essence of the revolutionary tasks of the world proletariat than a sophomoric and pedantic exposition of these poli- tical ideas, torn out of the conditions of struggle which gave birth to them.
15 INTRODUCTION THE PRESENT book is dedicated to the question which is intimately linked with the history of the three Russian revolutions. But not with that alone. This question has , played an enormous role in recent years in the internal' struggle of the C.P.S.U., it was carried into the C.L., played a decisive role in the development of the Chinese revolution and determined a whole series of most impor- tant decisions which are bound up with the revolutionary struggle of the countries of the East. It concerns the theory of the "permanent revolution" which, after the teaching of the epigones of Leninism (Zinoviev, Stalin, Bucharin, etc.) represents the original sin of "Trotskyism".
The question of the permanent revolution was once more raised in 1924 after a long interval, apparently quite un- expectedly. Political. grounds for it, there were none: for it was a question of differences of opinion which long ago belonged to the past. Psychological grounds, on the contrary, there were many. The group of so-called "old Bolsheviks" which had opened up the fight against me first of all counterposed this title to me. But a great obstacle in the path of this group was the year 1917. Important as had been the preceding history of ideological struggle and of preparation with regard to the party as a whole, as well as with regard to single individuals, this period found its highest and irrevocable test in the October revolution.
16 INTRODUCTION Not a single one of the epigones stood up under this test. Without exception, they all adopted the vulgar position ol the democratic Left wingers at the time of the February 1917 revolution. Not a single one of them raised the slogan of the struggle of the proletariat for power. They all regarded the course towards a socialist revolution as absurd or still worse as "Trotskyism". In this spirit they directed the party up till the arrival of Lenin from abroad and up till the appearance of his famous theses of April 4. Thereafter Kamenev endeavoured, already in direct struggle against Lenin, openly to form a democratic wing of Bolshevism. Later, he was joined by Zinoviev, who had arrived with Lenin. Stalin, heavily compromised by his social patriotic position, stepped aside. He let the party forget his miserable articles and speeches of the deci- sive March weeks and gradually edged over to Lenin's standpoint. That is why the question rose by itself, so to speak: What did Leninism give to any one of these lead- ing "old Bolshevik^" when not a single one of them show- ed himself capable of applying independently the theoreti- cal and practical experiences of the party at the most im- portant and most responsible historical moment? Atten- tion had to be diverted from this question at all costs and another question substituted for it. To this end, it was decided to open fire on the permanent revolution. My adversaries did not, of course, foresee that by the creation of an artificial axis of struggle they would be compelled, without noticing it, to revolve around it themselves and manufacture a new world outlook for themselves.
In its essential features, the theory of the permanent revolution was formulated by me even before the decisive events of 1905. Russia was approaching the bourgeois re- volution. Nobody in the ranks of the Russian social democracy (we all called ourselves social democrats then) had any doubts that we were approaching a bourgeois re- volution, that is, a revolution produced by the contradic- tions between the development of the productive forces of 17 PERMANENT REVOLUTION capitalist society and the outlived caste and state relation- ships of the period of serfdom and the Middle Ages. In the struggle against the Narodniki and the anarchists, I had to devote not a few speeches and articles in those days to the Marxian analysis of the bourgeois character of the impending revolution.
The bourgeois character of the revolution could not, however, answer in advance the question as to which classes would solve the tasks of the democratic revolution and what the mutual relations of these classes would be. It was precisely at this point that the fundamental strategical problems began.
Plechanov, Axelrod, Zasulitch, Martov, and following them, all the Russian Mensheviks, took as their premise that to the liberal bourgeoisie, as the natural claimant for power, belonged the leading role in the bourgeois revolu- tion. According to this schema, there was assigned to the party of the proletariat the role of the Left wing of the democratic front. The social democracy was to support the liberal bourgeoisie against the reaction and at the same time to defend the interests of the proletariat against the liberal bourgeoisie. In other words, the Mensheviks under- stood the bourgeois revolution principally as a liberal-con- stitutional form.
Lenin posed the question differently. The liberation of the productive forces of bourgeois society from the fetters of serfdom signified for Lenin primarily a radical solution of the agrarian question in the sense of the complete liqui- dation of the landowning class and the revolutionary re- distribution of land ownership. Inseparably connected with this, was the destruction of the monarchy. Lenin set to work on the agrarian problem, which affected the life interests of the overwhelming majority of the popula- tion and at the same time constituted the basic problem of the capitalist market, with a truly revolutionary boldness. Since the liberal bourgeoisie, which confronts the workers as an enemy, is intimately bound by innumerable ties to 18 INTRODUCTION 18 INTRODUCTION large land ownership, the genuine democratic liberation of the peasantry can only be realized by the revolutionary co- operation of the workers and peasants. Their joint up- rising against the old society, must, according to Lenin, in case of victory, lead to the establishment of the "demo- cratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry".
This formula is now repeated in the Communist Inter- national as a sort of supra-historical dogma, without the attempt at an analysis of the living historical experiences of the last quarter of a century, as though we had not been witnesses and participants in the revolution of 1905, the February revolution of 1917, and finally, of the October overturn. Such an historical analysis, however, is all the more necessary because there never has been in history a regime of the "democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry".
In 1905, it was a question with Lenin of a strategical hypothesis which required a test in the reality of the class struggle. The formula of the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry in large measure bore an intentionally algebraic 2 character. Lenin did not answer in advance the question of what the political relations would be between the two participants ^n the proposed democratic dictatorship, that is, of the proletariat and the peasantry. He did not exclude the possibility that the peasantry would be represented in the revolution by an in- dependent party, independent in the double sense: that is, not only with regard to the bourgeoisie but also with regard to the proletariat, and at the same time, capable of realizing the democratic revolution in alliance with the party of the proletariat in struggle against the liberal bour- geoisie. Lenin even reckoned, as we shall soon see, with the possibility that the revolutionary peasants' party might constitute the majority in the government of the democratic dictatorship.
In the question of the decisive significance of the agra- rian Devolution for the fate of our bourgeois revolution, I 19 PERMANENT REVOLUTION was, at least since the autumn of 1902, that is, from the moment of my first flight abroad, a pupil of Lenin. That the agrarian revolution, and consequently also the general democratic revolution, could be realized only by the united forces of the workers and peasants in struggle against the liberal bourgeoisie, was for me, contrary to all the sense- less fairy tales of recent years, beyond any doubt. Yet I came out against the formula: "democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry", because I saw its short- coming in the fact that it left open the question of what class the real dictatorship would belong to.
I endeavored to show that in spite of its enormous social and revolutionary weightiness, the peasantry was incapable of creating a really independent party and still more in- capable of concentrating the revolutionary power in its hands. Just as the peasantry in the old revolutions since the German Reformation of the 16th century, and even before that, supported one of the fractions of the city bourgeois by its uprisings, and not infrequently insured its victory, so it could show a similar support in our belated bourgeois revolution at the highest swing of the struggle of the proletariat, and help it seize power. From this I drew the conclusion th^t our bourgeois revolution could solve its task radically only in the event that the proletariat, with the aid of the many-millioned peasantry, were capable of concentrating the revolutionary dictatorship in its hands.
What would be the social content of this dictatorship? First of all, it would have to carry out thoroughly the agra- rian revolution and the democratic transformation of the state. In other words, the dictatorship of the proletariat would be a means of solving the tasks of the historically belated bourgeois revolution. But the matter could not be confined to this. Having reached power, the proleta- riat would be compelled to encroach ever more deeply upon the relationships of private property in general, that is, to take the road of socialist measures.
"Do you perhaps believe", the Stalins, Rykovs and all 20 INTRODUCTION the other Molotovs rejoined dozens of times from 1905 to 1917, "that Russia is ripe for the socialist revolution?" To that I always answered: No, I do not. But world economy as a whole, and European economy in the first, place, ip completely ripe for the socialist revolution. Whether the dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia leads to socialism or not, and at what rate and over what stages, will depend upon the further fate of European and inter- national capitalism.
These were the essential features of the theory of the permanent revolution at its origin in the early months of 1905. Since then, three revolutions have taken place. The Russian proletariat ascended to power on the mighty wave of the peasant insurrection. The dictatorship of the proletariat became a fact in Russia earlier than in any other of the immeasurably more developed countries of the world. In 1924, that is, seven years aftei* the historical prognosis of the theory of the permanent revolution was confirmed with rare forces, the epigones opened up a wild attack against this theory, and plucked isolated sentences and polemical rejoinders out of my old works, which I had since completely forgotten.
It is appropriate to call to mind here that the first Russian revolution broke out more than half a century after the wave of bourgeois revolutions in Europe and thirty-five years after the episodic uprising of the Paris Commune. Europe had had time to disaccustom itself from revolutions. Russia had not experienced any. All the problems of the revolution had to be posed anew. It is not difficult to conceive how many unknown and puta- tive quantities the future revolution held up for us in those days. The slogans of all the groupings were to a, certain extent based upon hypotheses. A complete incapacity for historical prognoses and utter lack of understanding of their methods is required in order now, after the event, to consider analyses and evaluations of 1905 as though they were written yesterday. I have often said to myself and 21 PEBMANENT REVOLUTION to my friends: I do not doubt that my prognoses of 1905 contained many defects which are not hard to disclose now, after the event. But did my critics see better and fur- ther? I had considered the defects in my old works, which I had not perused for a long time, more serious and important than they really are. I convinced myself of that in 1928, when the political leisure imposed upon me in the banishment at Alma-Ata, afforded me the possibility to scrutinize with pencil in hand the old works on the per- manent revolution. I hope that the reader too will be thoroughly convinced of this by what follows.
It is nevertheless necessary, within the limits of this in- troduction, to present as exact as possible, a characteriza- tion of the elements of the theory of the permanent revolu- tion and of the most important objections to it. The differences of opinion have become so broadened and deepened that they now actually embrace all the most im- portant questions of the revolutionary world movement.
The permanent revolution, in the sense which Marx attached to the conception, means a revolution which makes no compromise with any form of class rule, which does not stop at the democratic stage, which goes over to socialist measures and to war against the reaction from without, that is, a revolution whose every next stage is anchored in the preceding one and Which can only end in the complete liquidation of all class society.
To dispel the chaos that has been created around the theory of the permanent revolution, it is necessary to dis- tinguish three lines of thought that are united in this theory.
First, it embraces the problem of the transition of the democratic revolution into the socialist. This is really the historical origin of the theory.
The conception of the permanent revolution was set up by the great Communists of the middle of the 19th century, by Marx and his adherents, in opposition to that democratic ideology which, as is known, presumed that all 22 INTRODUCTION questions should be settled peacefully, in a reformist or evolutionary way, by the erection of the "rational" or democratic state. Marx regarded the bourgeois revolution of? 48 as the direct introduction to the proletarian revolu- tion. Marx "erred". Yet his error has a factual and not a methodological character. The revolution of 1848 did not turn into the socialist revolution. But that is just why it also did not achieve democracy. As to the German revolution of 1918, it is no democratic completion of the bourgeois revolution: it is a proletarian revolution de- capitated by the social democracy; more correctly, it is the bourgeois counter-revolution^ which is compelled to preserve pseudo-democratic forms after the victory over the proletariat.
Vulgar "Marxism" has worked out a schema of historical development, according to which every bourgeois society sooner or later secures a democratic regime, and after which it gradually organizes and raises the proletariat, under the conditions of democracy, to socialism. As to the transition to socialism itself, there have been various notions: the avowed reformists imagined this transition as the reformist cramming of democracy with a socialist content (Jaures). The formal revolutionists acknowledged the inevitability of applying revolutionary violence in the transition to socialism (Guesde). But both of them regarded democracy and socialism with regard to all peoples and countries as two not only entirely separated stages in the development of society, but also lying at great distances from each other. This view was predominant also among those Russian Marx- ists who, in the period of 1905, belonged to the Left wing of the Second International. Plechanov, the brilliant pro- genitor of Russian Marxism, considered the idea of the dic- tatorship of the proletariat a delusion in contemporary Russia. The same standpoint was defended not only by the Mensheviks, but also by the overwhelming majority of the leading Bolsheviks, among them all the present party leaders without exception, who at that time were resolute revolu- 28 PERMANENT REVOLUTION tionary democrats, for whom the problem of the socialist revolution, not only in 1905 but also on the eve of 1917, still signified the vague music of a distant future.
These ideas and moods declared war upon the theory of the permanent revolution, risen anew in 1905. It pointed out that the democratic tasks of the backward bourgeois nations in our epoch led to the dictatorship of the proleta- riat and that the dictatorship of the proletariat puts the socialist tasks on the order of the day. In that lay the central idea of the theory. If the traditional view was that the road to the dictatorship of the proletariat led through a long period of democracy, the theory of the permanent revo- lution established the fact that for backward countries the road to democracy passed through the dictatorship of the proletariat. By that alone, democracy does not become a regime anchored within itself for decades, but rather a direct introduction to the socialist revolution. Each is bound to the other by an unbroken chain. In this way, there arises between the democratic revolution and the socialist transformation of society a permanency of revolu- tionary development.
The second aspect of the "permanent" theory already characterizes the socialist revolution as such. For an in- definitely long time and in constant internal struggle, all social relations are transformed. The process necessarily retains a political character, that is, it develops through collisions of various groups of society in transformation. Outbreaks of civil war and foreign wars alternate with periods of "peaceful" reforms. Revolutions in economy, technique, science, the family, morals and usages develop in complicated reciprocal action and do not allow society to reach equilibrium. Therein lies the permanent charac- ter of the socialist revolution as such.
The international character of the socialist revolution, which constitutes the third aspect of the theory of the per- manent revolution, results from the present state of economy and the social structure of humanity. Internationalism is 24 INTRODUCTION no abstract principle, but a theoretical and political reflection of the character of world economy, of the world development of productive forces, and the world scale of the class struggle. The socialist revolution begins on national grounds. But it cannot be completed on these grounds. The maintenance of the proletarian revolution within a national framework can only be a provisional state of affairs, even though, as the experience of the Soviet Union shows, one of long duration. In an isolated proletarian dictatorship, the internal and external contradictions grow inevitably together with the growing successes. Remaining isolated, the proletarian state must finally become a victim of these contradictions. The way out for it lies only in the victory of the proletariat of the advanced countries. Viewed from this standpoint, a national revolution is not a self-sufficient whole: it is only a link in the international chain. The international revolution presents a permanent process, in spite of all. fleeting rises and falls.
The struggle of the epigones is directed, even if not always with the same distinctness, against all three aspects of the theory of the permanent revolution. And how could it be otherwise when it is a question of three inseparably connected parts of a whole. The epigones mechanically separate the democratic and the socialist dictatorships. They separate the national socialist revolution from the international. The conquest of power within national limits is considered by them in essence not as the initial act but as the final act of the revolution: after that follows the period of reforms which leads to the national socialist society. In 1905, they did not even grant the idea that the proletariat could conquer power in Russia earlier than in Western Europe. In 1917, they preached the self- sufficing democratic revolution in Russia and spurned the dictatorship of the proletariat. In 1925-1927, they steered a course towards the national revolution in China under the leadership of the bourgeoisie. Subsequently, they raised the slogan for China of the democratic dictatorship of the 25 PERMANENT REVOLUTION workers and peasants in opposition to the dictatorship of the proletariat. They proclaimed the possibility of the construction of an isolated and self-sufficient socialist society in the Soviet Union. The world revolution became for them, instead of an indispensable pre-condition for victory, only a favourable circumstance. This profound breach with Marxism was reached by the epigones in the process of the permanent struggle against the theory of the perma- nent revolution.
The struggle, which began with an artificial revival of historical reminiscences and the falsification of the distant past, led to the complete transformation of the world outlook of the ruling stratum of the revolution. We have already repeatedly set forth that this transvaluation of values was accomplished under the influence of the social requirements of the Soviet bureaucracy, which became ever more conservative, strove for national order, and demanded that the already achieved revolution,.which insured the privileged positions to the bureaucracy, now be considered adequate for the peaceful construction of socialism. We do not wish to return to this theme here. Let it simply be observed that the bureaucracy is deeply conscious of the connection of its material and ideological positions with the theory of national socialism. This is being expressed most crassly right now, in spite of or rather because of the fact that the Stalinist apparatus, under the pressure of contra- dictions which it did not foresee, is driving to the Left with all its might and inflicting quite severe blows upon its Right wing inspirers of yesterday. The hostility of the bureau- crats towards the Marxist Opposition, whose slogans and arguments they have borrowed in great haste, does not, as is known, diminish in the least. The condemnation of the theory of the permanent revolution above all, and an acknowledgment, even if only indirect, of the theory of socialism in one country, is demanded of the Oppositionists who raise the question of their re-admission into the party for the purpose of supporting the course towards indus- 26 INTRODUCTION totalization, and so forth. By this, the Stalinist bureau- cracy reveals the purely tactical character of its swing to the Left with the retention of the national reformist strategical foundations. It is superfluous to explain what this means; in politics as in the military affairs, tactics are subordinated in the long run, to strategy.
The question has long ago grown out of the specific sphere of the struggle against "Trotskyism". Gradually extending itself, it has today literally embraced all the problems of the revolutionary world outlook. Permanent revolution or socialism in one country this alternative embraces at the same time the internal problems of the Soviet Union, the perspectives of the revolution in the East, and finally, the fate of the whole Communist International.
The present work does not examine this question from all sides: It is not necessary to repeat what has already been said in other works. In the Criticism of the Program of the Communist International, I have endeavored to disclose theoretically the economic and political untenability of national socialism. The theoreticians of the Comintern were as silent about it as though their mouths were filled with water. That is perhaps the only thing left for them to do. In this booklet, I above all restore the theory of the permanent revolution as it was formulated in 1905 with regard to the internal problems of the Russian revolution. I show wherein my position actually differed from Lenin's, and how and why it coincided with Lenin's position in every^ decisive situation. Finally, I endeavor to reveal the decisive significance of the question that interests us here for the proletariat of the backward countries, and thereby, for the Communist International as a whole.
What accusations have been raised against the theory of the permanent revolution by the epigones? Disregard the innumerable contradictions of my critics, and their 27 PERMANENT REVOLUTION whole, veritably immense, literature can be reproduced in the following sentences: (i) Trotsky ignored the difference between the bour- geois revolution and the socialist; already in 1905 he represented the standpoint that the proletariat of Russia stands before the tasks of a directly socialist revolution.
(tt) Trotsky completely forgot the agrarian question. The peasantry did not exist for him. He depicted the revolution as a duel between the proletariat and czarism.
(in) Trotsky did not believe that the world bourgeoisie would stand for a somewhat lengthy existence of the dictatorship of the Russian proletariat and regarded its fall as inevitable in the event that the proletariat of the West did not seize power within the briefest period and provide assistance. By this Trotsky under-evaluated the pressure of the Western European proletariat upon its own bourgeoisie.
(iv) Trotsky does not believe altogether in the power of the Russian proletariat, nor in its ability to construct socialism independently, and that is why he has put and still puts all his hopes in the international revolution.
These motifs run through not only the numberless writings and speeches of Zinoviev, Stalin, Bucharin and others, but they are also formulated in the most autho- ritative resolutions of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Communist International. And in spite of that, one is compelled to say that they are based upon a mixture of ignorance and dishonesty.
The first two contentions of the critics are, as will be shown later on, false to the roots. No, I proceeded precisely from the bourgeois-democratic character of the revolution and arrived at the conclusion that the.profundity of the agrarian crisis can raise to power the proletariat of back- ward Russia. Yes, these are just the ideas that I defended on the eve of the 1905 revolution. These are just the ideas that alone expressed the characterization of the revolution as a "permanent" one, that is, an uninterrupted one, that 28 INTRODUCTION is, a revolution that passes over directly from the bourgeois, stage into the socialist. To express the same ideas, Lenin later used the excellent expression of the bourgeois revolu- tion "growing into" the socialist. The conception of the growing into was contrasted by Stalin, after the event (in 1924), to the permanent revolution as a direct leap from the realm of autocracy into the realm of socialism. The unfortunate "theoretician" did not even take the trouble to reflect, if it is simply a matter of a leap, what the permanency of the revolution means!
As for the third accusation, it was dictated by the short-lived belief of the epigones in the possibility of neutralizing the imperialist bourgeoisie for an unlimited time with the aid of the "shrewdly" organized pressure of the proletariat. In the years 1924-1927 this was the central idea of Stalin. The Anglo-Russian Committee then became its fruit. The disappointment of the possibility of binding the world bourgeoisie hand and foot with the help of Purcell, Raditch, La Follette and Chiang Kai-Shek, led to an acute paroxysm of fear of an immediate war danger. The Comintern is still passing through this period.
The fourth objection to the theory of the permanent revolution simply amounts to saying that I did not defend the standpoint of the theory of socialism in one country in 1905, which Stalin first manufactured in 1924 for the Soviet bureaucracy. This accusation should be appreciated only as a historical curiosity. One might actually believe that my critics in so far as they thought of anything at all in 1905, were of the opinion then that Russia was prepared for an independent socialist revolution. As a matter of fact, however, they accused me tirelessly in the period of 1905 to 1917 of Utopianism, because I counted upon the probability that the Russian proletariat could come to power before the proletariat of Western Europe. Kamenev and Rykov accused Lenin of Utopianism in April 1917, using against him the vulgar argument that the socialist revolution must first be achieved in England and in the 29 PERMANENT REVOLUTION other advanced countries before it could be Russia's turn. The same standpoint was defended by Stalin too, up to April 4, 1917* Only gradually and with difficulty, did he adopt the Leninist formula of the dictatorship of the pro- letariat in contradistinction to the democratic dictatorship. In the spring of 1924, Stalin was still repeating what the others had said before him: isolated, Russia is not mature for the construction of a socialist society. In the autumn of 1924, Stalin, in his struggle against the theory of the permanent revolution, for the first time discovered the possibility of building up an isolated socialism in Russia. Only then did the Red professors collect quotations for Stalin which convict Trotsky of having believed in 1905 how terrible! that Russia could reach socialism only with the aid of the proletariat of Western Europe.
Were one to take the history of an ideological struggle over a period of a quarter of a century, cut it into little pieces, mix them up in a mortar, and then command a blind man to paste the pieces together again, a greater theoretical and historical absurdity could hardly result than the one with which the epigones feed their readers and hearers.
For the connection of yesterday's problems with today's to stand out more clearly one must recall here, even if only quite generally, what the leadership of the Comintern, that is, Stalin and Bucharin, carried out in China.
Under the pretext that China stands before a national revolution, the leading r61e was allotted to the Chinese bourgeoisie in 1924. The party of the national bourgeoisie, the Kuo Min Tang, was officially recognized as the leading party. Not even the Russian Mensheviks went that far in 1905 in relation to the Cadets (the party of the liberal bourgeoisie).
But the leadership of the Comintern did not stop at 80 INTRODUCTION this. It obligated the Chinese Communist Party to go into the Kuo Min Tang and subordinate itself to its discipline. Through special telegrams of Stalin, the Chinese Communists were urged to curb the agrarian movement. The mutinous workers and peasants were prohibited from forming their own Soviets in order not to alienate Chiang Kai-Shek, whom Stalin defended against the Oppositionists as a "reliable ally" at a party meeting in Moscow at the beginning of April 1927, that is, a few days before the counter-revolu- tionary coup d'ttat in Shanghai.