One of the main pillars of Trotskyism is the denial of the possibility of building socialism in a single country. This is an outgrowth of Trotsky’s permanent revolution theory, which argued that the revolution in Russia depended on the immediate success of revolution in western Europe to avoid defeat. Nevertheless, the Soviet Union did indeed build socialism in one country, so we should look at the disagreements between Marxism-Leninism and Trotskyism on this point and try to understand where they come from.
The disagreement between Trotsky’s “absurdly Left” (according to Lenin) theory of “Permanent Revolution” and the Leninist theory of revolution in two stages boils down to the question of how to deal with the question of the peasantry.
When Lenin gave his brief and scathing overview of Trotsky’s career in his 1914 article “Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity,” so that “the younger generation of workers should know exactly whom they are dealing with,” he made a point of referring to Trotsky’s “absurdly Left ‘permanent revolution’ theory.” What is the role of this “permanent revolution” theory within Trotskyism, and why is it “absurdly Left,” as Lenin says?
The Trotskyites always paint Trotsky as the true inheritor of the revolutionary legacy of Lenin. This is pure opportunism. They see the tremendous respect and admiration for Lenin that is held by working and oppressed people all over the world and seek to gain some of that respectability simply by association. They say Trotsky was Lenin’s true heir and comrade-in-arms, and that Stalin and the USSR betrayed Leninism.
Seattle, WA – On January 20 and 21, over 30 people turned out to Freedom Road Socialist Organization’s events to promote the recently released print edition of FRSO’s political program. These events were held at the Khalsa Gurmat Center in Federal Way and the University of Washington-Seattle’s campus.
Trotskyism has been one of the most persistent and damaging opportunist ideological opponents of Marxism-Leninism within the left. In the next several articles, we’re going to look at the origin and development of this ideology, what it is and what it seeks to accomplish. But first, who was Trotsky, and what is Trotskyism?
To mark the 129th anniversary of the birth of Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong on December 26, Fight Back News Service is circulating his famous 1937 article “Combat Liberalism.”Combat Liberalism
After waging revolution from 1927 to 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed from Tiananmen Gate that “the Chinese people have stood up!” This marked the end of imperialist domination in China and the beginning of socialism in the newly founded People’s Republic of China, led by the Communist Party. The Chinese revolution has continued through socialist construction from then until today, and we would do well to sum up some of its many heroic achievements in order to better understand, from a Marxist-Leninist perspective, the process of socialist revolution and socialist construction.
How is it possible that the Soviet Union, bastion of socialism and proletarian internationalism, collapsed in 1991? What factors led to its collapse, and what were the results? We should look at both the material and ideological basis for the restoration of capitalism in the USSR. As Marxist-Leninists, what lessons can we draw from the experience of the fall of the Soviet Union?
As Marxist-Leninists in the United States, we can draw lessons from the experiences of others in carrying out revolution and building socialism. While every revolutionary struggle must be firmly based on the concrete analysis of its own conditions, we should still study closely both the successes and failures in the rich experience of the Soviet Union. From that experience we can draw both lessons from their struggle as well as inspiration from their heroic achievements. In the next article we will examine the causes of the collapse of the USSR and draw lessons from it, but here let’s look at all that it achieved.
The historic task of the working class in the socialist revolution is to eliminate all oppression. This includes the liberation of women and LGBTQ people from the shackles of patriarchy.
Mother Bloor, a Communist revolutionary who fought for women’s suffrage, emphasized that women couldn’t just stop at the right to vote. Working women still had to organize against the capitalist ruling class, which forced them to endure long hours, low wages and suffocating labor conditions. The vote was just another tool in that struggle. The suffrage movement relied on people like Bloor – workers who recognized that women’s liberation depends on the struggle for socialism.
Dallas, TX – On Saturday, November 26, more than 60 activists gathered at the Pan-African Connection bookstore in Dallas to celebrate People's Thanksgiving, a celebration honoring those who struggle against imperialism, capitalism and national oppression.
Tallahassee, FL – On November 6, the Tallahassee District of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization held a celebratory meeting at Florida State University to honor the 105th anniversary of the October Revolution.
Minneapolis, MN – About 70 activists packed Mayday Bookstore, November 20, for the release of the print edition of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization’s (FRSO) political program.
The Russian Empire under the Tsar was rightly called a “prisonhouse of nations,” because it oppressed, within its borders, whole nations of people. The Bolsheviks saw that it was a principal task of the socialist revolution to dismantle national oppression and support self-determination for the oppressed nations.
Contradiction is inherent in everything and is what causes things to change qualitatively. In socialist society there are also contradictions. Socialism is the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat, where the working class uses its state power to take society out of capitalism and towards the classless and stateless society of communism.
The task of socialism is to transition from capitalist society to communist society, from a society ruled by and for the rich, based on exploitation and oppression, to a society without classes and without exploitation and oppression. When the working class takes power and expropriates the wealth and power of the capitalist class, the dictatorship of the proletariat will have to eliminate the contradictions carried over from capitalist society in a planned, thoroughgoing, and step-by-step way. One of the most important tasks of the socialist state is the elimination of what Marx called “bourgeois right.” We already touched on bourgeois right in our previous article, “What is Socialism?” but it is a very important subject and needs to be understood clearly.
In our previous article on the relationship between the superstructure and the economic base in historical materialism, we explained that the superstructure is basically the cultural, ideological, political and legal aspect of the mode of production, which arises from the economic base and, in turn, supports and helps reproduce the economic base. We also looked at how ideology arises from class struggle. Both bourgeois ideology and proletarian ideology arise from the class struggle in the capitalist mode of production, and, since the capitalist class is dominant and controls the superstructure under capitalism, their ideology is likewise dominant.
