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intro 2 permanent revolution
What is Trotsky’s Theory of Permanent Revolution?
The theory of permanent revolution is perhaps the most famous theory that was developed by Leon Trotsky. It is one of the main theories that politically guides the Trotskyist movement. We counter-pose it to the Stalinist and social democratic theories of revolution in stages, and the Stalinist theory of building “socialism in one country.”
The theory of permanent revolution basically states that in those countries which have had a belated capitalist development (such as Third World countries), the capitalist class is too weak and cowardly to resist imperialism. In fact, it is a direct agent of imperialism.
What this means is that in order to carry through any struggle for the redistribution of the land, for self-determination and national liberation, for industrialization, or for democratization – that is, the tasks of the national, democratic revolutions (revolutions such as the American and French Revolutions) – workers and peasants cannot rely on any wing of the capitalist class. They must join together to throw out both the foreign overlords and the national bourgeoisies.
A resolute struggle for power by the worker and peasant masses would therefore be inexorably oriented in an anti-capitalist, pro-socialist direction.
In the imperialist epoch, according to Trotsky’s theory, the workers must lead both the democratic and socialist revolutions in the under-developed countries. These two types of revolutions, where were separated in the developed countries (in other words the task of the democratic revolution have already been carried out, all that remains to be done is the socialist revolution), are combined in time and space in the under-developed countries.
The permanence of the revolution consists in the fact that the struggle for democracy irresistibly grows over into the movement for socialism under the leadership of the proletariat and its revolutionary party.
Another aspect of Trotsky’s theory involves the international character of the socialist revolution. The working class can take power and begin to build socialism within a national framework. But because of the world character of the modern capitalist economy and the international scope of the class struggle, the revolution cannot be consummated or socialism cannot be established except on an international basis.
