Trotsky's Permanent Revolution

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_revolution#.27Permanent_revolution.27_according_to_Trotsky
The basic idea of Trotsky's theory[10] is that in Russia the bourgeoisie would not carry out a thorough revolution which would institute political democracy and solve the land question. These measures were assumed to be essential to develop Russia economically. Therefore it was argued the future revolution must be led by the proletariat who would not only carry through the tasks of the Bourgeois Democratic Revolution but would commence a struggle to surpass the bourgeois democratic revolution.
How far the proletariat would be able to travel upon that road would depend upon the further course of events and not upon the designation of the revolution as "Bourgeois Democratic". In this sense the revolution would be made permanent. Trotsky believed that a new workers' state would not be able to hold out against the pressures of a hostile capitalist world unless socialist revolutions quickly took hold in other countries as well. This theory was advanced in opposition to the position held by the Stalinist faction within the Bolshevik Party that "socialism in one country" could be built in the Soviet Union.


Trotsky's theory was developed in opposition to the Social Democratic theory that undeveloped countries must pass through two distinct revolutions. First the Bourgeois Democratic Revolution, which socialists would assist, and at a later stage, the Socialist Revolution with an evolutionary period of capitalist development separating those stages. This is often referred to as the Theory of Stages, the Two Stage Theory or Stagism.

Assuming that Stalin wasn't around to sideline Trotsky and Trotsky, Lenin's heir apparent, was able to replace him upon his death what shape would a Trotskyist USSR take? He was a major proponent of Permanent Revolution and wanting to export the revolution to other countries violently. Assuming Trotsky took over in 1922 what would he have done vis-a-vis Poland, as he wanted to be able to reach Germany to 'liberate' the homeland of Marx and aid the Socialists there in creating an industrial base to help the USSR develop its industry. Peace with Poland had come in March 1921, would Trotsky have started a new war in 1922-23 after coming to power to link up with Germany? Would the German Communists then reflect the ideology of the USSR? German Communists decided after the victory of Stalin in sidelining Trotsky to adopt a more Moscow friendly line and step back from revolution in Germany IOTL, perhaps with a Trotskyist victory they would be more confrontational with the conservatives in Germany in anticipation of Soviet forces moving into Germany?
 
I don't understand why it's so widely assumed that without Stalin, Trotsky would be Lenin's successor. He was widely disliked among the top Bolsheviks for many reasons--for one thing, of course, he was a latecomer to the Bolshevik party (and it was easy for his opponents to quote many hostile things Lenin had written about him, and vice versa); for another, he was viewed as arrogant and authoritarian, even a potential "Bonaparte." I think that without Stalin, a party led by Zinoviev and Kamenev (despite their own disadvantages, such as their opposition to the October insurrection in 1917) is more likely than one headed by Trotsky.
 

Deleted member 1487

I don't understand why it's so widely assumed that without Stalin, Trotsky would be Lenin's successor. He was widely disliked among the top Bolsheviks for many reasons--for one thing, of course, he was a latecomer to the Bolshevik party (and it was easy for his opponents to quote many hostile things Lenin had written about him, and vice versa); for another, he was viewed as arrogant and authoritarian, even a potential "Bonaparte." I think that without Stalin, a party led by Zinoviev and Kamenev (despite their own disadvantages, such as their opposition to the October insurrection in 1917) is more likely than one headed by Trotsky.
Trotsky was Lenin's favorite and depending on how things shake out, I'm not saying Trotsky was a guaranteed lock without Stalin, its not unlikely that Trotsky was going take over. Stalin was a pretty awful person too and people were willing to support him as Chairman.
If Trotsky took over, however likely that is, what would happen given his beliefs and personality?

I guess we can then add what would the USSR be like if Stalin wasn't around and Trotsky was pushed out by Zinoviev and Kamenev?
 
Trotsky was Lenin's favorite and depending on how things shake out, I'm not saying Trotsky was a guaranteed lock without Stalin, its not unlikely that Trotsky was going take over. Stalin was a pretty awful person too and people were willing to support him as Chairman.
If Trotsky took over, however likely that is, what would happen given his beliefs and personality?

I guess we can then add what would the USSR be like if Stalin wasn't around and Trotsky was pushed out by Zinoviev and Kamenev?

I would imagine a USSR run by Kamenev would probably not differentiate too much from Stalin's Russia in terms of Industrialization and would probably rule with an equally heavy hand. However, a USSR under Zinoviev would probably make multiple more attempts at getting communists in power in Germany
 

raharris1973

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it is easy to figure out why the trotsky scenario is so popular even if i is unlikely on deeper inspection.

first of all few people have inspected early soviet history as closely as dtenner.

secondly trotsky is so famous due to his own prolific writings before and after exile and due to stalin making him infamous as a bogeyman and and supervillain behind all soviet failings

thirdly his political positions on exporting revolution and his military leadership role provide great ah fodder for boys favorite ah fantasies: revolutions and disorders and wars, oh my!.
 

raharris1973

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on zinoviev i recall h g wells saying that zinoviev was particularly passionate aboute revolution in colonial an semi colonial ares like the muslim world an east asia. now i realize wells was a fairly superficial and unreliable source,but is there any substance behind this image of zinoviev?
 
OTL Trotsky mellowed in his later years in exile, it's difficult to tell whether that would be the case if he got into power. During the civil war days, he was actually more radical than Lenin with his ideas on the militarisation of the economy and society.

In foreign policy, he definitely would have been more hawkish in 1923. As for the German KPD, there weren't many pro-Trotsky forces at that time. Radical leftists Ruth Fischer and Arkadij Maslow were on the Zinoviev/Kameniev side, whereas Thälmann was very much Stalin's man. Then there were Brandler and Thalheimer, who were parliamentarian-minded. Fischer and Maslow would later became Trotskyites, but around 1923, they sided with Zinoviev and Stalin against Trotsky. However, they were strongly pro-revolution in 1923, so I guess they would have become pro-Trotsky at that stage. As Trotsky was a polarising figure, I doubt that he would have gotten all the European Communist parties "in line". Therefore, the "permanent revolution" would have been postponed nonetheless, with the different Communist parties taking different directions.
 
Trotsky was Lenin's favorite

Certainly not before 1917, and even after that their relationship was an up-and-down one. It deteriorated greatly after the so-called trade union dispute of 1920-21. Calling for open statification of trade unions and militarization of labor was another of Trotsky's political mistakes which helped to give him a reputation as authoritarian and a "splitter" while driving Lenin closer to Stalin. Of course Lenin did not favor independent trade unions any more than Trotsky--but as Robert Service notes, "Whereas Lenin hoped to control the trade unions by stealth, Trotsky wanted to do it to the accompaniment of bells and whistles." http://books.google.com/books?id=mbD8jRUdAjsC&pg=PA279 Bukharin's attempt to form a "buffer group" simply annoyed both Lenin and Trotsky; the "Workers' Opposition" objected to both Lenin's and Bukharin's positions but saved their strongest criticism for Trotsky; and Stalin, whom Lenin had criticized after the Polish war, now organized Lenin's faction during the dispute. It seems that, as Service remarks, Trotsky relished a good dispute too much to care about the consequences...

It is true that, much later, Lenin got alarmed about the "boundless power" he had given to Stalin, and moved closer to Trotsky in an attempt to curb Stalin (though even in the famous "Testament" there is criiticism of Trotsky as well as Stalin.) But by then it was too late.

If we are looking for a plausible POD for Trotsky to come to power, I think Lenin has to die much earlier--or at least Trotsky has to avoid the blunder of the trade union dispute. One thing that is often forgotten is that there actually was a pro-Trotsky Secretariat for a while! From December 1919 to March 1921 the "Responsible Secretary" was Trotsky's ally Nikolai Krestinsky. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolay_Krestinsky (Also in the Secretariat was Preobrazhensky, who was to become the chief theorist of Trotsky and the "Left Opposition" on economic matters later in the 1920's.) Krestinsky was removed from this position (as well as his Politburo and Orgburo positions) in March 1921 for having sided with Trotsky against Lenin on the "trade union dispute." Perhaps if Lenin had died before 1921, Krestinsky could have used the powers of the Secretariat to bolster Trotsky's position.

You may say that the Secretariat was not nearly as powerful then as it would be once the position of General Secretary was created and given to Stalin. True, but to some extent the powers of an office are what the holder makes of them. Krestinsky never seems to have tried to use the Secretariat to build up a personal or pro-Trotsky factional power base. Maybe with a healthy Lenin still around he couldn't have done so even if he had tried. In any event, even in 1920-21 the Secretariat was by no means solely a technical office without political significance. It was in 1921--well before Stalin's General Secretaryship--that Bukharin made his famous quip that "the history of humanity is divided into three periods: the matriarchate, the patriarchate, and the Secretariat." https://books.google.com/books?id=BUg-lWpZcsIC&pg=PA154

(Incidentally, in his recent first volume of his biography of Stalin, Stephen Kotkin notes of the trade union dispute that the the party press had--at the Central Committee's orders--been carrying nasty polemics on the issue for months. "This *public* debate beyond the halls of party meetings, so uncharacteristic, might actually have been a provocation by Lenin to make Trotsky discredit himself by broadcasting his unpopular turn-up-the-screws approach. Trotsky was demanding that unions become an arm of the state. Lenin seems to have conspired with Zinoviev to bait and then counterattack Trotsky (whom Zinoviev despised); Stalin counterattacked Trotsky, too. At the congress, Lenin won the policy battle: unions were neither merged into the state (Trotsky)nor afforded autonomy (Shylapnikov). And yet, Lenin prioved a sore winner..." https://books.google.com/books?id=OB90AwAAQBAJ&pg=PT272)

There is one scenario for Trotsky coming to power much earlier--and not as a Bolshevik. I go into it at https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/R8y9UR6NylI/YJClDmCQ7wcJ:

***

Let's say that in early 1917 Lenin dies in a traffic accident in Switzerland.
He is not around to announce his "April theses", so the Bolsheviks adhere to
the line Kamenev and Stalin announced in Pravda in March in OTL: "Condtional
support" for the Provisional Government with the goal of pressuring it to
make an attempt to induce all the warring countries to enter negotiations for
a peace "without annexations or indemnities." This position was identical
with that of Martov, and not surprisingly, Stalin supported union with at
least the "Menshevik Internationalists" (though not with the "defensist" wing
of the Mensheviks): "Order of the day: Tseretelli's proposal for
unification. STALIN: We ought to go. It is necessary to define our proposals
as to the terms of unification. Unification is possible along the lines of
Zimmerwald-Kienthal...There is no use running ahead and anticipating
disagreements. There is no party life without disagreements..."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1937/ssf/sf15.htm
Suppose the Bolsheviks (in the absence of Lenin) persisted with this
conciliatory line (against the protest of some left-wing Bolsheviks like
Molotov)? In that event a new party might be formed, with Trotsky easily the
most prestigious figure in it. To quote an old post of mine:

"One should not overrrate the importance of the Bolshevik party
*as such* in 1917. Its strength came from the fact that in the most
important areas--above all Petrograd--there were increasingly radicalized
soldiers who were sick of the war and the PG and would follow anyone who
would promise land, bread, and especially peace. Party labels meant
little to most of them, and any polemics Lenin had had with Trotsky would
be irrelevant ancient history. If the Bolsheviks would continue to follow
a conciliatory line, it is quite conceivable that the left wing of the
party would break away and combine with Trotsky's Mezhraiontsy to form a
new party. Whatever the new party's name (perhaps "the Communist Party"--
a name which the Bolsheviks had not yet adopted) there is no reason to
think that such a party could not win an eventual majority in the
Petrograd Soviet, and seize power. (Indeed, it might have an easier time
carrying out an insurrrection than the Bolshevik party of OTL, since it
would not be hampered by Kamenev's and Zinoviev's opposition.)"
http://groups.google.com/group/soc.history.what-if/msg/24e22d53cbbabd22

If Trotsky came to power in this way, he would have all the prestige Lenin
had in OTL--in fact, more, since he would not have to share credit with any
other leader the way Lenin did with Trotsky.

However, as I note in that same post, even without Lenin around, it is not
likely that the Bolsheviks would persist in their concilatory March line.
But if they did so, that is the only way I could see Trotsky seizing power as
a "non-Bolshevik."
 
it is easy to figure out why the trotsky scenario is so popular even if i is unlikely on deeper inspection.

first of all few people have inspected early soviet history as closely as dtenner.

secondly trotsky is so famous due to his own prolific writings before and after exile and due to stalin making him infamous as a bogeyman and and supervillain behind all soviet failings

thirdly his political positions on exporting revolution and his military leadership role provide great ah fodder for boys favorite ah fantasies: revolutions and disorders and wars, oh my!.

And Orwell. Don't forget Orwell's role in the mythology.
 
And Orwell. Don't forget Orwell's role in the mythology.

Actually, given some of the stuff written in Animal Farm, Orwell does not seem to think the fate of the Soviet Union would have been that much different under Trotsky in terms of whether it would turn into a dictatorship or not.
 
Actually, given some of the stuff written in Animal Farm, Orwell does not seem to think the fate of the Soviet Union would have been that much different under Trotsky in terms of whether it would turn into a dictatorship or not.

Do you not think so? I totally got the impression he blamed Stalin the man for co-opting the revolution when I read Animal Farm. And wasn't Emmanuel Goldstein meant to have something of The Trot about him too?
 
In *Notes on Nationalism,* Orwell writes, "The fact that Trotskyists are everywhere a persecuted minority, and that the accusation usually made against them, i. e. of collaborating with the Fascists, is obviously false, creates an impression that Trotskyism is intellectually and morally superior to Communism; but it is doubtful whether there is much difference." http://orwell.ru/library/essays/nationalism/english/e_nat

Also, see Orwell's 1939 review of N. de Basily's *Russia Under Soviet Rule*: "Trotsky, in exile, denounces the Russian dictatorship, but he is probably as much responsible for it as any man now living, and there is no certainty that as a dictator he would be preferable to Stalin, though undoubtedly he has a much more interesting mind. The essential act is the rejection of democracy — that is, of the underlying values of democracy; once you have decided upon that, Stalin — or at any rate something *like* Stalin — is already on the way." Unfortunately, this review (In *Essays* [Everyman's Library], pp. 108-111) is not available online; but this excerpt is quoted for example at http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/...may-1997/george-orwell-spain-and-anti-fascism
 
Do you not think so? I totally got the impression he blamed Stalin the man for co-opting the revolution when I read Animal Farm. And wasn't Emmanuel Goldstein meant to have something of The Trot about him too?

(1) The violations of the Seven Commandments in *Animal Farm* began long before Snowball was driven into exile.

(2) Goldstein may be as mythical as Big Brother. Does not O'Brien say that he himself (with other leading Inner Party members) helped to write "Goldstein's book"? "I wrote it. That is to say, I collaborated in writing it. No book is produced individually, as you know." https://books.google.com/books?id=_8GqCQAAQBAJ&pg=PT208
 
Do you not think so? I totally got the impression he blamed Stalin the man for co-opting the revolution when I read Animal Farm.

Well, for example, I recall a bit prior to Snowball's exile where the pigs (who as a whole were allegories to the Bolshevik party) voted that they should get a certain side of apples (or some kind of produce) and the vote was unanimous, even Snowball voted with them. I think the implication is that Orwell was casting dispersions on Marxist-Leninism as a whole and not just Trotskyism or Stalinism in particular. He certainly differentiated it from classical Marxism and socialism at large.
 
(1) The violations of the Seven Commandments in *Animal Farm* began long before Snowball was driven into exile.
Is it not just a general statement on how "assholes" (basically) would take over in the power gap left by the proletariat revolution?
 
In *Notes on Nationalism,* Orwell writes, "The fact that Trotskyists are everywhere a persecuted minority, and that the accusation usually made against them, i. e. of collaborating with the Fascists, is obviously false, creates an impression that Trotskyism is intellectually and morally superior to Communism; but it is doubtful whether there is much difference." http://orwell.ru/library/essays/nationalism/english/e_nat

Also, see Orwell's 1939 review of N. de Basily's *Russia Under Soviet Rule*: "Trotsky, in exile, denounces the Russian dictatorship, but he is probably as much responsible for it as any man now living, and there is no certainty that as a dictator he would be preferable to Stalin, though undoubtedly he has a much more interesting mind. The essential act is the rejection of democracy — that is, of the underlying values of democracy; once you have decided upon that, Stalin — or at any rate something *like* Stalin — is already on the way." Unfortunately, this review (In *Essays* [Everyman's Library], pp. 108-111) is not available online; but this excerpt is quoted for example at http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/...may-1997/george-orwell-spain-and-anti-fascism

Yeah, Orwell was clearly a Social Democrat not an Authoritarian Communist like Stalin or Trotsky. Trotsky clearly wasn't a Social Democrat but Orwell was.
 
Yeah, Orwell was clearly a Social Democrat not an Authoritarian Communist like Stalin or Trotsky. Trotsky clearly wasn't a Social Democrat but Orwell was.
He also gave a list of names of people who wouldn't 'be suitable' to the IRD, a Labour Party anti-communist propaganda organisation, mainly pointing out their sympathies for the USSR but also putting forward some classy ideas about people such as Paul Robeson being 'anti-white' along with veiled homophobia and anti-semitism. Orwell's anti-authoritarianism was better in his fiction.
 
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