OscailtMarx's Economics for Anarchists - Chapter 9What Marx Meant by Socialism and Communism2011-12-06T17:30:46+08:00Anarkismoanarkismoeditors@lists.riseup.nethttp://www.anarkismo.net/atomfullposts?story_id=21278http://www.anarkismo.net/graphics/feedlogo.giftransitional periods and permanent revolutionshttp://www.anarkismo.net/article/21278#comment138972011-12-06T17:30:46+08:00ajohnstonealanjjohnstone at yahoo dot co dot ukOn the subject of the transitional period and transitional society this may be o...On the subject of the transitional period and transitional society this may be of help and useful reading. <br />
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<a href="http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/study-guides/myth-transitional-society" title="http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/study-guides/myth-transitional-society">http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/study-guid...ciety</a><br />
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I think when discussing 'permanent revolution', there is little point in referring to Marx's usage since much like Lenin and his use of the phrase 'dictatorship of the proletariat' (and his deliberate distortion of socialism/communism) its current employment differs so much from Marx's original meanings .<br />
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Marx's 1850 use of the phrase consists of the working class maintaining a militant and independent approach to politics both before, during and after the 'struggle' which will bring the 'petty-bourgeois democrats' to power . What permanent revolution in this sense means is that the proletariat should organise autonomously. Marx is concerned that throughout the process of this impending political change, the petty-bourgeoisie will seek to ensnare the workers in a party organization in which general social-democratic phrases prevail while their particular interests are kept hidden behind, and in which, for the sake of preserving the peace, the specific demands of the proletariat may not be presented. Such a unity would be to their advantage alone and to the complete disadvantage of the proletariat. The proletariat would lose all its hard-won independent position and be reduced once more to a mere appendage of official bourgeois democracy.<br />
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In an article two years earlier, Marx had referred to 'a programme of permanent revolution, of progressive taxes and death duties, and of organisation of labour' This confirms the impression that Marx's theory of 'permanent revolution' is not about revolution per se, rather more about the attitude that a revolutionary class should adopt in the period of their political subjection, including the programme of political demands they should propose. As well as overtures for organisational alliance with the petty bourgeoisie, Marx is concerned about attempts to 'bribe the workers with a more or less disguised form of alms and to break their revolutionary strength by temporarily rendering their situation tolerable' Therefore, the workers' party must use their autonomous organisation to push a political programme which threatens the bourgeois status quo. Marx believes the proletariat should refuse to moderate its demands to the petty-bourgeois consensus. Furthermore, the demand of the workers should always seek to push the bourgeois further than they are prepared to go. <br />
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It is worthwhile to have some idea of how Marx saw the context in which he advocated 'permanent revolution'. It seems that he believed that 'the first act of the approaching revolutionary drama [in Germany] will coincide with the direct victory of their own class in France and will thereby be accelerated'. That is, the petty-bourgeois are expected to come to power in Germany at the same time as the 'direct victory' of the proletariat in France. Furthermore, Marx seems to believe of the former (and hence, of both) that it is 'imminent' (c.f. the third paragraph of the Address ). Marx clearly believes, therefore, that Europe is entering a time, and is at a level of development of the 'productive forces' in which the proletariat have the social revolution within their reach. If Marx is understood to be consistent about his emphasis on historical circumstance, it is unclear how the relevance of his theory of permanent revolution should be evaluated in times in which the social revolution is not expected to be imminent. Indeed, after 1850 there is no record of Marx or Engels ever using the term.<br />
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So to repeat, Marx advocated 'permanent revolution' as the proletarian strategy of maintaining organisational independence along class lines, and a consistently militant series of political demands and tactics. <br />
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At no stage does Marx make the central claim with which Trotsky's conception of 'permanent revolution' is concerned - i.e. that it is possible for a country to pass directly from the dominance of the semi-feudal aristocrats, who held political power in Russia in the early part of the 19th Century, to the dominance of the working class, without an interceding period of dominance by the bourgeois. On the contrary, Marx's statements in his March 1850 Address explicitly contradict such a view, assuming a 'period of petty-bourgeois predominance over the classes which have been overthrown and over the proletariat'. Trotsky's version of the theory represents both a different development and a contradiction of the expressed opinions of Marx. <br />
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