TACKLES "PERMANENT REVOLUTION"
By E, Germain
The September issue (No. 13) of Communist, the theoretical magazine of the CPSU [Communist party of the Soviet Union] contains an attack on Trotskyism written by T. Timofeyev, a well-known Soviet theoretician, which attempts to deal with the subject on.a higher plane than the one taken by "S. Cucumber" in the subsequent issue. [See World Outlook Novem= - ber 8,] The attack, part of a long article directed against the Communist ‘ party of China under the title "The Leninist Course of the World Communist Movement and Its Enemies," is as follows:
“While the leaders of the Chinese CP develop their campaign
against the general line of the world Communist movement, they
move farther and farther away from the Leninist theory of the
socialist world revolution, Some of their conceptions do not
differ greatly from the Trotskyist theory of 'permanent revolu-
tion.!
"As is well known, the essence of the Trotskyist ‘theory!
of revolution is a combination of ultraerevolutionary gestures
and a profound pessimism that blocks practical action in rela
tion to the perspectives for the victory of socialism and C1] communism in a single or a few countries, if the proletariat of other countries has not yet conquered power, This is also the root of the hypocritical, slanderous thesis of Trotskyism concerning the not-further~defined !inevitable rebirth,! 'Ther~ midor,! or trestoration! of capitalism in those countries where the working class takes power, tif world revolution comes too late! This, too, is the basis of the anti-Leninist conception of Trotskyism which alleges that the most important task of the victorious proletariat is not the construction of socialism and communism, but 'putting into motion! revolution in other countries by military means, The modern dogmatists in the leadership of the Communist Party of China take precisely this Trotskyist conception as their fundamental weapon,
"The Marxist-Leninist parties long ago completely deprived Trotskyism of its halo and eliminated it from their ranks as a tendency alien to Leninism, causing it to place itself outside of the ranks of the international Communist movement, A few Trotskyist grouplets, which survive in a few Lt] capitalist countries, and their confederation, the so-called Fourth International, are separated from the masses, spending what little strength remains to them in internal squabbles and quarrels, leading a miserable life,
"The Trotskyist elements have of late begun to nourish certain hopes-for a revival of their activity in relation to the splitting attitude of the Chinese leaders, Like the Trote skyists, these leaders likewise try to hide behind pseudo~ revolutionary phrases and to wear the mask of tdefenders?! of Leninism, In the Trotskyist publications appearing in the U.S.A, in France, in Italy and in certain countries of Latin America, bitter attacks are being waged against the policy of peaceful coexistence between both systems as practiced by the Soviet Union, It is characteristic that the ideologues of present-day Trotskyism thereby use the same arguments as tne Chinese theoreticians and similarly try to represent the present L!] Leninist general line of the CPSU and of the international Communist movement as topportunist,.! In appraising the most important questions of international developments, among them the principle of peaceful coexistence between the two _ systems and also the well-known thesis of the Communist movement which declares that war is no longer fatalistically inevitable under the given circumstances, the position of the leaders of the Chinese CP comes closer and closer to the conceptions of the Trotskyist elements.
"History has demonstrated in a convincing way the correct= . ness of the Leninist and not the Trotskyist theory of the revo-~ lution, Does anybody exist willing to defend the idea that the CPSU and the other Marxist-Leninist parties should abandon their Leninist course, confirmed by, »Practice, and follow those who want to refurbish Trotskyism2
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As we noted above, Timofeyev strives for a higher plane than Mr, Cucumber's goblin tale, Not everything is utterly false. Timofeyev is right in his observation that the Chinese leaders have moved in the directe tion of Trotsky's theory of the permanent revolution. He is right in underlining that insofar as the Chinese leaders succeed in developing a consis~_ tent criticism of the current Khrushchevite anti-Leninist practices of most of the Communist parties in the capitalist countries, they come "closer and closer" to Trotskyist ideas and theories; that is, the only consistent appraisal of Stalinism and Khrushchevism from the Marxist-Leninist point of view, As for the rest, his presentation of the Trotskyist theory of permanent revolution is completely false, a typical Stalinist concoction of slanders and distortions, i
It is untrue that Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution is an expression of "profound pessimism," that it holds the restoration of capi-~ talism to be "inevitable" as long as the socialist revolution remains limited to one or a few countries, or that it advocates the extension of the revolution artificially "by military means," It is likewise complete-~ ly untrue that either the Trotskyists or the leaders of the Chinese Cp con= sider another world war to be inevitable.
The theory of the permanent revolution is based essentially on two theses, The first one is that in the backward countries the main historical objectives of the bourgeois-democratic revolution (national independence and unity, solution of the agrarian question, industrialization), which have not been achieved in the past, can be accomplished in the epoch of imperialism only through the conquest of power by the proletariat, the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the destruction of capitalism together with the colonial and. any existing feudal elements in the economy, especially industry, of socialist character, The second thesis is that the conquest of power by the proletariat on a national scale does not complete its task, While the proletarian power can initiate the building of socialism on a national scale, it cannot finish the. task on that level, The class struggle between capitalism and socialism becomes. more and more international in character, reaching its final outcome only in the defeat of capitalism and victory of socialism in the most important imperialist countries, u
Contrary to Mr, Timofeyev's rather brazen pretension, history has completely confirmed both of these basic tenets of the theory of permanent revolution while again and again exposing the falsity of the anti-Leninist Stalinist theory that socialism can be built in one or a few countries, the line consistently promulgated by the Soviet bureaucracy, first under Stalin, then under Malenkov and finally.under Khrushchev,
, In the Soviet Union itself, far from considering the restoration of capitalism as "inevitable," Trotsky and his followers, from 1923 on, pro« jected the industrialization of the country on a planned basis and accel~ erated scale in order to neutralize the growing weight of the petty-bour~ geois upper layers of the peasantry, which at that time were concentrating in their hands the marketable surplus of agrarian production, After fighting against these proposals for five years, Stalin was forced to turn to them in 1928, In applying them, he of course distorted them in a-monstrous waye By forcing the collectivization of agriculture, he precipitated a crisis from which agricultural production has not emerged to this day!
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In the international field, Trotsky and his followers, and later the Fourth International which they organized, far from advocating any mili- ‘ tary adventures, consistently defended the revolutionary strategy and tac- | tics developed by Lenin so that Communist parties might utilize the favor- ‘able revolutionary conditions that arise periodically in capitalist coun- ' tries and help provide e working class with the leadership required to win power, Under Stalin and Khrushchev, the Communist parties were reduced to instruments of the Kremlin's foreign policy and compelled to "postpone" efforts to conquer power until the "final building of communism" in the | Soviet Union (or, as it is put nowadays, until the Soviet Union exceeds the United States in the per capita production of industrial and agricultural goods).
It was this basically opportunistic course that led the Communist parties into fearful errors and betrayals: in China in 1925827 (rightwing opportunist liquidationism in relation to the Kuomintang); in Germany in 1930=33 (ultra-left adventurism -- characterizing the Social Democracy as the "main enemy" and refusing to form a united front with it against Hitler thereby opening the possibility for the Nazis to seize power without serious struggle on the part of the German proletariat); in France in the years before the outbreak of World War II when the "Popular Front" was formed to block the workingeclass struggle for power; in Spain 19356=39 ‘where a socialist revolution was strangled in the name of collaboration with the “liberal” bourgeoisie; in France and Italy in 1944~48 where the most promising opportunities for developing the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat towards the conquest of power were liquidated and the: Communist parties participated in bourgeois governments to help rebuild the badly battered capitalist state and capitalist economy that emerged from the war, Many of these errors and betrayals are now «= belatedly -~ also criticized by the leaders of the Chinese Communist party, but as yet in only a partial and inconsistent way.
. Mr, Timofeyev will have some difficulty in disproving that in every instance in which the revolution culminated in establishment of.a new work ers State -~ in Yugoslavia, in China, in North Vietnam, in Cuba -- it did so against the advice and line of Stalin (or Khrushchev). He will have some difficulty in disproving that in every instance in backward. countries where the agrarian question has been solve oday, it has followed the con» quest of power by the proletariat and the poor peasants, He will have some ‘difficulty in pointing to pny country where the agrarian question has been basically solved without the establishment of the dictatorship of the pro= letariat, History, we repeat, has in this respect completely confirmed the correctness of Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution,
Mr, Timofeyev says that there are only "a few" Trotskyist organiza= tions "left" in some capitalist countries, He apparently consulted a dif- ‘ferent source than the editor of the Soviet government's official daily Izvestia which recently admitted the existence of Trotskyist organizations in sixteen different countries, In fact the Fourth International is repre-~sented in thirty countries today, a considerable increase since its founda-~ tion and since the end of the second world war, If Trotskyism is "wither-~ ing away," why has the Soviet press decided that a policy of silence is dangerous and that time and space must now be devoted to polemics against it? Isn't the need to discuss Trotskyism -- felt in both the Soviet Union and the international Communist movement == a rather striking proof of its
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vitality, increasing strength and importance?
As for the leaders of the Chinese Communist party, since 1959 they have indeed developed a theory of "uninterrupted revolution" clearly derived from their own experience, which holds that creation of the People's Republic of China signified establishment of the dictatorship of the pro- -letariat which in turn carried out the bourgeois-democratic tasks of the Chinese Revolution and began to fulfill socialist tasks, Taken objectively, this amounts to admitting the correctness of Trotsky's theory of per-manent revolution. Of late, the leaders of the Chinese Communist party. have even gone so far as to denounce the theory that socialism can be com= pleted in a single or a few countries, the well-known theory which Stalin counterposed to the theory of permanent revolution and which Khrushchev still upholds today in opposition to "Trotskyism," This move by the lead= ers of the Chinese Communist party is, of course, a most welcome one from the viewpoint of the world Trotskyist movement,
At the same time, the leaders of the Chinese Communist party resort, . curiously, to an obscure 1925 quotation made by Stalin which can be. twisted to make it appear that Stalin was not the father of the theory of socialism in one country, but on the contrary, its opponent! They thus assumed the scarcely enviable chore of having to "prove" that Stalin was © the protagonist of the theory of "uninterrupted" or "permanent" revolution -~ as against Trotsky,
Do the leaders of the Chinese Communist party really believe that they ~@an succeed in accomplishing. this self-assigned miracle of putting history completely on its head?
Timofeyev, "Cucumber" and their fellow theoreticians and artists of the pen have judged quite correctly in singling this out as an exceedingly vulnerable point in Peking's position, The leaders of the Chinese Commun= ist party took an impossible stand, It is the height of inconsistency to pose as staunch defenders of Stalin, to praise Stalin as "a great Marxist~ -‘Leninist," while at the very same time advocating the theory of "“uninterrupted revolution" and attacking the theory of "socialism in one country." The weirdness of such a combination is evident to everyone in the world Communist movement, The Chinese Communists must either draw back from “uninterrupted revolution," from "full support to the revolutionary move= ment in all countries," from a fight against the theory of "socialism in one or a few countries," as much too hot a dish for their taste, or they'll have to bury Stalin and along with him all his pomp and "works," History leaves no other rational choice,
ROBERT WILLIAMS