Lars Lih's and Proyect's views on this question center in large part on their evaluation of the Trotskyist version of "permanent revolution". This is not just a historical argument about the Bolshevik revolution in Russia. It concerns the tactics for movements in general. In brief, "permanent revolution" is the claim that the former Marxist distinction between bourgeois-democratic and socialist movements is outdated and obsolete. This theory is widespread because it dovetails with the naive view that any struggle can proceed to full liberation if only the people are militant enough and there are no betrayals.
But the reality is different. Today we see democratic movements around the world which have no possibility of immediately bringing workers' rule or socialist revolution. Yet even if these movements are successful, they will not bring bourgeois-democratic social revolutions of the old type, because the extensive development of capitalism in the last century has generally eliminated the social basis for this. As a result, the democratic struggle, while essential if the working people are to be able to raise their voice and organize, will generally lead to disappointing results even when it overthrow the old tyranny. Yet any realistic appraisal shows that the socialist revolution isn't imminent either. The working masses are far too disorganized for this. The are faced with going through a series of struggles against oppression in which they will have to organize themselves as an independent class force. The theory of permanent revolution can't deal with this. It has resulted in euphoric declarations that workers' rule is near whenever a people rise up, and then a long period of depression when one sees what actually happens in the struggle. This is what has been seen in the reaction of many groups to the Arab Spring or other democratic movements around the world. It is one of the theoretical reasons for the devastating error of the Revolutionary Socialists group in Egypt, who didn't see what was really happening with the military overthrow of Morsi in Egypt until it was too late. In the midst of the revolutionary fervor of the struggle against various tyrannies, it is important that the most conscious section of activists have a sober picture of what is going on. Contrary to what the advocates of "permanent revolution" say, opposing their impatience doesn't mean upholding Stalinist theories and bowing down to the bourgeoisie. It is necessary to have a sober assessment of the ongoing movement in order to be able to uphold the specific class interests of the working masses against the bourgeoisie. When one recognizes that, even if the old tyranny is overthrown and even if socialist phrases are thrown around, the overall movement is not going to lead to socialism, one can understand the need for the working masses to form an independent section of the movement. The workers must fight against the local tyrannies and push the overall movement as far as possible, but also seek opportunities to build up their own section of the movement, a section with socialist interests separate from the simply democratic framework of the movement as a whole. This critique of the theory of permanent revolution is quite different from that of the Stalinists. Most activists are familiar with Stalinist hostility to Trotskyism, but in fact Stalinism and Trotskyism are twin sides of the same coin. If we examine Trotskyism and Stalinism in the light of the experience of the many revolutionary movements since the death of Lenin, it turns out that Trotskyism and Stalinism have a lot in common. I have worked with other comrades on developing a critique of Trotskyism from an anti-Stalinist standpoint. In part one of an extensive survey of Trotskyist theories, I dealt with the theoretical basis of permanent revolution. I wrote: " 'Permanent revolution' was Trotsky's first major distinctive theory of his own, and it would become the banner of the Trotskyist movement. Indeed, this term is sometimes used in a general sense as a synonym for Trotskyism in general. But strictly speaking, it refers to Trotsky's view that the former Marxist distinction between bourgeois-democratic and socialist revolution is outdated and obsolete. Instead, Trotsky held that revolution in any country--no matter on what issues it breaks out, what the local alignment of classes was, and what the economic level of development is--would either be utterly defeated, or directly go on to a proletarian dictatorship and socialist measures. The only type of revolution possible in the current era was supposed to be the socialist revolution (although Trotsky held that the revolution should generally, for the sake of gaining mass support, drape itself at the outset in some other colors). Trotsky held that any socialist who regarded a revolution as bourgeois-democratic was allegedly selling out the working class to the bourgeoisie. "Naturally all this doesn't simply follow from the term 'permanent revolution'. By itself, that term has occasionally been used in various contexts, such as to refer to the idea of continuing the revolution from one stage to another, or the idea that the proletariat's goal will not be reached until the achievement of communist society, or even to stress the idea that the proletariat must organize itself as an independent party as opposed to that of other revolutionary trends. There have been different ideas in the left about when a revolution can be continued, and how to do so, and they have differed very much from each other despite sharing the general feature of being about 'continuing the revolution'. For that matter, Trotsky used the term 'permanent revolution' to refer to a set of theories about the revolution which, in fact, negate the very idea of a revolution having different stages, thus negating some other uses that have been made of the term. So we are concerned here with the Trotskyist version of 'permanent revolution', not with the term in and of itself. "Trotsky's version of 'permanent revolution' appears leftist as it means that the Trotskyists never need take part in any revolution but a socialist one. But whether a revolution is socialist depends not on what one calls it, but on what it actually is. In order to present every revolutionary movement as socialist, Trotskyism is led to give a socialist gloss to movements and demands that leave capitalism in place, just as many reformists do. This socialistic gloss results in Trotskyism failing to see what independent socialist tasks a revolutionary working class trend should carry out in the midst of bourgeois-democratic revolutions and movements, since Trotskyism sees the overall movement itself as inherently socialist." For the rest of this critique of "permanent revolution", see http://www.communistvoice.org/30cTrotsky.html I have also written about the importance of distinguishing bourgeois-democratic and socialist movements in an article in 2011 entitled "Leninism and the Arab Spring". It shows an alternative way to analyzing these movements from the euphoria-depression duality of the "permanent revolution" approach. See http://www.communistvoice.org/46cLeninism.html -- Joseph Green ----------------------------------- Joseph Green [email protected] ------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
