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David Walters writes: > I don't believe that Joseph Green understands very much about the theory > of Permanent Revolution. David, you don't give your definition of permanent revolution, and contrast it to how I have described permanent revolution. You don't even show how your view of PR is different from that of the Trotskyist groups whose views on PR I have quoted in my articles. Indeed, as far as I can see, we have similar views on what permanent revolution means: we differ on whether we agree with PR, and with our assessment of what has happened in different countries around the world. You are entitled to your opinion of course. But unless you provide some evidence that you, as opposed to the rest of the Trotskyist movement, such as all the Trotskyist groups that I have cited in my articles on the Arab Spring, are wrong about PR, I don't see how you can expect your assertions about PR to carry much weight. > It is, as a theory (and a programmatic perspective) > proven by negative example all the time, Although I don't believe that is true, I think the fact that you make this assertion verifies that I have been quite accurate about the meaning of Trotsky's permanent revolution. PR really does assert that every democratic struggle in the present that does not achieve workers' power will have accomplished nothing. That's why, David, you can regard PR as verified by failures of the one democratic struggle after another. (Another important issue is whether these struggles really were all total failures or whether it is rather that democratic struggles and national independence don't live up to the exaggerated standard you set for them. Is it really true, for example, that India really has only "formal" independence? But I leave that point for next time.) What a miserable perspective this verification of PR by negative example would be for the Arab Spring. In order for Trotskyist groups to say anything about what activists should do in these struggles, they would have to imagine that they could lead to workers' power (indeed, workers' power on a regional scale). Otherwise all PR could say about these struggles is that they were fated to be negative examples. All it could say would be -- you will struggle, and sacrifice, and see your friends and relatives die, but you will accomplish nothing. And in fact, a number of Trotskyist organizations explicitly stated that the struggles of the Arab Spring were doomed unless they obtained workers' power (or even regional workers' power). Those who have been defending PR want to forget what was said in 2011. Meanwhile, as this thread on the list has continued, additional defenses of PR have been posted on other threads on this list. But I think they manifest the problems with PR that I have been talking about. Andrew Pollock posted a link to a series of article by Neil Davidson onTrotsky's theory of uneven and combined development. (https://rs21testblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/03/uneven-and-combined-deve l opment-modernity-modernism-revolution.pd On page 3 of Davidson's work he writes: "The working class...could accomplish the revolution against the pre-capitalist state which the bourgeois itself was no longer prepared to undertake and -- in Trotsky's version of permanent revolution at any rate -- move directly to the construction of socialism, provided of course that it occurred within the context of a successful *international* revoltuionary movement..." (emphasis as in the original) Now the Arab Spring did *not* occur in the context of a socialist revolutionary wave throughout the world. On the contrary, it has occurred in a very difficult period for the world working class. So the conclusion would be that all that is left is to be a negative example. It's the inevitable conclusion whether Davidson himself draws it or not. And I think this conclusion, stated or not, is one of the things that lies behind the fact that there is no discussion anywhere in the 91-page PDF of Davidson's article of the tasks of revolutionary socialists in the situation of a democratic struggle where there is no possibility of "mov(ing) directly to the construction of socialism". Now, Davidson does mention of the Egyptian struggle. He even says that "the Egyptian revolution has been the most important of the contemporary social explosions". But there is no discussion about what the socialists and class-conscious activists should have done in this revolution, or whether we can learn from what they did in this revolution. Even though Davidson's series of articles extends right up to the present, there is no mention of such things as the group following permanent revolution, the Revolutionary Socialists. And there isn't even mention of the Muslim Brotherhood. So Davidson's magnum opus is another example that PR is useless for giving any proper orientation to the mass struggle and the building of a revolutionary trend. However, Davidson doesn't want to come across as pessimistic, so while he says that the Egyptian revolution was "defeated", he doesn't call it a negative example. Meanwhile Louis Proyect has posted a long article criticizing Lenin's view of democratic revolution in favor of PR. It's entitled "The revolutionary democratic-dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry? Say what?" In this article, Proyect, who had written a few days earlier in reply to me that he didn't "know what 'according to the permanent revolution' means. Trotsky didn't write a formula", now recalls what Trotsky's formula was. Bravo! That's progress...of a sort! (Except that now he doesn't know what the meaning of the theory of the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry really is.) Proyect writes > To reduce the theory of Permanent Revolution to its essentials, > it boils down to the need for a proletarian revolution to achieve > the historical goals of the bourgeois revolution such as > the breakup of feudal estates, the elimination of clerical domination > over society, constitutional rights such as a free press and the right > of assembly, and the assumption of "Enlightenment values" in general. > These are the obvious gains of the British and French > bourgeois revolutions that were emulated to one degree or another > in Western Europe in the 19th century. But if that's what PR is, then it says nothing about what to do in situations like the Arab Spring, where the movement is not going to reach the stage of proletarian revolution. In recent decades, there has been one democratic struggle after another which neither reached the stage of proletarian revolution, nor had the sweep of the great democratic revolutions of the past. What should be done in that case? Just lecture repeatedly that nothing is going to be accomplished? Pretend that the struggle will reach proletarian revolution? Forget about PR until it's time to write an article about the debates of the early 20th century? Proyect concentrates on the famous debate between Trotskyism and Leninism on whether democratic and socialist revolutions have a different social character, and he seeks to refute Lars Lih's comments about the history of the Bolshevik Party. I don't agree with either him or Lars Lih, but there's another problem with Proyect's article in my view. Isn't it a bit strange that a detailed article over the social nature of revolution, written in 2017 in the midst of a bitter struggle over the Syrian uprising, says nothing about the relationship of the theoretical debates to the Arab Spring and the Syrian uprising? If these debates were really so irrelevant that they don't apply, then why bother with them? I appreciate Louis's support for the Syrian uprising in other articles, and the role which his Marxism list plays in providing much information of use to the defense of the Syrian uprising. Those things are a service to the left movement. But I think it's incredible that a debate over the nature of revolution, and the relationship of democratic and socialist struggles, is silent concerning the wave of democratizations that has swept the world for the so long. Is theory simply a luxury, detached from what's going on? To be continued. _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
