[Trotsky It is no surprise that our knowledge…]

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Trotsky It is no surprise that our knowledge of the revolutionary process in economically backward countries was first developed by Russian Marxists, for Russia, scene of the first successful socialist revolution was just such a country.

The successful overthrow of capitalism is an international task which demands the building of sections of the Fourth International throughout the world. This cannot be done unless serious attention is given to the struggles of workers and peasants in the many underdeveloped countries of the world.

The lessons of the first socialist revolution thus take on an added richness in this epoch of wars and revolutions.

In Russia at the firn of the century only 14% of the population lived in the towns and the urban working class comprised only a part of this urban population. The largest class in the Russian Empire was the peasantry which had emerged from feudalism only some forty years previously.

Yet he peasantry was far from being a homogeneous class. Most did not own the land they worked whilst a minority, the kulaks, not only owned the land but even employed agricultural labour to work it.

CSARISM

The capitalist class was, in Trotsky's words, "very small in number, isolated from the 'people' half-foreign, without historic traditions and inspired only by a greed for gain." Power, however, did not rest in the hands of the capitalist class, but with the autocratic government of the Csar.

Under constant pressure from the West for several centuries, the Russian ruling aristocracy had been forced to build up state institutions of its own which creamed off a large part of the surplus product in a way which hampered the growth of the very classes that provided that surplus. The enormous bureaucratic/military machine that was created soon began to develop interests of its own.

As Tr otsky observed, "At the moment y hen developing bourgeois society began to feel a need for the political institutions of the West, the autocracy proved to be armed with all the material might of the European states. It rested upon a centralised bureaucratic machine which was quite useless for establishing new relations but was able to develop great energy in carrying out systematic repressions."

Hampered in their attempts to develop industry on a capitalist basis, politically subordinated to the autocratic government of the Csar and financially burdened with the cost of supporting the bureaucracy and the army, the capitalist class came more and more into conflict with the old order, conflict which was eventually to give rise to enormous revolutionary developments.

STAGES

The central question facing Russian Marxists at the turn of the century was this: if the conflict between the capitalists and the autocracy is leading Russia towards a bourgeois revolution, that is one in which the capitalist class will come to power, what will be the role of the working class and peasantry in this revolution?

The Menshevik wing of Russian Marxism stuck rigidly to a schema whereby society seemed to proceed through a series of fixed stages of development. For them, Russia, which was just emerging from feudalism, would have a long way to go under capitalism after the bourgeois revolution before socialism could be achieved.

First, they argued, the working class would have to support the bourgeoisie in their bid for power. Then a lengthy period of capitalist development would follow during which Marxists would have to fight to defend the interests of the working class. Only when capitalism began to decline could the fight for socialist revolution be seriously conducted. The immediate need, said the Mensheyiks, was for • a parliamentary democraty, similar to those in the West.

The revolutionary wing of Russian Marxism, the Bolsheviks, agreed that the approaching revolution would be bourgeois in character. Lenin realised, however, that if the capitalist class could be liberated' from the rule of the Car, then the power of the landowners could be ended and a revolutionary redistribution of the land among the millions of poor peasants could take place.

Since the bourgeoisie were in league with the landowners, Lenin argued that this made possible and necessary an alliance of workers and peasants against the exploiting capitalists and landowners. It was this alliance that Lenin called for in the slogan "The Democratic Dictatorship of the Proletariat and Peasantry'.

Such an alliance as this had never existed before and the new form of political collaboration that Lenin proposed in order to solve the tasks of the democratic revolution raised important questions. Would the peasantry be able to form their own party capable of solving the agrarian question? Which class, the workers or the peasants, would form the majority in the revolutionary LENIN As a result of the experiences of the 1905 revolution, Lenin began to formulate more definite answers to some of these questions. He became more and more convinced that the peasantry could not play the leading role in the coming revolution and that this task would fall to the working class, the only truly propertyless class, and therefore the only revolutionary class in Russia capable of overthrowing the Csar and carrying out the democratic Having completed the demo cratic tasks of the revolution in this way, the question of socialism would be posed. The democratic dictatorship would grow over into the fight for socialism.

By the time of the 1905 revolution, Trotsky had already parted company with the Mensheviks whom he had supported at the time of the 1902 BolshevikMenshevik split. On the question of the revolution, he stood far closer to the Bolsheviks than the Mensheviks.

Trotsky totally rejected the idea that Russia would have to pass through the same course of development that the other, more advanced capitalist countries were going through. The economy of Russia, he argued, had a combined character: on the one hand, the most primitive economic forms, on the other, a capitalist industry am ongst the most modern in the world, albeit on a very small scale.

So although the working class was small in numbers it was confronted with conditions of exploitation which were a match for any capitalist country in the world.

However, because industry formed such a small part of the Russian economy, and because the capitalist class was so dominated by the Csarist autocracy, the capitalists were forced to use revolutionary methods to advance their class interests, as for example, in 1905.

But the capitalists were so afraic of the masses who have in all bourgeois revolutions fought for their own independent interests, that they were forced to pull back from the offensive before they had gained victory. Thus the 1905 revolution failed, since the working class and peasantry had not yet established a leadership capable of cementing the alliance and leading them to victory after their betrayal the bourgeoisie.

Trotsky, in analysing 1905, realised that the capitalist class were incapable of conducting a serious struggle for power. The solution of the democratic tasks and the agrarian problem could therefore come about only through the dictatorship of the proletariat, supported by the peasantry.

The peasantry, who had as their own class interest : the redistribution of the land, were unable for a number of reasons to form a party that could successfully fight to carry this out. They were theretore for ced to side either with the bourgeoisie or the working class. Since the bourgeoisie were themselves incapable of ending the power of the autocracy, the only way the peasants could achieve their aim of taking the land was by supporting the proletariat.

This meant that the proletariat could achieve power earlier than in the advanced capitalist countries, for it was obvious that if the working class carried through the democratic revolution, supported by the peasantry, the dictatorship of the proletariat could be established, and the building of socialism woula be posed.

This in turn raised another important question. Marxists never believed that socialism could be established in a single country, not even on the basis of an advanced capitalist economy, never mind a backward one. So if as a result of the democratic revolution, the proletariat found itself in power, it would have to work towards ending its isolation as quickly as possible.

This would mean extending the revolution to other capitalist countries and in particular to the highly industrialised capitalist countries of Western Europe. Trotsky expressed the essential points of his theory of Permanent Revolution in this way:

"The dictatorship of the proletariat which has risen to power as the leader of the democratic revolution is inevitably and very quickly confronted with tasks, the fulfillment of which is bound up with deep inroads into the rights of bourgeois property. The democratic revolution grows over directly into the socialist revolution, and thereby becomes a permanent revolution.

The conquest of power by the proletariat does not complete the revolution, but only opens it. Socialist construction is conceivable only on the foundation of the class struggle on a national and international scale. This struggle, under the conditions of an overwhelming predominance of capitalist relationships on the world arena must inevitably lead to explosions ...

Therein lies th e permanent char acter of the socialist revolution as such, regardless of whether it is a backward country that is involved .... or an old capitalist country which has already behind it a long epoch of democracy and parliamentarianism"

In 1917, as in 1905, the bourgeoisie were forced to resort once more to revolutionary methods in order to further their class interests. In February of that year a popular uprising led to the overthrow of the Csar and the setting up of on the one hand, a provisiona government and on the other of Soviets.

The Mensheviks, of course, regarded the establishment of a parliamentary democracy based on the class rule of the capitalists as the "next stage" in the historical process.

MENSHEVIKS But the fact that the bourgeoisie were so insignificant that, having overthrown the Csar, they could not establish a properly functioning parliamentary democracy, meant that the Mensheviks driven by the logic of their ideas, were forced to substitute themselves for the bourgeoisie in order that their 'laws' of history were not broken.

At the same time, therefore, that the working class were establishing Soviets as a rival basis of power to the Provisional Government, the Mensheviks were agreeing to become ministers in that governSailors mutiny on the battleship Potemkin ment.

As the working class moved to the left, the capitalists in the government grew more and more unpopular and eventually made way for the Mensheviks to fill all the Ministerial posts. Thus the Mensheviks found themselves ruling on behalf of the capitalist class.

As far as the Bolshevik Party was concerned, the February Revolution revealed the limitations of Lenin's slogan and the strengths of Trotsky's theory of Permanent Revolution. With the Csar overthrown, the majority of the Bolshevik leadership interpreted Lenin's slogan for the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry to mean support for the provisionai Lenin, on his return from exile, launched what began as a one man campaign against this conception, eventually winning the majority of the Bolshevik leadership to his point of view. The provisional government of the Mensheviks and their allies was the highest noint that could he

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Thursday 1975 What the working class had to do now, some said, was to build socialism in Russia 'independent'