Trotsky’s precise and prescient warnings that the attempt to separate the socialist development of the Soviet Union from international developments and world revolution could only lead to catastrophe have been confirmed in the redrawing of the map of the world and in the vast impoverishment of the working people of the former USSR. Trotsky wrote in his Results and Prospects: “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 response of the WRP leadership, which at the time still enjoyed immense authority within the IFCI by dint of its previous struggles for Trotskyism, was not a political defense of its policies, but a threat of an immediate organizational split. “Such, on the whole, are the characteristic features of the Leninist theory of the proletarian revolution.”, Before the end of that year, however, Stalin’s “Foundations of Leninism” would be reissued in a revised edition. Thus, the New York Times published a special report by its ineffable Moscow correspondent Walter Duranty in June 1931, stating, “The essential feature of ‘Stalinism,’ which sharply defines its advance and difference from Leninism...is that it frankly aims at the successful establishment of socialism in one country without waiting for world revolution. This abrupt and gross revision of perspective reflected the growing social weight of the bureaucracy and its awakening consciousness in regards to its own specific social interests, which it saw as bound up with the steady development of the national economy. No, this is impossible. Haphazard construction, construction without prospects, building Socialism although the complete construction of Socialist society is impossible-such is Zinoviev’s position. One or the other must triumph in the end. In 1963, it fell to the leadership of the British section, then the Socialist Labour League, to prosecute the struggle against the American Socialist Workers Party’s reunification with the Pabloites. I cannot tell; nor, I think, can anyone tell. What is the source of Zinoviev’s mistake? In countries like Russia with a belated capitalist development, integration into the world capitalist economy and the growth of the working class made it impossible for the bourgeoisie to carry through the tasks associated with the bourgeois revolution. I would like to quote at some length passages from this critique, which spell out the foundations of a Marxist approach to the elaboration of perspective. The Stalin leadership defined the Guomindang as a “bloc of four classes” consisting of the working class, the peasantry, the petty bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie. By our successes in building Socialism. The Stalinist socialization of Russia demands three things, imperatively—every ounce of effort, every cent of money, and peace. The underlying perspective that guided the WRP leadership was that of anti-internationalism. Speaking generally, one may assume that the resolution of the Fourteenth Party Conference also contains certain errors. Nonetheless, in 1984, the Workers League again raised these issues. ), We now have before us [says Lenin in another place] an extremely unstable equilibrium, but an unquestionable, an indisputable, a certain equilibrium nevertheless. Trotsky explained that, if it was indeed the case that socialism could be achieved in Russia regardless of what happened to the socialist revolution elsewhere in the world, the Soviet Union would turn from a revolutionary internationalist policy to a purely defensist one. For what else is our country, “the country that is building Socialism,” if not the base of the world revolution? What do we mean by the impossibility of the complete, final victory of Socialism in one country without the victory of the revolution in other countries? In the present epoch, to a much larger extent than in the past, the national orientation of the proletariat must and can flow only from a world orientation and not vice versa. 159-166. But since when have we come to treat departure from Leninism on a cardinal problem of Leninism as internationalism? However, from 1917 to 1923 Lenin's standpoint on this matter underwent a complete reversal. But the considerations brought out above are sufficient, let me hope, to reveal the full significance of the struggle over principles that was carried on in recent years, and is being carried on right now in the shape of two contrasting theories: socialism in one country vs. the permanent revolution. What is the root of this mistake? The paper went on to counsel the French ruling class not to take the Stalinist bureaucracy’s revolutionary rhetoric all too seriously. Let us turn to Lenin. In November 1982, in the summation of his “Critique of Gerry Healy’s ‘Studies in Dialectical Materialism,’” Comrade David North reviewed the political relations established by the WRP leadership in the Middle East over the previous period, writing, “Marxist defense of national liberation movements and the struggle against imperialism has been interpreted in an opportunist fashion of uncritical support of various bourgeois nationalist regimes.”, “For all intents and purposes,” he continued, “the theory of permanent revolution has been treated as inapplicable to present circumstances.”. Real Alternative to Socialžsm in One Country? In addition to the split in the IC, this year also marks the twentieth anniversary of Mikhail Gorbachev’s initiation of the program of perestroika. It opposed the thesis advanced by the Pabloites that Stalinism was capable of self-reform and even of playing a revolutionary role, as well as their related conception that bourgeois nationalism in the colonial countries was capable of leading the struggle against imperialism. ‘In considering the question of socialism in one country vs. permanent revolution we are dealing with theoretical foundations of the Trotskyist movement.’ ‘Slavery intensifies and thus deforms relationships of social inequality, whereas permanent revolution disfigures equality of social conditions.’ The dictatorship of the proletariat, which will inescapably place on the order of the day not only democratic but also socialist tasks, will at the same time provide a mighty impulse to the international socialist revolution. The essential theoretical issues that arose in the struggle over these two opposed perspectives were not only fought out by Trotsky against the Stalinist bureaucracy in the latter half of the 1920s, but have reemerged as the subject of repeated struggles within the Fourth International itself. Thus, in a letter written by Slaughter in December 1985 rejecting the authority of the International Committee, he declared that “Internationalism consists precisely of laying down ...class lines and fighting them through.”, In reply, the Workers League posed question: “But by what process are these ‘class lines’ determined? In the aftermath of the defeat, he himself was expelled from the party in November 1927 and banished to Alma Ata on the Russo-Chinese border several months later. That means that if the ruling class, the proletariat, wants to hold sway, it must prove its capacity to do so by military organization also. As Trotsky summed up his theory in the 1939 article “Three Conceptions of the Russian Revolution”: “The complete victory of the democratic revolution in Russia is inconceivable otherwise than in the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat basing itself on the peasantry. Source: I. V. Stalin, Problems of Leninism (Moscow: Foreign Language Publishers, 1934), pp. socialist revolution but to capitalistically developed states. Note: Murry Weiss originally wrote Permanent Revolution and Women's Emancipation as a draft resolution for the October 1978 National Conference of the For revolutionary feminism, racial justice, and working-class power. Until 1917 Lenin and Trotsky believed that an isolated revolutionary Russia would have no chance of survival. Only the working class could carry out this revolution and could consummate it only through the formation of its own dictatorship of the proletariat. However, the authors point out that this notion is alien to the principles of Marxism; not a single Marxist had proclaimed this before Stalin did so in 1924. Marxism must adapt to the reality of the society it is being adapted to. As a term within Marxist theory, it was first coined by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels by at least 1850, but since then it has been used to refer to different concepts by different theorists, most notably Leon Trotsky. It thus, on the one hand, saw China as insufficiently mature for socialism while, on the other, endowed the national bourgeoisie and the nation-state form itself with a historically progressive role. Socialism in one country is impossible as socialism has to be a global system, as for Trotsky’s permanent revolution (term he took from Marx and Engels) the idea an underdeveloped country like Russia being able to start a worldwide revolution to socialism is absurd Trotsky: The Prophet Debunked, Socialism Means One World Regards Ian. Does it not follow from this that such a victory is impossible? - It seemed defeatest and suggested that Russia was not strong enough to stand alone - It seemed as if it could lead to war - … Can it remain the mighty center of attraction for the workers of all countries that it undoubtedly is now, if it is incapable of achieving victory over the capitalist elements in its economy, the victory of Socialist construction? Start studying Permanent revolution vs socialism in one country. This turn toward national communism was a shift from the previously held position by classical Marxism that socialism must be established globally. How did Messrs. the Social-Democrats try to scare the workers away from us? We are living [says Lenin] not merely in a state, but in a system of states, and the existence of the Soviet Republic side by side with imperialist states for a long time is unthinkable. But they received a rebuff and were compelled to retreat, and formally they submitted to the opposite point of view, the point of view of the majority of the Central Committee. In the course of the split in 1985, it was Cliff Slaughter who championed the national autonomy of the British section, rejecting the necessity of subordinating the factional struggle within the WRP to the clarification and building of the world party. Please try again later. They insisted then that the revolution could not leap over the bourgeois democratic stage of its development and called for conditional support to the bourgeois Provisional Government. To overthrow the bourgeoisie the efforts of one country are sufficient—the history of our revolution bears this out. This document appeared in the press during the first sessions of the Fourteenth Party Congress. For some reason or other Zinoviev, however, does not do this. The false Stalinist conception that the only threat to socialist construction in the USSR was that of military intervention ignored the immense pressure placed upon it by the world capitalist market. And as these tasks cannot be solved in one country alone, especially not in a backward country, this would be the beginning of the world revolution. Socialism in One Country versus Permanent Revolution. Let us refer to this resolution. An attempt to build socialism on one island would inevitably spell an irrational economic retrogression. And if our country is discredited the world revolutionary movement will be weakened. Against this conception, Trotsky established that the struggle against imperialism, which enjoyed myriad ties to the native bourgeoisie, only intensified the class struggle. This betrayal unfolded in the midst of Trotsky’s struggle against Stalin’s retrograde theory and provided a grim confirmation of his warning that it could only lead to catastrophic defeats for the international working class. Perhaps Zinoviev thinks that this resolution is erroneous. This is not yet the building of Socialist society, but it is all that is necessary and sufficient for this building.”. • “Permanent Revolution” ... more as a unique path to socialism in a backward, peasant country that Russia was. It is characteristic that Zinoviev and Kamenev found no arguments against the grave accusation directed against them by the Moscow Committee of our Party. The number of homeless children is greater today than in the worst days of the Civil War or the aftermath of World War II. in its Reply to the letter of the Leningrad Provincial Party Conference: Recently, in the Political Bureau, Kamenev and Zinoviev advocated the point of view that we cannot cope with the internal difficulties owing to our technical and economic backwardness unless an international revolution comes to our rescue. The conception of “building socialism in a single country” originated not in Russia, but in Germany, where it was propagated by the right-wing Bavarian social democrat Georg von Vollmar. However, even in 1893 the latter remained adamant that only the combined force of Britain, France and Germany sufficed to construct a socialist society: MEW , vol. To deny such possibility is to display lack of faith in the cause of building Socialism, to abandon Leninism. That is why the Fourteenth Party Congress rightly defined the views of the New Opposition as “lack of faith in the cause of Socialist construction,” as “a distortion of Leninism.”. In the decade preceding the split, the leadership of the WRP had turned sharply away from the theoretical conquests it had made in its earlier defense of Trotskyism against the Pabloite revisionists. We mean the impossibility of having full guarantees against intervention and consequently against the restoration of the bourgeois order, without the victory of the revolution in at least a number of countries. Is this the Leninist method of presenting the question? Other articles where Socialism in one country is discussed: communism: Stalinism: …was the idea of “socialism in one country”—i.e., building up the industrial base and military might of the Soviet Union before exporting revolution abroad. Here is what he said about the victory of Socialism in one country even before the October Revolution in August 1915: “Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism. “The importance of this dogma which played a predominant role in the bitter controversy with Leon Trotsky...cannot be exaggerated. As Trotsky warned prophetically in 1928, the thesis that socialism could be built in Russia alone given the absence of foreign aggression led inevitably to “a collaborationist policy toward the foreign bourgeoisie with the object of averting intervention.”. The Left vs. To counter this pressure, the Soviet state established a monopoly of foreign trade. Trotsky’s defense of permanent revolution and the fundamental conception that world economy and world politics constitute the only objective foundation for a revolutionary strategy represents the theoretical cornerstone of the internationalist perspective of the International Committee of the Fourth International today. The ICFI was founded in 1953 in a struggle against Pabloite revisionism. The essential political principles that flowed from this perspective—proletarian internationalism and the political independence of the working class—were rejected by the Pabloites in their adaptation to Stalinism and bourgeois nationalism. To attempt, regardless of the geographical, cultural and historical conditions of the country’s development, which constitutes a part of the world unity, to realize a shut-off proportionality of all branches of economy within a national framework, means to pursue a reactionary utopia.”. The statement quoted above was made by Lenin in 1915, before the proletariat had taken power. The Stalin leadership, pragmatically adapting itself to the immediate growth produced by the New Economic Policy, supported the preservation of the status quo within the Soviet borders as well, continuing and expanding concessions to the peasantry and private traders. When we speak of the final victory of Socialism we mean this much, at least: 1) the abolition of classes, and therefore 2) the abolition of the dictatorship of one class, in this case the dictatorship of the proletariat … If we are to get a clearer idea of how the question stands here, in the USSR, in the year 1925 [says Zinoviev further], we must distinguish between two things: 1) the assured possibility of engaging in building Socialism-such a possibility, it stands to reason, is quite conceivable within the limits of one country; and 2) the complete construction and consolidation of Socialism, i.e., the achievement of a Socialist system, of a Socialist society. Counterposed to Trotsky’s ideas of permanent revolution was “Socialism in one country,” an attitude of national self-sufficiency and self-centredness that became Stalin’s watchword in 1924. While it regulated the pressure of cheaper goods from the capitalist West, this monopoly by no means eliminated it. To review the essential features of this profound analysis of the revolutionary dynamics of modern global capitalism developed by Trotsky, the permanent revolution took as its starting point not the economic level or internal class relations of a given country, but rather the world class struggle and the international development of capitalist economy of which the national conditions are a particular expression. Trotsky rejected both conceptions, insisting that the character of the Chinese revolution was determined by the world development of capitalism, which, as in Russia in 1917, posed the taking of power by the working class as the only means of solving the revolution’s national and democratic tasks. “In our epoch,” he wrote, “which is the epoch of imperialism, i.e., of world economy and world politics under the hegemony of finance capital, not a single communist party can establish its program by proceeding solely or mainly from conditions and tendencies of developments in its own country. The inevitable logic of this shift was the transformation of the sections of the Communist International into border guards—instruments of a Soviet foreign policy aimed at securing the USSR by diplomatic means that would avoid imperialist attack while preserving the global status quo. VIII, p. This also holds entirely for the party that wields the state power within the boundaries of the USSR. 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