of establishing an unrealizable regime of the demo* cratic dictatorship, it contrasts this regime to the dictator- FUNDAMENTAL THESES ship of the proletariat, thus introducing illusion and fiction into politics, paralyzing the struggle for power of the pro- letariat in the East, and hampering the victory of the colonial revolution.
The very seizure of power by the proletariat signifies, from the standpoint of the theory of the epigones, the completion of the revolution (to "nine-tenths", according to Stalin's formula) and the opening of the epoch of national reform. The theory of the kulak growing into socialism and the theory of the "neutralization" of the world bourgeoisie are consequently inseparable from the theory of socialism in one country. They stand and fall together.
By the theory of national socialism, the Communist International is degraded to a weapon useful only for the struggle against military intervention. The present policy of the Comintern, its regime, and the selection of its lead- ing personnel, correspond entirely to the debasement of the Communist International to an auxiliary corps which is not destined to solve independent tasks.
(xiv) The program of the Comintern created by Bucharin is thoroughly eclectic. It makes the hopeless attempt ta reconcile the theory of socialism in one country with Marxian internationalism, which is, however, inseparable from the permanent character of the world revolution. The struggle of the Communist Left Opposition for a correct policy and a healthy regime in the Communist International is inseparably combined with a struggle for a Marxian pro- gram. The question of the program in turn is inseparable from the question of the two mutually exclusive theories: the theory of permanent revolution and the theory of socialism in one country. The problem of the permanent revolution has long ago outgrown the episodic differences of opinion between Lenin and Trotsky, which were com- pletely exhausted by history. The struggle is between the basic ideas of Marx and Lenin on the one side and the eclectics of the Centrists on the other.
CONSTANTINOPLE, November 80, 1929.
NOTES 1 This speech was delivered on May 6, 1929, was first published at the beginning of 1980, and under such circumstances that it acquires a "programmatic" significance.
2 Algebra deals with general quantities (a, b, c) in contrast to arithmetic which always employs definite quantities (1, 2, 8).
3 This prophecy has in the meantime been fulfilled.
4 In 1909, Lenin did indeed quote my Results and Perspectives, in an article intended as a polemic against Martov. It would not, how- ever, be difficult to prove that Lenin took over the quotations at second hand, that is, from Martov in this case. This is the only way that certain of his replies directed at me, which are based upon obvious misunderstanding^, can be explained.
In 1919, the State Publishing House issued my Results and Perspec- tives as a special pamphlet. The annotation to the complete edition of Lenin's works, which is to the effect that the theory of the per- manent revolution is especially note- worthy "now", after the October revolution, dates back to approximately the same time. Did Lenin read my Results and Perspectives in 1919, or merely glance through it? On this I cannot say anything definite. I was then constantly travelling, came to Moscow only for short stays, and during my meet- ings with Lenin ic that period at the height of the civil war fac- tional theoretical reminiscences never entered our minds. But A. A. Joffe did have r conversation with Lenin, just at that time, on the theory of the permanent revolution. Joffe reported this conversation in the farewell letter he wrote me before his death. (See My Life, Scribners, New York, page 537). Can A. A. Joffe's assertions be con- strued that Lenin in 1919 became acquainted for the first time with Results and Prespectives and confirmed the correctness of the his- torical prognosis contained in it? On this matter I can only express psychological conjectures. The power of conviction of these conjec- tures depends upon the evaluation of the kernel of the disputed question its. If. A. A. Joffe's words, that Lenin had confirmed my prognosis as correct, must appear incomprehensible to a man who has been raised upon the theoretical margarine of the post-Leninist epoch.
On the other hand, whoever reflects upon the evolution of Lenin's ideas in connection with the development of the revolution itself, will understand that Lenin, in 1919. had to deliver a new judgment on the theory of the permanent revolution, different from the ones he pronounced fleetingly, in passing, often manifestly self-contradictory* at various times before the October revolution, on the br*is of isola- ted quotations without even once examining my position a a whole.
In order to confirm iny prognosis as correct in 1919, Lenin did not need to contrast my position to his. It sufficed to consider both positions in their historical development. It is not necessary to repeat here that the concrete content with which Lenin always invested his formula of "democratic dictatorship" and which resulted less from a hypothetical formula than from the analysis of the actual change PERMANENT REVOLUTION in class relationships of forces that this tactical and organizational content has passed once and for all into the inventory of history as a classic example of revolutionary realism. In almost all the cases, at any rate in all the important cases, where I placed myself in con- tradiction to Lenin tactically or organizationally, the right was on his side. That is just why it did not interest me to come forward for my old historical prognosis, so long as it might appear that it was only a matter of historical reminiscences. I found myself compelled to return to this question only at the moment when the criticism of the epigones of the theory of the permanent revolu- tion not only began to nurture the theoretical reaction of the whole International, but also became converted into a means of the direct sabotage of the Chinese revolution.
5 As is known, the voluminous minutes of this historic session were torn out of the jubilee book c,t the special command of Stalin and to this day are kept concealed from the party.
I recollect that I called out to Bucharin at r fce Seventh Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International when he cited the same quotations: "But there are also directly contrary quotations in Lenin.'* After a brief moment of perplexity, Bucharin retorted: "I know that, I know that, but I cm taking what I need, not what you need." There is the quick repartee of this theoretician for yon!
It should be remembered that at that time Parvus stood at the extreme Left wing of international Marxism.
7 The Trudovik were the representatives of the peasants in the four Dumas, constantly oscillating between the Cadets (Liberals) and the social democrats.
8 This quotation, together with a hundred others, shows in passing that I recognized the existence of the peasantry and the significance of the agrarian question already on the eve of the 1905 revolution, that is, that I began to be aware of the significance of the peasantry somewhat earlier than the Maslows, Thalheimers, Thalmanns Rem- meles, Cachins, Monmousseaus, Bela Runs, Peppers, Kuusinens and other Marxian sociologists.
9 At the 1909 conference, Lenin recommended the formula of "the proletariat which leads the peasantry", but then he associated himself with the formula of the Polish social democrats which thereby obtained the majority at the conference against the Mensheviks.
10 In a speech, Stalin once called himself the "Master of the revolution".
11 The local autonomous administration, the "zemstvo", consisted of representatives of the landowners among, the nobility ("zemtsi").
"Yakovlev was recently appointed People's Commissar of Agri- culture of the U. S. S. R.
"Excerpt from the minutes of the session of the Organization Bureau of the Central Committee of May 22, 1922, under No. 21: NOTES "To commission comrade Yakoylev...to compile a textbook on the history of the October revolution under the editorial supervision of comrade Trotsky."
14 On June 8 (16), 1907, the coup d'etat was completed which for- inaugurated the period of triumphant counter-revolution.
"Literally, "tail-endist", One who drags along in tow of events Tr.
"Chiang Kai-Shek is the leader of the Right wing, and Wang Chin Wei of the Left wing of the Kuo Min Tang. Tang Ping, Shan was in the leadership of the Communist Party of China during the revolu- tionary upsurge, defended the policies of Stalin-Bucharin-Martinov in China, was one of the spokesmen in the international campaign against "Trotskyism" and became the "Communist" minister of agriculture in the bourgeois government of Hankow in 1927. He is now outside the ranks of the Communist Party of China and has since become an adversary of Communism. Tr.
; 7 Menzhinsky is the head of the O. G. P. U., (the State Politic*! Administration); Yaroslavsky is one of the heads of the Central Control Commission of the party and was especially active in attacking, the Opposition and expelling many of its adherents from the party. Tr.