"The Jacobins supported themselves upon the city de- mocracy, which grew up out of the guilds, small masters, assistants, and the city population closely bound up with them, constituted the army of the revolutionary sanscu- lottes, the prop of the leading party of the Montagnards. It was precisely this compact mass of the city population, which had gone through the long historical school of the guild, that bore upon its shoulders the whole burden of the revolutionary overturn. The objective result of the re- volution was the creation of 'normal' conditions of capi- talist exploitation. The social mechanics of the historical process, however, led to the point where the conditions were created for the domination of the bourgeoisie by the plebs, the- democracy of the streets, the sansculottes. Their terrorist dictatorship purged bourgeois society of the old rubbish and then, after it had overthrown the dicta- torship of the petty bourgeois democracy, the bourgeoisie came to rule."
"Now I ask over and over again: What social class in our country will elevate revolutionary bourgeois democra- cy, put it in power raid give it the possibility of carrying out the gigantic work, if the proletariat remains in oppo- sition? I have again and again asked the Mensheviks for a 98 PERMANENT REVOLUTION IN PRACTISE reply to this central question. It is true, we have enor- mous masses of the revolutionary peasantry. But the comrades of the minority know just as well as I do that the peasantry, regardless of how revolutionary it may be, is incapable of playing an independent, much less a leading, political role. The peasantry can undoubtedly prove to be an enormous power in the service of the revolution; but it would be unworthy of "a Marxist to believe that a pea- sant party is capable of placing itself at the head of a bourgeois revolution and, upon its own initiative, liberate the productive forces of the country from the archaic fetters. The city has the hegemony in modern society and the hegemony in the bourgeois revolution can belong to it alone. 55 "Now where have we the city democracy that is capa- ble of leading the people? Comrade Martinov has already sought it repeatedly, magnifying glass in hand. He found Saratov teachers, Petersburg lawyers, and Moscow statis- ticians. Like all his colleagues, he too would take no no- tice at all of the fact that in the Russian revolution the industrial proletariat will occupy the ground upon which the semi-proletarian artisan's democracy of the sanscu- lottes stood at the end of the eighteenth century. I call your attention, comrades, to this fundamental principle fact."
"Our big industry did not develop naturally out of handicrafts. The economic history of our towns does not know the period of guilds. Capitalist industry with us arose under the direct and immediate pressure of Euro- pean capital. It really conquered a virginal primitive soil, without encountering the resistance of handicraft culture. Foreign capital flowed into our country through the chan- nels of state loans and through the pipes of private initia- tive. It gathered around itself the army of the industrial proletariat and prevented the rise and development of handicrafts. As a result of this process there appeared among us as the main power of the city, at the moment 99 PERMANENT REVOLUTION of the bourgeois revolution, an industrial proletariat of the highest social type. This is a fact that cannot be dis- puted and which must be taken as the basis of our revo- lutionary tactical conclusions."
"If the comrades of minority (the Mensheviks) believe in the victory of the revolution, or even only recognize the possibility of such a victory, they cannot dispute the fact that in our country threre is no other historical clai- mant to revolutionary power than the proletariat. Just as the petty bourgeois city democracy in the great revolution placed itself at the head of the revolutionary nation, so the proletariat, the only revolutionary democracy of our cities, must find a support in the peasant masses and place itself in power if the revolution has any prospect of victory at all."
"A government supported directly upon the proletariat, and through it upon the revolutionary peasantry, does not yet signify the socialist dictatorship. I do not touch upon the further perspectives of a proletarian government now. Perhaps the proletariat is condemned to collapse, as the Jacobin democracy collapsed in order to give way to the rule of the bourgeoisie. I want to establish only one point: If the revolutionary movement in our country, as Plecha- nov foretold, triumphs as a workers' movement, then the victory of the revolution is possible only as the revolutio- nary victory of the proletariat otherwise it is altogether impossible."
"I insist upon this conclusion with all determination. U it is assumed that the social antagonisms between the pro- letariat and the peasant masses will prevent the pro letariat from placing itself at the head of the movement that; further, the proletariat is not strong enough for i victory then one must arrive at the conslusion that nc victory is destined for our revolution. Under such circums tances, an agreement between the liberal bourgeoisie anc the old power would have to be the natural finale of th< revolution. This is a conclusion, the possibility of whicl PERMANENT REVOLUTION IN PRACTISE ean in no case be contested. But it is clear that it is based upon the line of the defeat of the revolution, con- ditioned by its internal weakness. The entire analysis of the Mensheviks above all their evaluation of the prole- tariat and its possible relationship to the peasantry leads them inexorably to the path of revolutionary pessimism."
"But they persistently deviate from this path and develop a revolutionary optimism on the credit...of the bourgeois democracy."
"Thence results its relationship to the Cadets. The Cadets are for them the symbol of bourgeois democracy, and bourgeois democracy the natural claimant to revo- lutionary power..."
"Upon what do you base your belief that the Cadet will still rise and stand erect? Upon facts of political develop- ment? No, upon your schema. In order 'to carry the revolution through to the end' you need the city bourgeois democracy, you search after it eagerly, and find nothing but Cadets. And you develop at their expense a rare optimism, you dress them up, you force them to play a creative r61e, a role which they do not want to play, can- not play and will not play. To my central question 1 have put it repeatedly I have heard no response. You have no prognosis of the revolution. Your policy is desti- tute of any great perspectives whatsoever. " "And in connection with this, your relationship to the bourgeois parties is formulated in words which the conven- tion should bear firmly in mind: 'as the occasion requires*. The proletariat does not carry on the systematic struggle for influence over the masses of the people, it does not check up its tactical steps from the angle of the single lead- ing thought: to gather around it the weary and the heavy- laden and to become their herald and leader. " (Minutes and Resolutions of the Fifth Convention. Pages 180-1S5.)"
PERMANENT REVOLUTION This speech, which sums up briefly all my articles, speeches and acts of 1905 and 1906, was completely ap- proved by the Bolsheviks, not to speak of Rosa Luxem- burg and Tyschko (on the basis of this speech, we entered upon more intimate relations which led to my collaboration in their Polish journal). Lenin, who could not forgive me my conciliatory conduct toward the Mensheviks 'and he was right expressed himself on my speech with a deliberately underlined reserve. He said: "I merely wish to observe that Trotsky, in his book. On the Defense of the Party emphatically expressed his solidarity with Kautsky, who wrote of the economic com- munity of interests of the proletariat and the peasantry in the present revolution in Russia. Trotsky recognized the admissibility and expediency of a Left bloc [with the peasants. L. T.I against the liberal bourgeoisie. These facts are enough for me to establish Trotsky's approach to our conception. Independent of the question of the 'un- interrupted revolution 9, we have here before our eyes a solidarity in the fundamental points of the question con- cerning the relationship to the bourgeois parties." (Lenin, Volume Fill, page 400.)
Lenin occupied himself in his speech all the less with a rounded evaluation of the theory of the permanent revolu- tion since I too, in my speech, had not developed the fur- ther perspectives of the dictatorship of the proletariat. He had obviously not read my fundamental work on this ques- tion, otherwise he would not have spoken of my "approach" to the conception of the Bolsheviks as of something -new, for my London speech was only a condensed reproduction of my works of 1905-1906. He expressed himself very re- servedly, because I did stand outside the Bolshevik fac- tion. In spite of that, or more correctly, perhaps pre- cisely! because of that, his words allow no room for false interpretations. Lenin established the "solidarity in the fundamental points of the question" of the relationship to the peasantry and to the liberal bourgeoisie.
PERMANENT REVOLUTION IK PRACTISE solidarity does not relate to my aims, as Radek pre- posterously represents it, but precisely to the method. As to the perspective of the democratic revolution grow- ing into the socialist revolution, it is right here that Lenin makes the reservation, "independent of the question of the uninterrupted revolution". What is the meaning of this reservation? It is clear that Lenin in no way identi- fied the permanent revolution with the ignoring of the peasantry or with skipping over the agrarian revolution, as has been done by the ignorant and unscrupulous epigones, who have made a rule of it. This is Lenin's idea: How f$r our revolution will go, whether the pro- letariat can come to power in our country sooner than in Europe and what perspectives this opens up for socialism these questions I do not touch upon; however, in the fundamental question of the relationship of the proletariat to the peasantry and to the liberal bourgeoisie the "soli- darity is before our eyes".
We have seen above the echo which the theory of the permanent revolution produced almost immediately after its origination, that is, already in 1905, in the Bolshevik Novaia Zhizn. We want to refer further to how the editors of Lenin's Collected Works expressed themselves on this theory after 1917. In the annotations to Volume XIV, Part 2, page 481, it says: "Already before the 1905 revolution he (Trotsky) advanced the original and now especially noteworthy theory of the permanent revolution, in which he contended that the bourgeois revolution of 1905 would pass directly over into a socialist revolution, and then constitute the first of a series of national revolutions."
I admit that this is no acknowledgment of the correct- ness of all that I have written on the permanent revolu- tion. But in any case it is an acknowledgment of the incorrectness of what Radek writes about it. "The bourgeois revolution will pass directly over into a socialist revolution" but this is precisely the theory of the grow- PERMANENT REVOLUTION ing into and not of skipping over; from that comes a realistic, and not an adventuristic, tactic. And what is the meaning of the words: "now especially noteworthy theory of the permanent revolution"? They mean that the October overthrow showed in a new light those sides of the theory which had formerly remained in obscurity foy many or had simply appeared "improbable". The second part of Volume XIV of Lenin's Collected Works appeared while their author was alive. Thousands upon thousands of party members read this annotation. And nobody declared it to be false until the year 1924. It occurred to Radek, however, to do this in the year 1928.
But in so far as Radek speaks not only of the theory but also of the tactic, the most important argument against him still remains the character of my practical participation in the revolutions of 1905 and 1917. My work in the Petersburg Soviet of 1905 coincided with the elaboration of those of my views on the nature of the revolution which the epigones now expose to an uninter- rupted fire. How could such allegedly erroneous views fail to be reflected in my political activity, which was carried on before the eyes of the whole world and regis- tered every day in the press? But if it is assumed that such an absurd theory was expressed in my policy, then why did the present Consuls remain silent at that time? And what is to a certain extent even more important, why did Lenin at that time most energetically defend the line of the Petrograd Soviets, at the high point of the revolution as well as after its defeat?
The same questions, only perhaps more sharply for- mulated, relate to the revolution of 1917. In New York, I wrote a series of articles on the February revolution from the point of view of the theory of the permanent revolution. All these articles are today reprinted. My tactical conclusions coincided entirely with the conclusions which Lenin drew at the same time in Geneva, and con- sequently, were in the same irreconcilable contradiction PERMANENT REVOLUTION IN PRACTISE to the conclusions of Kamenev, Stalin and the other epigones. When I arrived in Petrograd, nobody asked me if I renounced my "errors" of the permanent revolu- tion. Nor was there anybody to ask. Stalin slunk around in embarrassment from one corner to another and had only the one desire that the party should forget as quickly as possible the policy which he had advocated up to Lenin's arrival. Yaroslavksy was not yet the chairman of the Control Commission: together with the Mensheviks, with Ordjonikidze and others, he was publishing a banal semi- liberal sheet in Yakutsk. Kamenev accused Lenin of Trotskyism and declared when he met me: "Now the celebration is on your street." On the eve of the October, I wrote in the central organ of the Bolsheviks on the perspectives of the permanent revolution. It never occurred to anybody to come out against me. My soli- darity with Lenin turned out to be a complete and uncon- ditional one. What can my critics, among them Radek too, say now? That I myself had completely misunder- stood the theory which I advocated, and that in the responsible historical periods, contrary to this theory, I acted entirely right? Is it not simpler to assume that my critics did not understand the permanent revolution, like so many other things? For if it is assumed that these tardy critics are well acquainted not only with their own ideas, but with those of others, then how is it to be explained that all of them, without exception, adopted such a miserable position in the revolution of 1917 and forever covered themselves with shame in the Chinese revolution?
But after all, many readers will suddenly recall, What about your most important tactical slogan: "Without the czar, but a labor government"?
This serves as a decisive argument in certain articles.
PERMANENT REVOLUTION Trotsky's frightful slogan: "Without the czar!" runs through all the "writings of the various critics of the per- manent revolution; with some it emerges as the final, most important and decisive argument; with others, as the ready harbor of weary thought.
This criticism naturally reaches its greatest profundity in the "Master" 10 of ignorance and disloyalty, when he says in his incomparable Problems of Leninism: "We do not want to expatiate further (now thenf L. T.) on the position of comrade Trotsky in 1905, where he 'simply' forgot the peasantry as a revolutionary force and raised the slogan: * Without the czar but a labor government', that is, the slogan for a revolution without the peasantry." (Stalin. Problems of Leninism. Pages Despite my positively hopeless position before this annihilating criticism, which does not want to "expatiate", I should nevertheless like to refer to some mitigating circumstances. There are some. I beseech a hearing.
Even if, in 1905, I had formulated an ambiguous or unhappy slogan in some article or other, which was open to misunderstanding, then today, twenty-three years later, it should not be considered in an isolated manner, but in connection with my other works on this theme, mainly, however, in connection with my political participation in the events. It simply does not do for me to call the reader's attention to the bare name of a work unknown to him (in the same way as to the critics) and to attribute a meaning to this name which stands in complete contra- diction to everything I wrote and did.
Perhaps, too, it is not superfluous to add O my critics! that the slogan: "Without the czar but a labor government" was never written, nor expressed, nor proposed by me! At the basis of the main argument of my judges there lies, aside from everything else, a shame- ful factual error. The fact of the matter is that a procla- mation entitled "Without the czar but a labor govern- PERMANENT REVOLUTION IN PRACTISE ment v was written and published abroad in 1905 by Parvus. I had been Irving illegally for a long time in Petersburg in those days, and had no connections at all with this leaflet dither in ideas or in fact. I learned of it much later from polemical articles. I never had the occasion or opportunity to express myself on it. 'As for the proclamation I (as, moreover, all my critics) neither saw it nor read it. This is the factual side of this fanciful affair. I am sorry that I must deprive all the Thalmanns and Semards of this easily transportable and convincing argument. But facts are stronger than my humane feelings.
Still more. The incident providently added one thing to the other: at the same time that Parvus pub- lished abroad the proclamation unknown to me "Without the czar but a labor government", a leaflet written by me appeared illegally in Petersburg with the title: "Neither czar nor Zemtsi 11, but the people". This title, which is frequently repeated in the text of the leaflet as a slogan embracing the workers and the peasants, is so to speak, invented in order to refute in a popular form the later contentions about skipping the democratic stage of the revolution. The appeal is reprinted in my Works (Volume 77, Part 1, page 256). There also are my pro- clamations, published by the Bolshevik Central Commitee, to that peasantry which, in the ingenious expression of Stalin, I "simply forgot".
But even this is not yet all. Only a short time ago, the meritorious Rajes, a theoretician and leader of the Chinese revolution, wrote in the theoretical organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of the same frightful slogan which Trotsky raised in the year 1917. Not 1905, but 1917! For the Men- shevik Rafes, at any rate, there is some excuse: almost up till 1920 he was a "minister" of Petlura, and how could he, weighed down by the cares of state of the struggle against the Bolsheviks, pay any heed there to PERMANENT REVOLUTION what was going on in the camp of the October revolution? Well, and the editorial board of the organ of the Central Committee? What of it! one idiocy more or less..."But how is that possible?" a conscientious reader raised on the trash of recent years might call out. "Weren't we taught in hundreds and thousands of books and articles..."
"Yes, friends, taught; and that is just why we will have to learn anew. These are the losses incurred through the period of reaction. Nothing can be done about it. History does not proceed in a straight line. It has tem- porarily run into the blind alleys of Stalin."
CHAPTER FIVE WAS THE "DEMOCRATIC DICTATOR- SHI P"REALIZEDBYUS?ANDWHEN?
APPEALING TO Lenin, Radek contends that the demo- cratic dictatorship was realized in the dual power of the Kerensky period. Yes, many times, and con- ditionally, Lenin put the question this way that I admit. "Many times?" Radek becomes indignant and accuses me of assailing the most fundamental ideas of Lenin. But Radek is angry only because he is wrong. In The Lessons of October, which Radek likewise submits to criticism after a protracted delay of about four years, I interpreted Lenin's words on the "realization" of the democratic dictatorship in the following manner: "The democratic workers' and peasants' coalitioa could make its appearance only as an immature product, which did not attain real power only as a tendency, but not as a fact." (Volume 111, Part 1, page XXI.)
With regard to this interpretation, Radek writes: "This reproduction of one of the most outstanding theore- tical chapters in the work of Lenin is worth absolutely nothing." These words are followed by a pathetic appeal to the traditions of Bolshevism, and finally, the conclu- sion: "These questions are too important to be able to reply to them with a reference to what Lenin many times said."
By this, Radek wants to evoke the image of my care- less conduct against "one of the most outstanding " of PERMANENT REVOLUTION Lenin's ideas. But Radek is wasting indignation and pathos for nothing. A bit of understanding would be more in place here. My presentation, even though very condensed, in The Lessons of October, does not rest upon a sudden inspiration on the basis of quotations taken at second hand, but upon a genuine thorough study of Lenin's writings. It reproduces the essence of the Leninist idea on this question, while the verbose presentation of Radek, despite the superfluity of quotations, does not leave behind it a single living passage of Lenin's thoughts.
Why did I make use of the restrictive words "many times"? Because that is how it really stood. References to the fact that the democratic dictatorship was "realized" in the dual power" ("in certain forms and up to a certain point"), were made by Lenin only in the period between April and October 1917, that is, before the genuine reali- zation of the democratic revolution had been completed. Radek neither noticed, grasped, nor understood how to evaluate this. In the struggle against the present epigones, Lenin spoke extremely conditionally of the "realization" of the democratic dictatorship, not as of a historical characteristic of the period of the dual power in this form it' would be plain nonsense but by this he argued against those who expected a second, improved edition of the independent democratic dictatorship. Lenin's words only meant that there is not and will not be any democratic dictatorship outside of the miserable mis- carriage of the dual power, and that new weapons there- fore had to be provided, that is, the slogan had to be changed. To contend that the coalition of the Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionists with the bourgeoisie, which refused the peasants the land and hounded the Bolsheviks -constituted the "realization" of the Bolshevik slogan, either means deliberately to pass off black as white or else to have lost one's head entirely.
With regard to the Mensheviks, an argument could be presented which would be analogous to a certain point "DEMOCRATIC DICTATORSHIP" to Lenin's argument against Kamenev: "You are wgit- ing for the bourgeoisie to fulfil, a 'progressive' mission in the revolution? This mission has already been realized: the political r61e of the Rodziankos, the Gutchkovs and Miliukovs is the maximum that the bourgeoisie is able to give, just as the Kerenskiad is the maximum of democ- ratic revolution that could be realized as an independent stage."
Unmistakable anatomical features rudiments show that our ancestors had a tail. These features suffice to confirm the genetic unity of animate being. But to put it quite candidly, man has no tail. Lenin demonstrated to Kamenev the rudiments of the democratic dictatorship in the regime of the dual power, warning him that no new organ should be hoped for out of these rudiments. And we did not have an independent democratic dictatorship, even though we completed the democratic revolution more deeply, more resolutely, more purely than had ever been done anywhere else.
Radek should reflect upon the fact that if, in Feb- ruary to April, the democratic dictatorship had actually been realized, even Molotov would have recognized it. The party and the class understood the democratic dicta- torship as a regime which mercilessly destroys the old state apparatus of the monarchy and completely liquidates manorial landed property. But there was not a trace of this in the Kerensky period. For the Bolshevik party, however, it was a question of the actual realization of the Revolutionary tasfcs, and not in the revelation of certain sociological and historical "rudiments". Lenin, in order to enlighten his adversaries theoretically demonstrated splendidly this symptom which had not attained any development. But still, nothing more than that. Radek, however, endeavors in all seriousness to convince us that in the period of the dual power, that is, of powerlessness, the "dictatorship" did exist and the democratic revolution was realized. Only, it was allegedly such a "democratic PERMANENT REVOLUTION revolution", that Lenin's genius was required to recognize it. But this is just the thing that signifies that it was not realized. The real democratic revolution, namely, is a thing that every illiterate peasant in Russia or in China easily recognizes. The morphological features are surety in a worse plight. Despite the Russian lesson t<? Kamenev there has been no success, for example, in having Radet finally perceive that in China, the democratic dictatorshij (through the Kuo Min Tang), in Lenin's sense, was like wise "realized" more thoroughly and more completely than with us in the dual power, and that only hopeles; simpletons can wait for an improved edition of "democ racy" in China.
If the democratic dictatorship had only been real ized with us in the form of the Kerenskiad, which playe< the role of an errand-boy to Lloyd George and Clemen ceau, then we would have to say that history indulgec in cruel mockery with the strategic slogans of the Bol sheviks. Fortunately, it is not so. The Bolshevik sloga was realized in fact not as a morphological illusion bu as the greatest historical reality. Only, it was realize wot before the October but after the October. Th peasant war, in the words of Marx, supported the dictf torship of the proletariat. The collaboration of the tw classes was realized through the October on a giganti scale. Now every ignorant peasant grasped and felt, eve without Lenin's commentaries, that the Bolshevik sloga had been carried through in life. And Lenin himself est mated the October revolution its first stage as the in realization of the democratic revolution, and by that ab as the true, even if changed, realization of the strateg slogan of the Bolsheviks. The whole Lenin must be coi sidered. And before all, the Lenin after the Octobe when he surveyed and evaluated events from a lofti watch-tower. Finally, Lenin must be considered in tl Leninist way, and not in that of the epigones.
The question of the class character of the revoluti< "DEMOCRATIC DICTATORSHIP" and its "growing into" is submitted by Lenin (after the October) to an analysis in his book against Kautsky. Here is a passagie over which Radek should reflect a bit.
"Yes, our revolution (the October revolution, L. T.) is a bourgeois revolution so long as we march together with the peasantry as a whole. We were more than clearly conscious of this, and said hundreds and thousands of times since 1905 that this necessary stage of the histori- cal process cannot be skipped over or abolished by decree."
And further on: "It happened Just as we had foretold. The course of the revolution confirmed the correctness of our considera- tion. At the beginning, together with the 'whole* peasantry against the monarchy, against the landowners, against the Middle Ages (and to that extent it remains a bourgeois, a bourgeois-democratic revolution). And then, together with the poorest peasantry, with the semi-pro- letarian, with all the exploited against capitalism, includ- ing the rich and the speculators of the village, and to that exent the revolution becomes a socialist revolution." (Volume XV, page 508.)
That is how Lenin spoke, not "many times" but always, or, more correctly, giving the course of the revo- lution, including the October, a conclusive, a generalizing, thorough appreciation forever. "It happened just as we had foretold." THe bourgeois democratic revolution was realized as a coalition of the workers and peasants. In the Kerenskiad? No, in the first period after the October. Is that right? It is. But, as we now know, it was not realized in the form of the democratic dictator- ship, but in the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. With that there also disappeared the necessity for the old algebraic formula.
If the conditional argument of Lenin against Kamenev in 1917 and the rounded-out Leninist characterization of the October revolution in the subsequent years are uncri- tically juxtaposed, then it follows that two democratic PERMANENT REVOLUTION revolutions were "realized" in Russia. This is too much, all the more since the second is separated from the first by an armed uprising of the proletariat.
Now contrast the quotation just made from Lenin's book, Kautsky the Renegade, with the passage from my Results and Perspectives where, in the chapter on The Proletarian Regime, the first stage of the dictatorship and the perspective of its further development is outlined: "The abolition of class serfdom will find the support of the whole peasantry, as a subjugated estate. The progressive income tax will find the support of the immense majority of the peasantry. But legislative measures for the protection of the land proletariat will not only find no active sympathy among the majority, but they will clash with the active resistance of a minority.
"The proletariat will be compelled to carry the class struggle into the village, and in this way violate that com- munity of interests which indubitably exists among the peasantry as a whole, even if within relatively narrow boundaries. In the earliest moments of its domination, the proletariat will have to seek a support in the conflict of interests of the village poor and the village rich of the land proletariat and the agricultural bourgeoisie." (Our Revolution 9 1906, page 255.)
How all this resembles an "ignoring" of the peasantry and the complete "antagonism" of the two lines, Lenin's and mine!
The quotation from Lenin adduced above does not stand alone in his works. On the contrary, as is always the case with Lenin, the new formula, which events illu- minate more penetratingly, becomes for him the axis of his speeches and his articles for a whole period of time. In March 1919, Lenin said: "In October 1917, we seized power together with the peasantry as a whole. That was a bourgeois revolution, to the extent that the class struggle in the village had not yet developed." (Volume XVI, page US.)
"DEMOCRATIC DICTATORSHIP" The following was said by Lenin at the party conven- tion in March 1919: "In a country where the proletariat was compelled to take power with the aid of the peasantry, and where the role of agent of the petty bourgeois revolution fell to the proletariat our revolution, up to the formation of the Committees of the Poor, that is, up to the summer and even the fall of 1918, was in large measure a bourgeois revolution." (Volume XVI, page 105.)
These words were frequently repeated by Lenin in different variations and on divers occasions. Radek, how- ever, simply avoids this capital thought which decides the disputed question.
The proletariat took power together with the peasantry in October, says Lenin. By that alone, the revolution was a bourgeois revolution. Is that right? In a certain sense, yes. But this means that the true democratic dicta- torship of the proletariat and the peasantry, that is, the one which actually destroyed the regime of autocracy and serfdom, and snatched the land from the feudalists, was accomplished not before the October but only after the October; accomplished, to put it as Marx did, as the dictatorship of the proletariat supported by the peasant war, to begin only a few months later with the growing into a socialist dictatorship. Is this incomprehensible? Can differences of opinion prevail on this point today?
'According to Radek, the "permanent" theory sins by mixing up the bourgeois stage with the socialist. In reality, however, the class dynamics so thoroughly "mixed up", that is, united these two stages that our unfortunate metaphysician is no longer in a position to keep the ends asunder.
Certainly, many gaps and many incorrect contentions can be found in Results and Perspectives. But this work was written not in 1928, but considerably before the October.. before the 1905 October. The question of the gaps in the theory of the permanent revolution, or more PERMANENT REVOLUTION correctly, in my motivations of this theory at that time, is not even touched upon by Radek, for, following his teachers the epigones he attacks not the gaps but the strong sides of the theory, those which the course of histori- cal development confirmed, attacks them in the name of the essentially false conclusions which he traces from Lenin's attitude not thoroughly studied and not thought out to the very end by Radek.