Democratic Revolutionin Permanenz

Abstract

According to Richard Day and Daniel Gaido, the editors of Witnesses to Permanent Revolution: The Documentary Record (2009), the basic insights of Trotsky's theory of "permanent revolution" were shared by other prominent German and Russian Social Democrats, including Karl Kautsky, Franz Mehring, Parvus, Rosa Luxemburg and David Ryazanov. In reality, the documents found in Witnesses show that these writers did not use the expression "permanent revolution" in the same way as Trotsky, namely, to link together the democratic and socialist revolutions. Rather, such expressions were used to link together episodes within the process of democratic revolution. These writers exhorted the Russian workers never to get discouraged or rest on their laurels, but rather to keep on fighting for the democratic revolution in Permanenz until final victory was reached. An essential reason for their lack of interest in Trotsky's scenario was a clash over the role of the non-socialist peasantry.

China: In the Perspective of Historical Materialism

“…They did this in Europe in 1848, and in 1870-71; in Europe, the United States and beyond in the aftermath of World War I and the Russian Revolution; and in the 1930s in the wake of the Great Depression. In all of these cases, advance was followed by retreat; workers attained positions that were not sustainable on a permanent basis (the problem of "revolution in permanenz"; see Lih, 2012). The reasons for the reversal of forward movement in democratic revolutions, and the failure to maintain the activism on which forward movements are necessarily based, were the focus of the early-20th-century Marxist debates on the concept of "permanent revolution" (see Day and Gaido, 2009;Lih, 2012).…”

“…In all of these cases, advance was followed by retreat; workers attained positions that were not sustainable on a permanent basis (the problem of "revolution in permanenz"; see Lih, 2012). The reasons for the reversal of forward movement in democratic revolutions, and the failure to maintain the activism on which forward movements are necessarily based, were the focus of the early-20th-century Marxist debates on the concept of "permanent revolution" (see Day and Gaido, 2009;Lih, 2012). Following the reaction after the 1848 eruptions and the reestablishment of monarchic and absolutist government throughout Europe, Marx turned his attention to these cycles, in which the retreat phase had a seemingly protracted and deterministic character.…”

Karl Kautsky and the Russian Revolution of 1905: A Debate on the Driving Forces and the Prospects of the Russian Revolution in the Second International

“…4. Lars T. Lih argued that Kautsky and all the participants in the 1902-7 debate on the Russian Revolution (whose documents we have translated in the anthology Witnesses to Permanent Revolution), with the sole exception of Trotsky, rejected the perspective of a socialist revolution in Russia and held fast to a perspective which he idiosyncratically calls "democratic revolution in Permanenz"-a concept alien to Marxism (Lih 2012). This is a misreading of the historical record.…”

Permanent Revolution — But Without Socialism?

“…Under the rubric, Witnesses to Permanent Revolution, Richard Day and Daniel Gaido have brought together and helpfully introduced the reader of English to a range of interventions in which Russian and some European Marxists sought to come to grips with the novelty of the revolutionary movements of the Russian 1905 Revolution, and to discern perhaps unanticipated possibilities opened up by these movements. Lars Lih's rereading (Lih, 2012) of the…”