1. The theory of permanent revolution is the political expression of the analysis of capitalism as a world reality created by the law of uneven and combined development. The intensification of uneven and combined development during the imperialist stage of capitalism reinforces the objective premises of the strategy of permanent revolution.
1. THE CAPITALIST PRODUCTION PROCESS IS WORLDWIDE AND HIERARCHICALLY STRUCTURED
The productive process is worldwide
2. Under the capitalist mode of production the class struggle and inter-capitalist competition create a tendency to accumulation. The capitalists can survive only by accumulating and by constantly transforming their instruments of production. This transformation presupposes and at the same time brings about the development of the division of labour. Forced ceaselessly to extend the base of their accumulation, the capitalists have internationalised their production, bringing every nation into the sphere of their activity: 'Capitalist development — not in the abstract formulas of the second volume of Capital, which retain all their significance as a stage in analysis, but in historical reality — took place and could only take place by a systematic extension of its base. In the process of its development, and consequently in the struggle with its internal contradictions, every national capitalism turns in an ever-increasing degree to the reserves of the "external market", that is, to the reserves of world economy.' Capitalism has thus created a world productive system characterised by a definite internal division of labour.
3. Flowing from this international division of labour, the world economy cannot be conceived of as a simple addition of national economies but only as a reality which dominates the national markets. The specificities of national economy, important as they are, 'enter as component parts and in increasing measure into the higher reality which is called world economy'. These specificities are not 'merely supplementary to the general features', but 'the national peculiarities represent an original combination of the basic features of the world process.'
4. Proletarian internationalism is not based on the existence of 'general features', of the different national capitalisms. Its scientific basis is the interdependence of the national economies and the existence of a higher unity — the world economy. 'If we take Britain and India as polarised varieties of the capitalist type, then we are obliged to say that the internationalism of the British and Indian proletariats does not at all rest on an identity of conditions, tasks and methods, but on their indivisible interdependence'. The interdependence of the national economies unites the interests of the bourgeoisie on an international scale to the degree that all class struggle in a particular part of the world necessarily affects all the capitalist countries. Thus the class struggles in the different countries, while each display their own specific characteristics, are closely interlinked.
The productive system is hierarchically structured
5. The world productive system is hierarchical: it is structured into dominant and dominated economies. This structure results from the historical conditions of the development of the capitalist mode of production. These conditions depend on the operation of the dialectic of uneven development — more precisely, of the law of uneven and combined development.
6. Capitalism increasingly structures the whole world but it 'operates by methods of its own, that is to say, by anarchistic methods which constantly undermine its own work, set one country against another, and one branch of industry against another, developing some parts of world economy while hampering and throwing back the development of others'. The world development of capitalism is therefore an uneven development.
7. At the same time as it develops unevenly, capitalism also necessarily develops in a combined way. The constant economic and political pressure exerted by the advanced capitalist economies forces the backward countries, in order to avoid succumbing totally, to progress by leaps and to reach straight away the most advanced techniques: 'A backward country assimilates the material and intellectual conquests of the advanced countries. But this does not mean it follows them slavishly, reproduces all the cycles of their past... Although compelled to follow after the advanced countries, a backward country does not take things in the same order. The privilege of historical backwardness... permits, or rather compels, the adoption of whatever is ready in advance of any specified date, skipping a whole series of intermediate stages.' Historical backwardness is a relative idea: 'There are backward and advanced countries, but there is also a reciprocal action between them: the backward countries are forced to borrow the technique, the science, etc., of the advanced countries in the attempt to catch up with them. Thus a combined development occurs in which backward traits continue to exist alongside the last word in modern technology.' Thus, in the case of Russia before the revolution, for example, 'while the peasant economy frequently remained at the level of the seventeenth century, Russian industry, by its type if not by its capacity, was at the level of the advanced countries and surpassed them in certain respects... This fact is difficult to reconcile with the vulgar conception of Russian economic backwardness. However, it does not contradict that backwardness but dialectically complements it.'
8. National peculiarities are thus nothing else but the most general product of the unevenness of historical development, its summary result, so to say. Thus the peculiarity of a national social type is precisely and only 'the crystallisation of the unevenness of its formation.'
9. Uneven development takes place at different interlinked levels: between industry and agriculture, between branches of industry, between countries. In relation to uneven development between countries, the most obvious inequality is that separating the industrialised capitalist countries from the 'underdeveloped' countries. However, even within the advanced economies uneven development, if in a less flagrant form, continues to exhibit itself — these economies do not develop in the same ways and at the same rates. In considering these two different expressions of uneven development, however, we must note that whereas in the advanced economies what is involved is [illegible] development within [the full establishment of] capitalism, in the dominated economies what is involved is the domination of the international capitalist [economy over countries in which a national capitalism does] not exist.
10. When [imperialism] dominates the capitalist system: * First, [it] progressively destroys the domestic economy. Such an economy is either incapable of withstanding competition [or is constrained to adapt itself to the conditions of the] dominant capitalist countries. The impact of commodities [from the advanced capitalist countries brings about the] [illegible] organisation of local production. * Secondly, [it] develops an export-oriented sector which uses the most modern techniques of production. The consequence of these processes is that in colonial and semi-colonial countries a complex structure of production results from this combined development — very developed sectors, oriented towards the outside world, coexist with backward sectors whose activity is focused on the internal market. This particular structure impedes industrialisation on a national capitalist base. Uneven and combined development thus brings about a very special class structure in the colonial and semi-colonial countries. The national bourgeoisie is very weak and to all intents and purposes dependent on foreign imperialism. It is not capable of leading a bourgeois revolution and establishing the capitalist mode of production on a secure national base. Moreover, through the existence of very developed sectors of the economy, the industrial and agricultural proletariat is highly concentrated in the urban centres or big enterprises. As far as the peasantry is concerned, it possesses only very small plots of land which are barely profitable. However, if the domination of the imperialist countries blocks the industrialisation of the colonial and semi-colonial countries, the industrial backwardness of these countries allows the countries of the dominant bloc to develop at an accelerated rate through unequal exchange, superprofits, etc.
11. It is not possible to explain the different rates of the development of the economies in the dominant bloc simply by making an analysis in terms of the clash with different modes of production. An analysis also has to be made of the particular conditions which have affected the development of each of the advanced capitalist economies. From this point of view three phases of uneven development can be distinguished. The first period of this process of uneven development comprises the period of the rise of industrial capitalism in England and the decline of commercial capitalism in Holland and Italy. In this phase the very development of commercial and banking capital in Holland, Italy, Germany and to a lesser extent France blocked the development of industry in those countries. Instead of investing their resources in industrial production, the merchants of these countries attempted to develop themselves on the basis of their monopoly trading and commercial position. To the degree that their power was linked to petty-commodity production, the merchants did not desire a change from this predominant mode and instead preferred to concentrate on the defence of already existing trading advantages. These classes were therefore incapable of seriously modifying the techniques of production or of increasing the division of labour. In England, however, at the time at which industrial production was appearing, the English merchants were faced with competition from Flemish and Italian merchants. To overcome this competition the English bourgeoisie turned its attention to industry — which they attempted to organise on the basis of the most modern methods available. In this period of uneven development, therefore, a clear [process] may be seen in which the development of commercial capitalism can, after a certain point and in certain combinations, act as a brake on the development to a higher stage of capitalism, while simultaneously the same commercial capitalism, in different countries with a more favourable development of circumstances, can be a powerful benefit to the development of industrial capitalism. It was on the basis of this more favourable combination that English capitalism developed by leaps and bounds through the introduction of new techniques of production — techniques which brought about a heightened division of labour and accelerated industrial development. Parallel with this process, and on the basis of its supremacy in industrial production, the English bourgeoisie turned its attention to the conquest of external markets. The second phase of uneven development of the advanced capitalist countries, a phase beginning in the latter part of the nineteenth century, was one in which the English bourgeoisie was overtaken by the ruling classes of new dominant capitalist economies. [illegible] European countries to reorient themselves towards industrial production. This process must, however, be clearly distinguished from the process which occurs when capitalism confronts prior modes of production — as in colonial [expansion]. [illegible] which had already acquired major resources [illegible] unrivalled wealth. To achieve this gain, some of the European economies [needed to protect themselves as a means of] [illegible]. This phase therefore involves a reciprocal and combined relation between England's progress and that of the other European countries. English capitalism, impeded by the customs barriers, needed the development of the other European economies — as only then would their frontiers be open to English goods. On the other hand, the other European economies benefited from England's industrial advance in that they profited from the technical discoveries brought about by this development. After a certain stage had been reached, the adoption of the most up to date production techniques by the more backward capitalist countries gave them the opportunity to develop new branches of production which were characterised by a more highly developed division of labour and greater capital concentration. From this time on, a redistribution of labour took place on a world scale which favoured those countries with the best historical conditions for the development of new sectors of production. At the same time, the industrial structure of those countries which [had developed earlier bore the weight of] the difficulty of [adapting to] the change to new industries. [illegible] the development of the United States and Germany in the second half of the nineteenth century. It was in these countries that the most favourable conditions existed for the development of new sectors of industry such as petrol, electricity and chemicals. These new sectors of production had their own effect in relation to the structure of the national economies. All these branches of industry required massive investment of the type which only the wealthiest companies could afford. Capital was concentrated and centralised at an accelerated rate which in its turn made possible a faster growth of industry — it is revealing in this context that the concentration of capital in Germany and the USA has been higher than in those countries, principally England, which held the lead in capitalist progress during the earlier part of the nineteenth century. Within this phase of uneven development, also, a number of other countries joined the inter-capitalist competition — notably Japan, Russia, and Italy. These countries also benefited from the development of other economies in that [they could adopt the most advanced] techniques of production. As they did not pass through the stage of competitive capitalism, production and capital in these countries was highly concentrated and centralised right from the beginning of their industrial development. The progress of these countries brought about a still more marked decline in the position of England as it suffered from sharper and sharper international competition. Finally, even within this second phase of uneven [development the United States drew ahead, building upon] prior English technical and industrial progress. The American economy was helped by a number of historical factors which did not apply in Germany. These elements essentially resulted from the fact that in the United States [pre-capitalist relations] did not exist. The development of the US economy allowed the export of commodities and capital under exceptionally favourable conditions reflecting, and profiting from, the [weaknesses] of other industrialised capitalist [economies]. [illegible] after the First World War, [when the] European ruling classes had torn each other apart in their [competition and confronted] each other in foreign markets. The US [illegible] characterises the present situation, has seen the American bourgeoisie itself become the victim of uneven development [illegible] the German and Japanese [economies]. In the imperialist struggle the German and Japanese [capitalists] are able to [turn] to the benefit of the [possibilities of] [illegible] crushing of the labour movement under fascism, and to benefit from the aid which US imperialism gave [these] economies after World War Two. By giving them this aid the [main] political aim of the US ruling class was of course [to prevent the extension of communism]. [illegible] It also gave the European and Japanese bourgeoisies the possibility of benefiting from [illegible]. [The US thereby became] victim of its own development to the degree that this allowed [the] important development of other imperialist economies, above all West Germany and Japan. The growth of these economies enters into contradiction with the power of US imperialism. The US bourgeoisie can only maintain its hegemony by creating sharper international competition.
II. UNEVEN AND COMBINED DEVELOPMENT IS INTENSIFIED DURING THE IMPERIALIST STAGE OF CAPITALISM
The imperialist stage
12. The imperialist stage of capitalism is the epoch of wars, crises and revolutions. As Trotsky noted, 'the European epoch which comprises the years 1871 to 1914, or at least 1905... was an epoch of the organic accumulation of contradictions which, so far as the internal class relations of Europe are concerned, almost never overstepped the bounds of legal struggle and, so far as international relations are concerned, adjusted themselves to the framework of an armed peace. This was the epoch of the origin, the development, and the ossification of the Second International, whose progressive historical role completely terminated with the outbreak of the imperialist war. Politics, considered as a mass historical force, always lags behind economics. Thus, while the reign of finance capital and trust monopolies already began towards the end of the nineteenth century, the new epoch in international politics which reflects this fact first begins in world politics with the imperialist war, with the October Revolution, and the founding of the Third International.' The objective premise on which the Third International was founded was that, 'The present epoch is the epoch of the disintegration and collapse of the entire world capitalist system, which will drag the whole of European civilisation down with it if capitalism with its insoluble contradictions is not destroyed.' This is exactly why 'the imperialist epoch... (is) an epoch of proletarian revolutions'.
13. As Lenin has shown, the imperialist stage of capitalism is characterised by the domination of the monopolies, the fusion of industrial and banking capital into finance capital, the division of the world into groups of great powers, and the existence of a tendency to stagnation.
Imperialism has passed through several phases
14. The period between the two imperialist world wars was largely dominated by the tendency to stagnation. This tendency, asserting itself over accumulation, was historically materialised in the crisis of the 1930s and was reflected in the stagnation of production and the appearance of large scale unemployment in the imperialist economies themselves. Capitalism even in this situation, however, as Trotsky had already outlined at the beginning of the 1920s, was not automatically doomed. 'If we grant — and let us grant it for the moment — that the working class fails to rise in revolutionary struggle, but allows the bourgeoisie the opportunity to rule the world's destiny for a long number of years, say two or three decades, then assuredly some new equilibrium will be established. Europe will be thrown violently into reverse gear. Millions of European workers will die from unemployment and malnutrition. The United States will be compelled to reorient itself on the world market, reconvert its industry, and suffer curtailment for a considerable period. Afterwards, after a new world division of labour is thus established in agony for perhaps 15 or 20 or 25 years, a new epoch of capitalist upswing might perhaps ensue.' The only solution to the very deep crisis of the 1930s was a political solution, which was concretised in the choice between socialism or barbarism. 'A situation so unstable that the proletariat cannot take power while the bourgeoisie does not feel firmly enough the master of its own home must sooner or later be abruptly resolved in one way or another, either in favour of the proletarian dictatorship or in favour of a serious and prolonged capitalist stabilisation on the backs of the popular masses.' In the actual development, the diversion of working class struggles into Popular Front type experiences allowed the bourgeoisie to find a temporary political solution to its economic contradictions in fascism. Fascism crushed the workers movement and allowed a new increase in the rate of exploitation of the workers — thus giving the bourgeoisie greater room to manoeuvre and allowing a new development of the accumulation of capital.
15. From the Second World War onwards the tendency to stagnation, while not disappearing, was counteracted by the tendency to accumulate, and the functioning of capitalism was again characterised by the development of the productive forces — at least in the advanced capitalist countries. This expansion of the imperialist economy was not an automatic product of spontaneous economic forces, but resulted from the crushing of [the working class] by fascism and by the [defeats inflicted by] social [democracy, which opened up new] possibilities [of accumulation]. As a result of this development, from 1945 to the 1960s some contradictions in the advanced capitalist countries appeared with less strength than previously; less extreme fluctuations, crises that were not catastrophic, a smaller number of permanent unemployed than in the inter-war period. These phenomena had three chief causes: (a) The economic interventions of the bourgeois State in an attempt to protect monopoly profits. In this context we should take note of the very important role played by military expenditure, which was permanently maintained at a high level, in a way without precedent in the history of capitalism. These expenditures were the source of sizable and very profitable orders for key sectors of industry. (b) The necessity for big capital to maintain or increase profits by adopting the latest technological innovations led it to favour the liberalisation of trade. A sharpening of competition between the big trusts at a national and international level resulted. The big trusts therefore accumulated rapidly. (c) The construction of a neo-colonial system of exploitation, which permitted the 'pillage' of the 'underdeveloped' countries. Extremely high profits have been extracted from these countries by the imperialist economies. But despite these changes in its mode of functioning, capitalism has changed neither in its nature (exploitation of labour power by capital, inter-capitalist competition), nor in its logic (contradictions which govern its functioning). Crises, concentration, unemployment, imperialism are still present, even if the specific weight of particular contradictions differs from previous periods. This new phase in the history of capitalism has furthermore added other sources of crisis and exacerbated new contradictions. In the advanced capitalist countries one can see that two of the key aspects of the functioning of the system since 1945, the action of the monopolies attempting to increase their rates of profit, and the bourgeois State attempting to guarantee these increases, have been reflected in the monetary sphere by a continual development of inflation. By its permanent nature this has become a new phenomenon in the history of capitalism. In the colonial and semi-colonial countries the domination of imperialism has resulted in the stagnation of the economies of these states, growing concentration of incomes, and large scale unemployment. These developments have been the objective economic bases of the development of the colonial revolution since 1945. From the beginning of the 1960s all these contradictions sharpened. It is now clearly possible to speak of the crisis and break-up of the new system of capitalism and imperialism established following the Second World War.
16. Since the beginning of the 1960s, after a period of about fifteen years during which revolutionary crises had in effect been restricted to the colonial and semi-colonial countries, a new period has opened up. It is symbolised by the general resurgence of workers' struggles in Western Europe. This resurgence, together with a severe crisis within the leadership of US imperialism following its defeats in Vietnam, has allowed the colonial revolution to push forward again. Such a powerful international upsurge of struggles has not been witnessed before in recent history (in that respect we should not exclude the development of powerful mass movements in the bureaucratically degenerated workers states). This increase in struggles, this multiplication of revolutionary crises from the '60s onwards, is a demonstration of the worsening of the contradictions of imperialism on a global scale. In the advanced capitalist countries growing difficulties appeared from the beginning of the 60s, both in the creation of additional surplus value (a result of heightened working class combativity) and at the level of the realisation of surplus value. This framework has created a crisis of markets which is made worse by the fact that military production is growing at the same rate as previously and by a tendency towards insufficient private demand for consumer and capital goods. These growing problems of realisation have brought about a sharpening of inter-imperialist competition and a growing internationalisation of capital movements (for example, movement of capital to Western Europe). In a contradictory fashion this sharpening of competition forces the ruling class to struggle harder against inflation. To attempt this they have to adopt a dual policy of integration and repression towards the working class. This policy, whose success is a sine qua non for the organic development of capital, inevitably collides with the resistance of the working class (May 68 in France, the 'creeping May' of Italy, and strike movements in a whole series of countries where developments of this order are taking place for the first time since 1945). This working class resistance impedes the possibility of the organic development of capital and exacerbates imperialism's contradictions from two points of view: * In the advanced capitalist economies unemployment has been increasing for some years. * Competition between the various national bourgeoisies has sharpened. This aggravation of competition has been reflected in a permanent crisis of the world monetary system from the 1960s onwards — a crisis which is just the expression of the contradictions which have developed inside the world productive process. More precisely, heightened inter-capitalist competition has called into question the existing hierarchy of world currencies and, therefore, brought on the monetary crisis. In the colonial and semi-colonial countries we can see: (a) The crisis of world imperialism in the 1930s allowed a number of underdeveloped countries to undergo a relative industrialisation (initially designed to provide import substitutes), and therefore favoured the growth of an embryo national bourgeoisie and the constitution of a young proletariat. This bourgeoisie, however, has faced growing difficulties in accumulating capital independently in the period since the war, and has found its base increasingly undermined. Such capitalist classes have become transformed into a bourgeoisie associated with foreign capital. (b) The stagnation of the economies of the colonial countries, and the revolutionary movements which develop in them, become all the more significant for the imperialist countries to the extent that the latter face a growing crisis of markets. The worsening of all these contradictions demonstrates the weakness of the imperialist system and the actuality of the revolution. To cope with these growing economic difficulties, and confronted with a radicalised working class, the only solution open to the bourgeoisie will be to crush the workers movement. The choice between socialism and barbarism appears clearly again.
The intensification of uneven and combined development
17. The analysis presented above shows clearly the way in which uneven and combined development becomes exacerbated in the imperialist epoch of capitalism. 'Imperialism, thanks to the universality, penetrability, and mobility and the break-neck speed of the formation of finance capital as the driving force of imperialism, lends vigour to both these tendencies [— the tendency to level out the economic differences and the tendency to increase them in an anarchic fashion —JV]. Imperialism links up [incomparably] more rapidly and more deeply the individual national and continental units into a single entity, bringing them into the closest and most vital dependence upon each other and rendering their economic methods, social forms and levels of development more identical. At the same time it attains this "goal" by such antagonistic methods, such tiger-leaps and such raids upon backward countries and areas that the unification and levelling of the world economy which it has effected is upset even more violently and convulsively than in the preceding epochs.' The lack of any organic development of capital on the international level has meant that capitalism in the present epoch could only develop at the cost of more acute competition between the imperialist countries. This competition was originally concerned with the conquest of colonial markets. Then it was carried back inside the imperialist countries themselves, where it brought about a growing interdependence of the advanced economies. Since the end of the Second World War, trade between the advanced capitalist countries has increased considerably. The same is true for capital movements. These countries have increasingly limited their exports to the colonial and semi-colonial countries, while at the same time multiplying trade between themselves. Simultaneously, a tendency towards the inter-penetration of capital in the advanced countries has developed — this is particularly clear in Western Europe. These phenomena do not mean that the colonial and semi-colonial countries are no longer important for the imperialist countries. In fact, in the case of the American bourgeoisie it is clear that the very large profits that it gathers from the underdeveloped countries, particularly from Latin America — profits which are larger than the mass of capital that it has invested there — are a decisive source of capital to export to Western Europe.
18. Imperialism intensifies more and more the contradiction between the development of the productive forces and the barriers which separate the national states. The growth of inter-capitalist competition during the imperialist epoch comes into more and more direct contradiction with the outdated framework of the national state.
THE ACTUALITY OF THE PERMANENT REVOLUTION
19. The development of capitalism according to the law of uneven and combined development, intensified during the imperialist epoch, is the objective foundation of the strategy of permanent revolution.
20. It follows from this analysis that the strategy of permanent revolution has a double meaning. (a) It implies the actuality of the proletarian revolution. It 'eliminates the question of countries that are "mature" or "immature" for socialism in the spirit of that pedantic, lifeless classification given by the present programme of the (Stalinist) Comintern. Insofar as capitalism has created a world market, a world division of labour and world productive forces, it has also prepared the world economy as a whole for socialist transformation. Different countries will go through this process at different tempos. Backward countries may, under certain conditions, arrive at the dictatorship of the proletariat sooner than advanced countries.' The law of combined and uneven development implies that there are no longer any insurmountable economic barriers to proletarian revolution in any country, 'backward' countries included. Only the dictatorship of the proletariat can bring about, in both the backward and advanced countries, a quantitatively and, above all, qualitatively superior growth of the productive forces. This is not to say that every country is equally ready to make that revolution, but simply that there are no historical conditions that must be awaited before setting about the task of preparing the proletariat for its historic tasks. This is one political implication of the law of combined development. The alternative of 'socialism' or 'barbarism' is not a catastrophic vision but the understanding of the fundamental tendency of the epoch. It means that the urgent task of the epoch is the preparation of the proletariat and its vanguard to resolve the contradictions of decaying capitalism, in advanced as well as backward countries. (b) The theory of permanent revolution analyses the impossibility of building socialism in a single country. The law of combined and uneven development tells us that those same 'backward' countries which 'may... arrive at the dictatorship of the proletariat sooner than advanced countries' will 'come later than the latter to socialism.'
21. The theory of permanent revolution thus states that the revolution which is on the order of the day in both imperialist and colonial countries is a proletarian socialist revolution. Internationalism is not just an abstract principle but the political expression of the law of uneven and combined development. 'The international character of the socialist revolution... flows from the present state of the economy and the social structure of humanity. Internationalism is no abstract principle but a theoretical and political reflection of the character of world economy, of the world development of productive forces and the world scale of the class struggle.'
A. The advanced capitalist countries
The analysis of the development of capitalism since the First World War makes it clear that the objective conditions of sufficiently developed productive forces for proletarian revolution exist. As Trotsky put it in 1938: 'The objective prerequisites for the proletarian revolution have not only "ripened"; they have begun to get somewhat rotten.' It has already been shown that imperialism is distinguished by putrefaction — that is, by the permanent presence of a tendency to stagnation; that this tendency materialised as an actuality in the 1930s; that the bourgeoisie through the diversion of workers' struggles imposed 'barbarism', i.e. fascism, as a temporary political solution to its worsening economic contradictions; that the development of the productive forces since the Second World War has not abolished the tendency to stagnation; that, finally, the growing acuteness of economic contradictions since the 1960s once again threatens to pose the crushing of the workers movement.
23. There remains the subjective factor. What Trotsky said on this question still applies today: 'The historical crisis of mankind is reduced to the crisis of the revolutionary leadership'. Imperialism has only passed through periods of stabilisation because of the defeats of the working class. In these defeats the Stalinist leaderships bear a heavy responsibility. As Trotsky wrote, and it applies equally to the period after the Second World War: 'One must understand clearly that the initial and basic cause — the so-called "stabilisation" — lies in the contradiction between the general disorganisation of the economic and social position of capitalist Europe and the colonial East on the one hand, and the weaknesses, unpreparedness, irresolution of the Communist Parties and the vicious errors of their leadership on the other.' The crisis of capitalism does not by itself mean the end of the bourgeoisie's domination — the subjective factor plays a determining role. The responsibility of the Stalinist leaderships in the abortion of numerous revolutionary crises (China 1925-27; May '68 in France; England 1926; Popular Front 1936; National Front in Italy and France in 1948) demonstrates this very clearly. [illegible] situations exist at every moment: 'Official scholasticism is incapable of understanding that between mechanical determinism (fatalism) and subjective self-will there stands the materialist dialectic.' It is simply affirmed that the general maturity (and even over-ripeness) of the objective situation (in spite of flux and reflux) makes the subjective factor determinant. The role of a revolutionary leadership is the more important as imperialism is characterised by 'the extreme instability of the entire system, the foundation of which is corroded by irreconcilable contradictions'. From this fact, 'The revolutionary character of the epoch does not lie in that it permits the accomplishment of the revolution, that is, the seizure of power at every given moment. Its revolutionary character consists in profound and sharp fluctuations and abrupt and frequent transitions... Under these circumstances the role of the party leadership acquires exceptional importance. The words of Lenin to the effect that two or three days can decide the fate of the international revolution would have been almost incomprehensible in the epoch of the Second International. In our epoch, on the contrary, these words have only too often been confirmed and, with the exception of October (1917), always from the negative side.' In the imperialist stage, therefore, 'the key to the whole historical process passes into the hands of the subjective factor, that is, the party. Opportunism... always tends to underestimate the role of the subjective factor, that is, the importance of the party and of revolutionary leadership... Such an attitude, which is false in general, operates with positively fatal effect in the imperialist epoch.'
24. The intensification of the economic contradictions in the advanced capitalist countries since the 1960s can only open up the choice between socialism and barbarism. The objective crisis will never lead automatically to the collapse of capitalism. It only creates conditions which are much more favourable for the conscious intervention of the working class, led by its vanguard, to overthrow the bourgeoisie. The victory of the proletarian revolution depends, in the last analysis, on the existence of a mass revolutionary International capable of leading the working class to victory.
25. The law of combined and uneven development has five essential implications in the colonial and semi-colonial countries.
26. The bourgeoisie in colonial and semi-colonial countries is incapable of completing the tasks of bourgeois democracy and national liberation. Weak, linked to foreign imperialism and the landowners, and having to confront a young and highly concentrated proletariat created by combined development, the capitalist class of backward countries is incapable of completing the bourgeois revolution. The first great historical example of this was given by Russia from February to October 1917; as Trotsky said: 'The February Revolution showed itself to be powerless to resolve both the agrarian and the national question. The peasantry and the oppressed nationalities of Russia endured, struggling for democratic goals, to support the October revolution.' Since then numerous other historical examples have confirmed this thesis. They range from Nasser's Egypt to the countries of Latin America, not to mention India, Ceylon and the countries of Black Africa. In Latin America, for example, 'the reintegration of the underdeveloped economies into the world productive process, after the world crisis of capitalism in the 1930s, signified a re-subordination of the accumulation of capital there to the world laws of accumulation. The embryonic bourgeoisies were forced under pain of disappearance to invest according to the forms that the capitalists of the [dominant countries required, which created] sizable production capacities. But, confronted by these capacities, the domestic market based on the highly concentrated nature of incomes and the weak expansion of productive employment is insufficient to absorb output. To compensate for this inadequacy the national capitalists producing capital goods raised their prices. But this only weakened them in relation to foreign firms. The stranglehold of foreign capital intensified. Any national bourgeoisie was transformed into a bourgeoisie associated with foreign capital.
27. For the colonial and semi-colonial countries, therefore, the theory of permanent revolution signifies 'that the complete and genuine solution of their tasks of achieving democracy and national emancipation is conceivable only through the dictatorship of the proletariat as the leader of the subjugated nation, above all of its peasant masses.' As the bourgeois democratic tasks can only be accomplished by the dictatorship of the proletariat, it follows that the proletariat of the oppressed countries, if it carries behind it the peasant masses, can take power more rapidly than in the advanced capitalist countries. One of the key concepts of the theory of permanent revolution, as Trotsky applied it to Russia, was that uneven and combined development could force the proletariat in the backward capitalist countries to seize power first: 'We have in the final analysis explained the October revolution not at all through the backward state of Russia but through the law of combined development. The dialectic of history does not admit states that are purely and simply backward... Everything consists of concrete reciprocities... It was only because the democratic Russian petty bourgeoisie could not fulfil the historic tasks which had been carried out by their counterparts in the West that the Russian proletariat achieved power before the workers of the West.' We know how Lenin supported the same theses in April 1917.
28. The importance of the agrarian and national questions gives the peasantry, which generally makes up a majority of the population of backward countries, an extremely important role: 'Without an alliance of the proletariat with the peasantry, the tasks of the democratic revolution cannot be solved, nor even seriously posed. But the alliance of these two classes can be realised in no other way than through an [irreconcilable struggle against the influence of the national] liberal bourgeoisie.' This thesis was, moreover, the same as that outlined by the first congresses of the Third International. As Lenin stated at the Second Congress, 'are we to consider as correct the assertion that the capitalist stage of economic development is inevitable for backward nations now on the road to emancipation and among whom a certain advance towards progress is to be seen since the war? We replied in the negative. If the victorious revolutionary proletariat conducts systematic propaganda among them, and the Soviet governments come to their aid with all the means at their disposal — in that event it will be mistaken to assume that the backward peoples must inevitably go through the capitalist stage of development. Not only should we create independent contingents of fighters and party organisations in the colonies and backward countries, not only at once launch propaganda for the organisation of peasants' soviets and strive to adapt them to the pre-capitalist conditions, but the Communist International should advance the proposition, with the appropriate theoretical grounding, that with the aid of the proletariat in the advanced countries, backward countries can go over to the Soviet system and, through certain stages of development, to communism, without having to pass through the capitalist stage.' Contrary to this thesis, the Stalinist practices are as follows: (a) First, those of the Communist International under Stalin's leadership: the most characteristic example is provided by the Chinese revolution, especially in 1925. In this epoch the leadership of the Communist International declared that in the colonial and semi-colonial countries the objective could not be the overthrow of capitalism and the setting-up of the dictatorship of the proletariat supported by the peasantry. The objective was 'the democratic dictatorship of workers and peasants'. This objective could be achieved by a coalition of classes including not only the working class and the peasantry but also the national bourgeoisie. Such a solution had nothing in common with that envisaged by Lenin for Russia in the course of previous discussions before the 1905 revolution, and which he had finally abandoned in April 1917, for Lenin never envisaged collaboration with a section of the bourgeoisie. Further, during the Chinese revolution of 1925, the leadership of the Communist International presented the Kuomintang as a 'bloc of classes' inside which the members of the Chinese Communist Party must dissolve and integrate themselves without having the possibility of putting into practice an independent policy. The Stalinist leadership in fact adopted the Menshevik theory of revolution by stages. (b) That of the Stalinist bureaucrats, the successors of Stalin: their practices have been the same as those put into operation under Stalin's leadership. Classic cases are the support given to Nasser's Egypt, to the Indian bourgeoisie, to the Peruvian government, the supply of arms (jointly with US imperialism) to the present Ceylonese government, or the support given to numerous African governments. (In this respect, the Soviet 'theoreticians' have put forward a new idea for the African states, 'national democracy', which allows these countries either to follow or to avoid the capitalist stage and pass directly to socialism, the choice being dependent on the wishes of the African leaders!) Behind all these examples there is fundamentally the Menshevik theory of revolution by stages. The proletariat must in the first stage support a 'national bourgeoisie' which is thought to be capable of accomplishing the tasks of democracy and national liberation. (c) As for the Chinese bureaucracy, to put it mildly one can say that it bears the mark of Stalinism very heavily. In fact, even if in China itself the Maoist leadership, taken as a whole, had a strategy closer to the strategy of permanent revolution than the Stalinist strategy of revolution by stages, it is nonetheless the case that: (i) At the level of theory, the theory of the 'bloc of classes' remains typically Stalinist. Of course, in 1959, 10 years after the victory of their revolution, the Chinese leaders came forward with a theory, which they called 'uninterrupted revolution by stages', attempting to theorise their practice and even coming nearer to the theory of permanent revolution through that. But they tried through this theory to justify their own political past by artifices which attempt to save the Stalinist theory of a 'bloc of classes'. (ii) The attitude of the Maoist leadership towards the Sukarno government in Indonesia consisted in congratulating Aidit, leader of the Indonesian Communist Party, for his participation in the government of a state which the Maoists chose to call semi-bourgeois and semi-proletarian. A short time before the massacre of hundreds of thousands of workers and peasants by the bourgeoisie with which they were in alliance, Mao Tse-tung declared that, under the leadership of the Communist Party, the Indonesian people would go forward from victory to victory. In the case of the present Ceylonese government, China granted a loan to the Ceylonese government while the repression against the JVP was at its height and the Maoist Ceylonese Communist Party renounced all struggle against the repression and gave its support to the government.
29. This alliance of the proletariat and the peasantry 'is conceivable only under the political leadership of the proletarian vanguard, organised in the Communist Party... no matter how great the revolutionary role of the peasantry may be, it nevertheless cannot be an independent role and even less a leading one. The peasant follows either the worker or the bourgeois.' The history of the Russian, Chinese or Vietnamese revolutions shows that, however sizable the peasantry, it plays neither an independent nor a politically leading role. From the very inception, '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 fulfilment 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.' From the very fact that the proletariat is in power, the transformation of the democratic tasks into socialist tasks is inevitable. This phenomenon of the growing over of the democratic revolution into a socialist revolution appeared for the first time in the USSR on the morrow of the October revolution. It appeared again in the Chinese revolution, the Cuban revolution, and the Vietnamese revolution — both in the Northern state and in the liberated zones of the South. In a more general way the dynamic of colonial struggles, whether in Africa or Latin America, is one in which only class fronts of the proletariat and peasantry, under the leadership of the proletariat, are capable of achieving the tasks of democracy and national liberation. Simultaneously, however, the very fact of the leading role of the proletariat poses the growing over of the democratic revolution into a socialist revolution.
31. The process of the growing over of the bourgeois democratic revolution into a socialist revolution is, however, not sufficient in itself to define the process of permanent revolution. The process of permanent revolution is equally defined by the impossibility of limiting the development of the revolution within a national framework. 'All true revolution in a capitalist society... and especially now in the imperialist epoch, tends to be transformed into permanent revolution, that is not to stop at any particular stage reached, not to limit itself to national frameworks, but to extend itself and deepen until... the final abolition of class distinctions... This is what the Marxist conception of the socialist revolution consists of, which is distinguished from that of the bourgeois revolution, which is limited by its national framework and its particularist objectives.' If the law of uneven and combined development defines the first aspect of the strategy of permanent revolution, it also equally determines the second conclusion — the impossibility of constructing socialism in a single country.
The impossibility of 'socialism in one country'
32. The problem of knowing if a particular country is ripe for the dictatorship of the proletariat is not at all the same as the question of knowing whether that country can achieve socialism. As far as the latter question is concerned, 'The socialist revolution begins on the national arena, it unfolds in the international arena, and is completed in the world arena. Thus the socialist revolution becomes a permanent revolution in a new and broader sense of the term: it finally attains completion only in a final victory of the new society on our entire planet.' Lenin considered exactly the same: 'We have always proclaimed and repeated this elementary truth of Marxism, that the victory of socialism requires the joint effort of workers in a number of advanced countries.' The impossibility of building socialism in one country means: (a) The impossibility of achieving socialism in the real sense of a 'superior stage' to that of the dictatorship of the proletariat. (b) The existence of worsening contradictions in a world transitional society between capitalism and socialism which is limited to a single country.
33. The realisation of socialism and the complete elimination of bourgeois norms of distribution implies an extremely important development of the productive forces beyond capitalism. Such a condition necessarily implies the victory of the revolution in at least the principal developed capitalist countries. It is quite impossible to achieve in a single economy. Bukharin and Stalin's conception, first defended at the 14th Congress of the RCP, that it was possible to construct socialism in one country, was aptly described by Trotsky: 'The fact that socialism can be based only on the highest productive forces — in a word, the Marxian dynamics of the displacement of one social form by another on the basis of the growing productive forces — has [been thrown out]. Revolutionary and historical [dynamics have been displaced] by a skinflint reactionary utopia of self-sufficient socialism built on a low technology, developing with the "speed of a tortoise" within national boundaries.' [A transitional society isolated in a single country] which [is] a class society [remains riddled] by contradictions which grow ever more acute. As Trotsky said in 1936: 'The present growth of the Soviet economy remains a contradictory process. While consolidating the workers state, economic successes do not at all lead automatically to the creation of a harmonious society. On the contrary, the contradictions revealed by the attempt to build socialism in isolation reappear at a higher level with redoubled strength.' More precisely, the attempt to build socialism in one country has three catastrophic consequences. The first consequence, and without doubt the most important, is the transformation of the Communist Parties from an instrument of world revolution into the frontier guard of the country in which 'socialism is being built'. Lenin's attitude, and that of the Communist International during its first four congresses, was twofold: (a) It was affirmed that world revolution was a necessary condition for the victory of socialism in the USSR. Lenin stated the position clearly: 'The socialist revolution can triumph only on two conditions. First, if it is given timely support by a socialist revolution in one or several advanced countries.' (b) The task therefore was not to 'build socialism' in the USSR alone but to reinforce the dictatorship of the proletariat in that country in order to use it as a base of support for the international revolution: * To reinforce the dictatorship of the proletariat meant to consolidate and develop the alliance of workers and peasants while preparing for the next victories of the international revolution and, within this framework, to improve systematically the conditions of the proletariat. * To use the revolution in Russia as the basis to push forward the international revolution. In Lenin's words: 'Single handed, the Russian proletariat cannot bring the socialist revolution to a victorious conclusion. But it can give the Russian revolution a mighty sweep that would create the most favourable conditions for socialist revolution, and would, in a sense, start it. It can facilitate the rise of a situation in which its chief, its most trustworthy and reliable collaborator, the European and American socialist proletariat, could join the decisive battles.' Of these two 'levers' of world socialism, the reinforcing of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the world proletarian revolution, the second is the most important: 'Economic construction is of tremendous significance. Without a correct leadership, the dictatorship of the proletariat would be weakened; and its downfall would deal a great blow to the international revolution from which the latter would not recover for a good many years. But the conclusion of the main historical struggle between the socialist world and the world of capitalism depends on the second lever, that is, the world proletarian revolution. The colossal importance of the Soviet Union lies in that it is the disputed base of the world revolution and not at all in the presumption that it is able to build socialism independently of the world revolution.' The positions of Stalinism run directly counter to those of Lenin and the Communist International: (a) In the period of Stalin's personal leadership of the Communist movement, attempts were sometimes made to justify the theory of socialism in one country by claiming that it offered a perspective to the Russian workers and because of that gave them courage. But as Trotsky correctly replied: 'The worker who understands that it is impossible to build a socialist paradise like an oasis in the hell of world capitalism, that the fate of the Soviet Republic and therefore his own fate depend entirely on the international revolution, will fulfil his duties towards the USSR much more energetically than the worker who is told that what we already possess is presumably 90 per cent socialism. If so, is it worth while to strive towards socialism?' Here, too, the reformist orientation works as always not only against revolution but also against reform. 'Our party', Trotsky wrote, 'has passed through its heroic period with a programme which was entirely oriented on the international revolution and not on socialism in one country... the members of the party and the YCL fought at the front or lugged logs to the railway stations, not because they hoped to build national socialism out of these logs but because they served in the cause of international revolution which made it essential that the Soviet fortress hold out — and every additional log is important for the Soviet fortress.' From the moment when the Stalinist leadership affirmed that socialism could be built on the basis of a national state, provided that military intervention was averted, then the task of the Communist Parties became not to struggle directly for power but to pressurise the world bourgeoisie against military intervention aimed at the USSR. Such a transformation of the role of the Communist International in fact changed it from the instrument to struggle for the victory of world socialism into a tool of the Kremlin bureaucracy's diplomacy. When the Communist Parties were at the head of struggles they attempted to use this position not to struggle for power but to push the international policy of the bourgeoisie into directions favourable to Stalin's foreign policy. The Communist Parties' policies were always subordinated to this consideration. Thus, for example, Stalin was able to sign in 1935 a peace with Laval, President of the French Council of Ministers, in which the whole position of 'revolutionary defeatism' in relation to French imperialism was renounced. This was fully accepted by the French Communist Party. By such means the Communist International ceased to be a world revolutionary leadership and became simply a pressure group on the world bourgeoisie — a role culminating in its dissolution by Stalin during the Second World War. Any objective study shows clearly that the sole constant factor in the politics of the Communist Parties in this period was the pursuit of the maintenance of the status quo between the USSR and the capitalist world. (b) The practices of the bureaucrats who have succeeded Stalin have fully maintained the same direction. The policy of 'peaceful coexistence', whose counter-revolutionary effects are so obvious they hardly need demonstrating (the politics of treason and class collaboration of 'Communist' parties, support openly given by the Kremlin bureaucracy to various bourgeois governments, the scandalous inadequacy of the aid given to the Vietnamese fighters), takes up this same perpetual search after the status quo — an objective which is, moreover, absolutely chimerical. (c) As for the Chinese bureaucracy, it has never had a revolutionary policy at the international level. It has verbally condemned the Kremlin's policy of peaceful coexistence — without, however, ever stating that it is simply Stalin's policy of the maintenance of the status quo. But at the same time [it] has never ceased following, in its own manner, a policy of 'socialism in one country' — a policy of 'power politics' in defence of its own 'national' interests. This has been fully [demonstrated] at the expense of revolutionary struggles [of workers] in [various parts of the] world. The policy of the Chinese bureaucracy in Indonesia at the time of Sukarno was already clear. As far as Pakistan was concerned, the Chinese leadership supported the reactionary regime of Ayub Khan and Yahya Khan because it suited Mao that Pakistan should be a 'counterbalance' to India. East Bengal was a nation oppressed and reduced to the state of a colony by Pakistan. The treason that the Maoist bureaucracy committed over the question of Bangladesh showed just how far [it was] ready to subordinate the interests of the international revolution to its own interests as a privileged layer — even though by these actions it harmed its own interests as the defender of the Chinese revolution. As Tariq Ali has written: 'In this way the Chinese bureaucracy shows its short-sightedness. It has not yet understood that a struggle in Bengal could modify the international relation of forces and would be an extension of the Chinese revolution. It closes its eyes to the obvious fact that Bengal, which historically has always been in the vanguard of the struggle in the Indian sub-continent, could become a base pushing forward the Indian revolution and completely destroying the US military strategy in the region. At the same time, it would aid the Indochinese revolution.' Far from helping the militant Bengali communists, the Chinese position helped the leadership of the bourgeois Awami League to maintain its grip over the mass movement. As for Ceylon, the Chinese government granted a loan to the Ceylonese government at the height of the repression of the JVP, while at the same time the local 'Maoist' party renounced all struggle. It is one thing to attempt to make relationships with other states, which China must do to break the imperialist encirclement, but it is quite another to give a loan to a government which is in the process of ferociously repressing the masses, and to subordinate the Communist Party and its militants to the supposed interests of the Chinese state and the bureaucracy which governs it. The examples of Indonesia, East Bengal, and Ceylon demonstrate clearly the character of the foreign policy of the Chinese leadership. A bureaucracy which attaches itself to the petty bourgeois conceptions of the Bandung principles (mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, mutual non-interference in internal affairs, equality and reciprocal concessions, peaceful coexistence) and which congratulates a government carrying out a policy of national oppression and massacring thousands of workers and peasants has completely abandoned the positions of the Third International: 'Petty bourgeois nationalism restricts internationalism to the recognition of the principle of the equality of nations and... preserves intact national egoism, while proletarian internationalism demands: the subordination of the workers' struggle in one country to the interest of the worldwide struggle; the agreement of countries which have already overthrown the bourgeoisie to the greatest national sacrifice for the purpose of overthrowing capitalism on a world scale'; and 'the aid given to the destruction of the foreign domination in the colonies is not in reality aid given to the nationalist movement of the indigenous bourgeoisie, but the opening of the road to the oppressed proletariat itself.'
35. The policy of 'building socialism in one country' has a second consequence: it establishes a terrain much more favourable to the creation of a parasitic bureaucracy. From the moment when the line of 'socialism in one country' retards the world revolution, it follows that: (a) The movement towards the disappearance of relative penury in the country is slowed down — which favours the development of the bureaucracy. (b) The pressure of the world bourgeoisie on the party [and the state] is maintained — which also favours the growth of the bureaucracy.
36. Finally the policy of 'building socialism in one country' has a third consequence: the laws of the world economy are ignored, it is forgotten that 'the passing of power from the hands of Tsarism and the bourgeoisie into the hands of the proletariat abolishes neither the processes nor the laws of world economy.' The fundamental conclusion of the Marxist analysis of the construction of socialism, and therefore also of the theory of permanent revolution, is that 'the way out of those contradictions which befall the dictatorship of the proletariat in a backward country [and also in a developed country — JV] will be found in the arena of world revolution.' In more precise terms the law of uneven and combined development, which dictates that the proletarian revolution [begins within the framework of the nation state, dictates] the impossibility of building socialism in a single country. 'From the uneven sporadic development of capitalism flows the non-simultaneous, uneven, and sporadic character of the socialist revolution; from the extreme tensity of the interdependence of the various countries on each other flows not only the political but also the [economic] impossibility of socialism in a single country.' Any attempt to build the theory of the building of socialism in one country signifies ignoring the world division of labour and the contradiction created between the development of the productive forces and national frontiers in the imperialist epoch.
37. The attempt to ignore the world character of the productive process which is involved in the theory and practice of socialism in one country leads immediately to the abandoning of other fundamental positions: (a) It attempts to [ignore] the fact that the conquest of power by the Soviets did not at all isolate the Soviet Republic [from the] framework of international division of labour created [by capitalism]. [illegible] [The Soviet economy remains] subordinated to 'the test set by the international market to which we are subordinated, with [the capitalist countries from] which we [are unable to] isolate [ourselves]'. More precisely, as Trotsky put it, 'the capitalist world shows us... that it has other instruments of persuasion than those of military intervention. To the extent that productivity of labour and the productivity of a social system as a whole are measured on the market by the correlation of prices, it is not so much military intervention as the intervention of cheaper capitalist commodities that constitutes perhaps the greatest immediate menace to the Soviet economy... a Ford tractor is just as dangerous as a Creusot gun, with the sole difference that while the gun can function only from time to time, the tractor brings pressure to bear upon us constantly.' Even if the USSR and the other bureaucratic workers states have achieved important economic successes, this does not allow them to escape the fact that economic construction in an isolated workers state can only remain limited and contradictory. The present economic difficulties of these states, and the growing links that they have woven with the world market, are clear evidence of the fact that it is impossible to escape the reality and consequences of the international division of labour and the world productive process.
38. The theory and practice of socialism in one country represents a reversion to utopian and pre-Marxist socialism in its attempt to deny that even the productive forces of capitalism are in contradiction with the confines of the national state. This development, shown in every aspect of capitalism from exports, through colonial and neo-colonial policy, to the two world wars, reveals how completely incapable is the national state of providing the framework for socialism. A socialist society requires a vast increase of the forces of production over capitalism — an achievement necessitating a surpassing of the national state. 'To aim at building a nationally isolated socialist society means, in spite of all passing successes, to pull the productive forces backward even as compared with capitalism... The international division of labour and the supra-national character of modern productive forces not only retain but will increase twofold and tenfold their significance for the Soviet Union in proportion to the degree of Soviet economic ascent.' The Chinese bureaucracy merely peddles illusions of the same type through the use of ambiguous formulas such as 'relying on our own strength' or developing the economy in the framework of 'national independence'.
39. The impossibility of cutting off any economy from the world division of labour and the [contradiction between the productive forces and national] boundaries would be still more important for a workers state established in an advanced capitalist country than it was and is for the USSR. These states are far more integrated into the world productive process and international division of labour than any backward country. 'Great Britain, being no [less than the USSR dependent on the world market] [illegible] other conditions being equal, the more highly developed [is the country the more painful would be the consequences of the isolation of its economy]. [illegible] bourgeois Germany [and the other advanced countries would find that] the building of socialism on a national basis would imply for these advanced [countries the same regression of the productive forces, opposed] to the tasks of socialism. Such [an isolation clearly] vindicates the Marxian doctrine, which is that the socialist revolution can begin only on a national basis, while the building of socialism in one country is impossible.' If one adds to this the growing difficulties and contradictions experienced by the bureaucratised workers states [one can see the need for a] perspective of [political] revolution in the European capitalist countries and political revolution in the bureaucratised workers states.
40. The basic conclusion of all these analyses is to reaffirm once again that internationalism is not an abstract principle but the political expression of the international development of the productive forces and the world scope of the class struggle. But neither the bourgeoisie of the capitalist countries nor the governing bureaucracies in the workers states will fall by themselves as an automatic consequence of the worsening contradictions which beset them. Only the existence of a mass revolutionary International, something which can only be constructed on the basis of the theory of permanent revolution, can ensure the victorious outcome of the struggle. This is the significance of the construction of the Fourth International. Only such an International, developed into a mass force, can lead the world working class in the advanced capitalist countries, in the colonial world, and against the bureaucracies of the deformed and degenerated workers states.
* This article, ['40 thèses sur l'impérialisme et la révolution permanente'], first appeared in Critiques de L'Economie Politique no. 4-5, 'Sur l'Imperialisme' (July-December 1971). A small number of alternative references have been substituted in the translation, to make them more readily [accessible] to readers [of] the English language editions. Insofar as is possible, quotations from Lenin and Trotsky are taken from the standard translations. However, it should be noted that the materials in the works of Trotsky in French do not exactly correspond to the English. In a few cases, therefore, references to the original French have been retained.
1. Trotsky: Permanent Revolution (New York), p.29.
4. ibid., p.23.
5. ibid., p.26.
6. Trotsky: The Third International After Lenin (New York), p.19.
7. Trotsky: History of the Russian Revolution (London), p.22.
9. Permanent Revolution, p.24.
17. See Mandel, Decline of the Dollar (New York).
20. The Third International After Lenin, p.20.
22. Permanent Revolution, p.155.
23. ibid., p.155.
24. ibid., p.9.
25. Trotsky: The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International (Transitional Programme), p.2.
26. ibid.
38. Lenin: Collected Works, Vol. 31, p.244.
40. Permanent Revolution, p.153.
41. See Maitan, Party, Army and Masses in China (London, 1976), and Rousset, Le Parti communiste vietnamien (Paris, 1973).
42. Permanent Revolution, p.162.
43. Marx himself of course first advanced the concept of 'permanent revolution' — see for example his Address to the Central Committee of the Communist League (June 1850).
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