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Joseph, my original description of Permanent Revolution (PR) was an attempt to defend it (though I do) rather it was to point out what it is and what it isn't. However, you reply back to me shows that you too don't have an understanding of PR anymore than others do who misunderstand it. Everyone of your examples vis-a-vis National Liberation is actually a "proof", by *negative example*, of the general correctness of PR. You wrote that many countries have achieved "independence" people still suffer from exploitation. PR is very explicit that the *tasks* cannot be completed if capitalism is not overthrown. Or, it sinks back into a neo-colonial relationship. Every Trotskyist group historically fought for "independence" in Latin America because they understood that the formality of independence achieved throughout the early part of the 19th Century from Portugal and Spain (France and England as well) would not be true independence unless, as the Cubans did, overthrow capitalism. And that is the point of PR. Every gain you noted is not a gain unless it can be achieved in full and without those democratic tasks being turned back. Only a socialist revolution will insure or at least truly lay the ground work for a permanent form of sovereignty otherwise *impossible* to achieve under Imperialism. That is PR and it's been proven in everyone of the examples you cited. But it's not a perfect theory. It's a guide. Obviously countries can in fact achieve formal independence in the age of Imperialism. The dislocation of the very influential Indian Trotskyist organization after WWII is an example of this. Again, "they didn't get it". They believed that the *granting* of independence by the British was an impossibility "because of Permanent Revolution". Certain forms of land reform (codified in the 1918 Mexican Constitution for example) can be achieved. The granting of peasants the land in S. Korea and Taiwan by buying off the landlord class is an example of this 'exception'. But if one is going to discuss PR, we have to agree on what it is, not project one' own ideological prejudices onto interpreting it. David Walters _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
