What is Trotskyism? - Tony Clark,

What is Trotskyism? - Tony Clark,

3. TROTSKY’S PERMANENT REVOLUTION.

Trotskyism, ideologically, begins with his theory of ‘Permanent Revolution’. Trotsky, it must be said, never wavered from this view. The question, 'what is permanent revolution?’ can be answered quite simply in the following way. The theory of permanent revolution argues that the working class should lead the Russian bourgeois democratic revolution, and on the basis of possession of state power would not stop at the democratic stage, that is to say the minimum programme, but would continue the revolution to the socialist stage. This would awaken the working class in the advanced capitalist countries to rise up against the bourgeoisie. These workers would then come to the aid of the Russian working class, extending support to backward Russia, thus making the revolution permanent. This answered the central question of the Russian revolution, that is, which class would lead it. On this question both Lenin and Trotsky agreed that the working class would be the leader of the revolution.

Both Lenin’s and Trotsky’s views were radically different from the Mensheviks. The Mensheviks argued that a bourgeois revolution had to be led by the bourgeoisie and the role of the working class was to support the efforts of the bourgeoisie in the democratic revolution. In this scenario the workers must not be too radical for fear of scaring off the bourgeois liberals. The Mensheviks argued for an alliance between the bourgeoisie and the working class for accomplishing the democratic revolution. They ignored the lessons of history, which showed that the bourgeoisie would recoil from their own revolution and was never interested in its radical completion.

For a radical solution to the bourgeois revolution, which would not stop at half measures, Lenin argued for an alliance between the working class and the peasantry. These two classes were the most interested in the radical completion of the bourgeois revolution. In sort, the Mensheviks stood for an alliance between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat with the leadership in the hands of the former, whereas the Bolsheviks stood for an alliance between the proletariat and the peasantry. It is over the question of the peasantry that there emerged a divergence between Leninism and Trotskyism. While it can be said, without doubt, that Trotsky recognised the role of the peasantry, it can also be argued that he underestimated its role. Trotskyites deny this, claiming that such accusations are nothing but ‘Stalinist’ slanders against Trotsky necessitated by factional considerations.

Marxist-Leninists, however, do not claim that Trotsky failed to recognise the role of the peasantry in the Russian revolution, but rather that he underestimated its role, i.e., did not correctly grasp its significance To some extent, Trotskyites are able to dispute this claim because in the light of experience Trotsky updated his theory. This is why it is possible to find passages from Trotsky’s writings suggesting an underestimation of the role of the peasantry, while other passages seem to refute this. Taken as a whole, however, after careful consideration, we have to agree with the view that, within Trotskyism there was a tendency to underestimate the role of the peasantry in the Russian revolution. To show that Trotskyism began with an incorrect tactical understanding of the role of the peasantry we can turn to the preface Trotsky wrote in 1922 to his book, The year 1905, where he argued that the working class, having come to power,

‘…would be forced in the very early stages of its rule to make deep in-roads not only into feudal property, but into bourgeois property as well. In this it would come into hostile collision not only with all the bourgeois groupings that supported the proletariat during the first stage of the revolutionary struggle, but also with the broad masses of the peasantry who had been instrumental in bringing it into power. The contradictions in the position of a workers’ government in a backward country with an overwhelming majority of peasants can be solved only on an international scale, in the arena of the world proletarian revolution’. (In: Harpal Brar: Trotskyism or Leninism? p.117)

It is clear that, if in ‘the very early stages of its rule’ the proletariat proceeded with a policy that brought it into ‘hostile collision’ with the ‘broad masses of the peasantry’, communist leadership in the revolution, and working class political power, would have been doomed from the start. So, who can argue when Marxist-Leninists say Trotskyism began by not consciously grasping the significance of the peasantry in the Russian revolution?

Furthermore, the Marxist-Leninist argument that Trotskyism underestimated the role of the peasantry can be clearly illustrated by another passage from Trotsky, where he argues that

‘The nature of our social-historical relations, which lays the whole burden of the bourgeois revolution upon the shoulders of the proletariat, will not only create tremendous difficulties for the workers’ government but, in the first period of its existence at any rate, will also give it invaluable advantages. This will affect the relations between the proletariat and the peasantry’. (L. Trotsky: Results and Prospects, 1906, in: The Permanent Revolution; New Park Publications, July, 1962; p.203)

We need not point out that it would be a travesty of Marxism-Leninism, generally, to argue that Russia’s historical development laid ‘…the whole burden of the bourgeois revolution upon the shoulders of the proletariat…’ Even with an elementary knowledge of Marxism-Leninism it is possible to expose this assertion as completely opposed to Leninism. Leninism taught that the burden of the bourgeois revolution in Russia rests on the proletariat and the peasantry. Unlike Trotskyism, nowhere did Marxism-Leninism teach that the ‘whole burden’ of the Russian revolution rested on the shoulders of the proletariat alone.

If it were necessary to give more evidence that Trotskyism began by ‘underestimating’ the role of the peasantry in the Russian revolution, another quote from Trotsky would be sufficient, at least for the unbiased mind. In Result and Prospects, Trotsky argues, regarding the defeat in the Russo-Japanese war of 1905, that

‘The attempt of the Russia of 3rd June to solve the internal revolutionary problems by the path of imperialism has resulted in an obvious fiasco. This does not mean that the responsible or semi-responsible parties of the 3rd June regime will take the path of revolution, but it does mean that the revolutionary problem laid bare by the military catastrophe, which will drive the ruling class still further along the path of imperialism, doubles the importance of the only revolutionary class in the country’.(L. Trotsky: op. Cit., p252)

This passage illustrates, absolutely clearly, by omission, that Trotskyism began by underestimating the role of the peasantry in the Russian revolution. When Trotsky writes here of the ONLY REVOLUTIONARY CLASS IN THE COUNTRY, he is speaking of the proletariat, while completely ignoring the peasantry. What more evidence is needed to demonstrate that contained within Trotskyism, particularly early Trotskyism, there is an underestimating of the role of the peasantry, alien to Leninism? Unlike Trotskyism, nowhere did Marxism-Leninism teach that the proletariat was the ‘only revolutionary class’ in the Russian revolution.

If to imply that the working class in the Russian revolution was the ‘only’ revolutionary class is not underestimating the role of the peasantry, then what is? This one passage, alone, demolishes any attempt to oppose Marxism-Leninism and argue, in support of Trotskyism, that Trotsky never underestimated the peasantry, and that therefore such accusations are the invention of ‘Stalinists’. The view that the working class, or proletariat, was the ‘only revolutionary class in the country’ is the very opposite of Bolshevism, that is of Marxism-Leninism.

Another really astonishing remark by Trotsky shows, absolutely clearly, the complete absence of a Leninist understanding of the significance of the peasantry as an ally of the proletariat. Trotsky openly claimed, in print, that

‘In order to understand the subsequent conflict between Stalinism and Trotskyism, it is necessary to emphasise that, in consonance with all Marxist tradition, Lenin never regarded the peasant as a socialist ally of the proletariat; on the contrary, it was the overwhelming preponderance of the peasantry which had led Lenin to conclude that the socialist revolution was impossible in Russia’. ( L. Trotsky: What Is The Permanent Revolution-Three concepts of The Russian Revolution; Published by Spartacist, 1970; pages unnumbered)

But it is ABC Leninism, for anyone who has made even a cursory study of Lenin’s writings, that the alliance of the proletariat and the peasantry was an absolute condition for the democratic revolution, whereas an alliance with the middle and poor peasantry, was a precondition for upholding the socialist dictatorship of the proletariat. For Trotsky to say, shamelessly, that Lenin never regarded the peasantry as a socialist ally of the proletariat, would not only make Lenin turn in his grave, but Marx and Engels as well. This is a blatant repudiation of Leninism and its replacement with Trotskyism. If Trotsky made such utterances in ignorance it would only further undermine the already impossible claim, by theoretically illiterate people, that Trotsky and his past and contemporary followers represent the continuation of Leninism. These people are on such a low theoretical level that they are unable to discern the differences between Leninism and Trotskyism.

Now the question is, did Lenin ever accuse Trotsky of underestimating the peasantry, or was this a later slander by Stalin and those who supported him? We think it is best to let Trotsky reply to this vexed question.

‘On the occasions when Lenin accused me of "underestimating" the peasantry, he did not have in mind my failure to recognise the socialist tendencies of the peasantry but rather my failure to realise sufficiently, from Lenin’s point of view, the bourgeois democratic independence of the peasantry, its capacity to create its own power and through it impede the establishment of the socialist dictatorship of the proletariat’, (L. Trotsky: ibid.)

We have to say this passage is hogwash, possessing merit only in the frank admission that Lenin accused Trotsky of UNDERESTIMATING THE PEASANTRY. Trotsky, having confessed that Lenin did in fact level the charge of underestimating the role of the peasantry, returns quickly to the Trotskyite legend that the accusation about underestimating the role of the peasantry began after Lenin, suggesting that

‘The revaluation of the question commenced only during the years of the thermidorian reaction, the beginning of which coincided by and large with Lenin’s illness and death’ (L. Trotsky: ibid.)

On the contrary, it was after the death of Lenin that Trotsky made his failed bid to replace Leninism with Trotskyism in the Soviet Communist Party and the international communist movement. The re-evaluation that Trotsky is referring to is a vital question for Leninism, namely the role of the peasantry under the socialist dictatorship of the proletariat. For Trotsky, after Lenin’s death

‘…the union of Russian workers and peasants was declared to be in itself sufficient guarantee against the dangers of restoration and a firm pledge that socialism would be achieved within the borders of the Soviet Union. Having substituted the theory of socialism in one country for the theory of international revolution, Stalin began to call the Marxist evaluation of the peasantry "Trotskyism", and moreover not only with reference to the present but retroactively to the entire past’ (L. Trotsky: ibid.)

Trotsky did say that Marxism ‘never ascribed an absolute and immutable character to its estimation of the peasantry as a non-socialist class’, but he failed to present the question in a concrete way and draw the necessary conclusions. Since Marxism, in the words of Trotsky, never ascribed an absolute and immutable character to its estimation of the peasantry as a non-socialist class, this is a further exposure of Trotskyism. A close textual reading of Lenin reveals that it is impossible to argue that there was a ‘revaluation’ of the question of the peasantry’s role under socialism. Enshrined in Trotskyism is its central legend that Stalin substituted the theory of socialism in one country for the theory of world revolution. This bipolar notion of the existence of two theories, i.e., the theory of socialism in one country, and the theory of world revolution is purely an invention by Trotskyism, in fact its most important legend, which we will deal with later. For now we will consider Lenin’s views on the peasantry and socialism.

For Lenin, as long as the socialist state has power over all large-scale means of production, combined with the alliance with the millions of small peasants, together with the leadership of the proletariat, and on the basis of the co-operatives:

‘Is this not all that is necessary for building a complete socialist society? This is not yet the building of socialist society, but it is all that is necessary and sufficient for this building’ ( V.I. Lenin: CW. Vol. 27; p.392)

Without further ado, we can say, with some embarrassment for having to remind those who are confined to the ideological parameters of Trotskyism, that Marxism-Leninism was not re-evaluated, as Trotsky carelessly suggests, but rather maintained that the key condition for upholding the socialist dictatorship in the Soviet Union was the alliance between the proletariat and the peasantry, the middle and small peasantry. This forms the most important teaching of Marxism-Leninism concerned with the Russian revolution’s strategic line.

In fact Trotsky reveals his anti-Leninism most clearly on the peasant question, which he always tends to present abstractly, in the following remark:

‘…whatever the situation on that score today, after twenty-odd years of the new regime, the fact remains that prior to the October Revolution, … no-one in the Marxist camp, and least of all Lenin, had regarded the peasantry as a factor of socialist development’. (L. Trotsky: ibid.)

Trotsky made out that for Stalin the alliance between the proletariat and the peasantry was all that was necessary to save the Soviet Union from capitalist restoration and therefore the extension of the world revolution was not necessary, but there is nothing in Stalin’s writings to support this line of argumentation. The reality was that Bolshevism fought Menshevism on the right and Trotskyism and other pseudo-left tendencies on the ultra-left over the question of the role of the peasantry in the Russian revolution.

Trotsky’s permanent revolution theory was one of ‘pseudo-leftism’. It was referred to by Lenin as ‘absurdly left’. This theory would have been consigned to the waste paper bin, but something happened which saved it, so to speak, and gave it new life. This something was the 1914-1918 imperialist war.

In simple terms we can say that the imperialist war of 1914-18 worked, to some extent, in favour of Trotsky’s theory. Without this war Trotsky’s theory would have been forgotten. The significance of the imperialist war was that it made it possible for the Bolsheviks to progress from the democratic revolution against the Tsarist regime to the socialist revolution. This gave the impression, to some people, that Lenin had gone over to Trotsky’s views. Indeed, this was the essential argument of people like Zinoviev and Kamenev, who initially opposed Lenin’s ‘April Theses’, which outlined the struggle to lead the democratic revolution into the socialist revolution. Even Trotsky in his autobiography could claim, in regard to Lenin, that

‘…the course of events, by substituting arithmetic for algebra had revealed the essential identity of our views’. (L. Trotsky: My Life; Pelican, p.345)

The working class had, indeed, led the bourgeois democratic revolution and then transformed it into the proletarian revolution. Lenin had already held to this possibility.

‘Our programme is not an old one but a new-the minimum programme of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. We have a new slogan: the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry. If we live to see the real victory of the democratic revolution we shall also have new methods of action in keeping with the nature and aims of the working-class party that is striving for a complete socialist revolution’. (V.I. Lenin: Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution; Progress Publishers, Moscow, pp.54-56)

And again, in Two Tactics, Lenin argues that

‘We all contrapose bourgeois revolution with socialist revolution; we all insist on the absolute necessity of strictly distinguishing between them; however, can it be denied that in the course of history individual, particular elements of two revolutions become interwoven? Has the period of democratic revolutions in Europe not been familiar with a number of socialist movements and attempts to establish socialism? And will not the future socialist revolution in Europe still have to complete a great deal left undone in the field of democratism’. (V.I. Lenin: Op. Cit.; pp.82-3)

Further Lenin argued that

‘The revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry is unquestionably only a transient, temporary socialist aim, but to ignore this aim in the period of the democratic revolution would be downright reactionary’. (V.I. Lenin: op. Cit.; p.83)

For Lenin, the bourgeois democratic revolution would establish the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry. This itself is a far cry from the view of Trotsky outlined above, suggesting that the proletariat was the ‘only revolutionary class’, not to mention his view that the proletariat was to bear ‘all the burden’ of the revolution. In Lenin’s view the dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry would carry out the minimum programme, the demands of the bourgeois revolution. But from the text above, we see also that not only is the bourgeois stage of the revolution separate from the socialist stage, but they are also interconnected.

In other words the minimum programme, the bourgeois revolution, and the maximum programme, i.e., socialism, were for Lenin not two unrelated processes. Lenin argued that the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry has a past and a future. Its past was the struggle against feudalism, its future the struggle against capitalism; this would lead to the end of the single will of the peasantry as a whole with the proletariat which existed in the democratic stage.

‘The time will come when the struggle against the Russian autocracy will end, and the period of democratic revolution will have passed in Russia; it will then be ridiculous even to speak of "singleness of will" of the proletariat and the peasantry, about a democratic dictatorship, etc. When that time comes we shall deal directly with the question of the socialist dictatorship of the proletariat and speak of it in greater detail’. (V.I. Lenin: op. Cit.; p.84)

In other words, the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry would grow into the socialist dictatorship of the proletariat. With certain modifications, this, in outline, is precisely what happened in the Russian revolution. The revolution first led to the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry and was subsequently turned into the socialist dictatorship of the proletariat. Theory, which Lenin recognised was always open to modification by concrete developments, did not predict the concrete form of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry.

Nor could it be known beforehand that the opportunists would dominate the first stage of the revolution through the Soviets of workers and peasants and work with the provisional government against the democratic revolution. But the eight months of preparation, from February to October, gave the masses the experience to throw out the opportunists, support a new government of socialist dictatorship, and complete the democratic revolution. How was this all made possible, and how did it differ from Trotsky’s prognosis?

Trotsky, in permanent revolution, had argued that, having come to power, the working class would carry out the minimum programme and then proceed to socialism, that is to say the maximum programme. But the reality is that this development was only made possible by the intervention of the imperialist war of 1914-18. Without this war, the conditions that made it possible to transform the democratic revolution into the socialist revolution in such a short space of time would not have existed.

Two factors would have worked against Trotsky’s permanent revolution prediction in the absence of the conditions created by the First Imperialist War. (1) The peasantry as a whole would not have supported the immediate transition to socialism. This means that the balance of class forces would have favoured the Mensheviks and the bourgeoisie. (2) Intervention by world imperialism to support the counterrevolution would have certainly been more successful, had an attempt been made to turn the democratic revolution into socialist revolution in the absence of the peculiar conditions of wartime.

The war of 1914-18 made it possible for Trotsky’s supporters to conceal the pseudo-left nature of his version of permanent revolution. In other words, to have attempted, or advocated Trotsky’s permanent revolution theory in the absence of the conditions created by the war would have led to the certain defeat of the working class. That is the point, which the Trotskyites ignore.

The Bolsheviks could transform the bourgeois into the proletarian revolution, in such a short space of time, not because they had come over to the abstract thesis of Trotsky’s Permanent Revolution, but because conditions made such a transformation possible. The revolution had confirmed Lenin’s position of the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry, but as Lenin remarked in his ‘April Theses’, this was done in a more original form, and furthermore under wartime conditions.

Lenin and the Bolsheviks did not promote, at the level of abstract theory, the possibility of an immediate proletarian, socialist revolution in Russian conditions. In fact Lenin ruled out such a development in conformity with Marxism. The Russian democratic revolution was to be bourgeois in nature, leading to a republic. The question of the transformation of this democratic revolution into a socialist one would be determined by external and internal factors, the latter among which was the degree of consciousness and organisation of the working class. The intervention of the imperialist war of 1914-18 changed Lenin’s calculations. What the war achieved was to speed up the revolutionary process, thus reducing the distance between the democratic and the socialist stage of the revolution, making it possible to transform the first into the second.

In other words, Lenin argued for the transition to the socialist stage, not because Trotsky’s theory was correct, but because wartime conditions speeded up the revolutionary process and created favourable conditions for the second stage to begin. In the absence of the speeded up revolutionary process and favourable conditions, the transformation into the socialist stage only on the grounds that the working class possessed power would have been leftist adventurism. Here we see a clear demarcation between Leninism and Trotskyism. Whereas the premise of Lenin is the concrete situation created by the imperialist war, for Trotsky the premise is the abstraction of ‘permanent revolution’. The methodological polarity between them is the essence of the cognitive divergence between Leninism and Trotskyism.

The methodological and ideological difference between Marxism-Leninism and Trotskyism is clear when we compare Lenin’s ‘April Theses’ of 1917 with Trotsky’s updated Permanent Revolution theory of 1928. The background and basis of the policy outlined in the April Theses is the imperialist war of 1914-18. This war is at centre stage of the theses, and is presented as the main contributory factor determining the progress of the bourgeois democratic revolution into the socialist stage. But the situation is quite different when we examine Trotsky’s updated 1928 presentation of his theory. Trotsky completely fails to see the link between the imperialist war and the possibility it opened up for leading the revolution on to socialism. It is a remarkable fact that in his 1928 work on permanent revolution Trotsky nowhere mentions the imperialist war in connection with the change of Bolshevik tactics, aimed at overthrowing the bourgeoisie and capitalism. To separate the Russian socialist revolution from the imperialist war is a mistake not made even by second-rate bourgeois historians.

In fact, it is Trotsky’s 1928 work that reveals the real contradiction in approach between Lenin and Trotsky. The following will illustrate this. Even eleven years after the revolution in opposition to Leninism, Trotsky could write:

‘…never in history has there been a regime of the "democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry’. (L. Trotsky: The Permanent Revolution; New Park Publications, London, 1962; p.4)

Trotsky’s repudiation of Lenin here is probably the most open in all his post Lenin writings. But Marxism-Leninism teaches the very opposite. The Lenin of the ‘April Theses’ came to the very opposite conclusion to Trotskyism. In 1917 Lenin wrote and argued the position that

‘ "The Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies"-there you have the "revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry" already accomplished in reality’. (V. I. Lenin: April Theses; CW. Vol. 24; pp.42-54)

No other passage is necessary to demonstrate the opposition between Leninism and Trotskyism on matters relating to the Russian revolution. When Lenin says plus, Trotsky says minus.

We can conclude this section by saying that Lenin agreed with Trotsky and the Mensheviks about the bourgeois nature of the Russian revolution. While differing from the Mensheviks about the alliance of classes which would be necessary for a successful revolution, and which of these classes should lead, he conceded that the revolution would be capitalist, leading to a republic. For Lenin there was no ‘Chinese wall’ between the first and second stage of the revolution, but its further development would depend on internal and external factors.

The first imperialist war of 1914-18 speeded up the revolutionary process, creating favourable conditions for the transition to socialism. This brought about a change in Bolshevik tactics. Trotsky, on the other hand, underestimated the role of the peasantry, suggesting that the proletariat was the ‘only’ revolutionary class and that the ‘whole burden’ of the revolution was on the shoulders of the workers, an argument which constituted a complete repudiation of Leninism, at least in the early presentation of his theory.

Trotsky also denied, in opposition to Leninism, the existence of the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry, saying it had never existed in history. In addition to all this he failed to realise that it was the conditions generated by the first imperialist war which made the transition from the democratic to the socialist revolution possible in such a short space of time, incorrectly implying that Lenin came over to his theory.

And it is quite ridiculous for a leading British Trotskyite, Alan Woods to argue that

‘The concrete realisation of the "democratic dictatorship" which history had actually thrown up was a capitalist government, waging an imperialist war of annexation, incapable of solving, or even of seriously posing, a single one of the fundamental tasks of the democratic revolution. The algebraic formula of the "democratic dictatorship" had been filled by history with a negative content’ (Alan Woods and Ted Grant: Lenin and Trotsky, What They Really Stood For; p.75)

Although this was a reply to the revisionist, Monty Johnson, who had tried to argue, incorrectly, that the provisional government was the realisation of the democratic dictatorship, Woods and Grant themselves fail to understand it and, indeed, they confuse the provisional government with the democratic dictatorship. The essence of the latter was the alliance between the proletariat and the peasantry, as a whole, in the democratic revolution, whereas the provisional government was in fact the realisation of the Menshevik policy of an alliance between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. This alliance, which the Bolsheviks devoted all their energy to exposing and breaking up, in essence is no different from the present alliance between the Social Democracy and the bourgeoisie in all the advanced capitalist countries. The contradiction between Leninism and Trotskyism is further exposed when Woods and Grant argue that the ‘concrete’ realisation of the democratic dictatorship was a capitalist government waging an imperialist war, etc. This compounds Trotsky’s mistake outlined above when he argued that a democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry has never existed anywhere.

Unlike Lenin, Trotsky deduced the possibility for the transition of the bourgeois revolution into the socialist revolution, not from all the relevant concrete conditions but from the postulates of abstract theory, which saw the workers’ possession of the requisite power as the only essential determination for this. This pseudo-leftism, if it had been put into practice under different, unsuitable circumstances, would have led to the tragic defeat of the revolution. Trotsky’s ‘permanent revolution’ theory was a ‘left’ distortion of Marxism in that it advocated a socialist revolution as an immediate exigency, deduced from theoretical abstraction, possessing a high degree of cognitive autonomy from all the interrelated processes leading to the seizure of power by the working class. In this sense Trotsky’s theory is closer to intuitive prediction unconcerned with the processes of concrete and political development.

It is interesting in this respect that even the anti-Communist bourgeois historian, Robert Service, makes the following observation that

‘Except for the Great War, Lenin would have remained an ‘émigré’ theorist scribbling in Swiss libraries; and even if Nicholas II had been deposed in a peacetime transfer of power, the inception of a communist regime order would hardly have been likely’. (R. Service: A History of Twentieth Century Russia; p.26)

This is not a remarkable insight by Service; the work contains an element of truth, mostly in regard to the socialist stage of the revolution, but it does unintentionally expose the pseudo-left nature of Trotsky’s permanent revolution theory and the potential tragedy, which would have been visited upon the working class and peasantry, had the situation been different.