BOUND TO FAIL

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 69, 18 September 1930, Page 20

BOUND TO FAIL

RUSSIAN' REVOLUTION

ONLY ALTERNATIVE

Leon Trotsky still believes the Bussian revolution will be a. failure unless a world revolution follows in its train, says the."New York Times."

In his new book, entitled, "The Permanent Revolution," M. Trotsky shows he has not repented of a single ono of tlie heresies which caused his split with Joseph Stalin and his expulsion from Russia. The volume is, a rather dull and-theoretical defence of his. conception of the revolution, as contrasted with that of hi;; enemies., liut it is spiced, with pungent allusions to tho present Communist-.rulers of Moscow, especially to H. Stalin, Gregory Zinovieff, and Nikolai Bukharin. M. Trotsky calls M. Stalin aud the Soviet rulers "the self-appointed heirs of Lenin,"'who are "chasing a reactionary Utopia." Ho calls them "hopeless eclectics" for trying to work out the Marxist.-system within one nation's boundaries, and says the present programme of tlie Communist internationale is a "clear betrayal of Marxism and of the October tradition of Bolshevism."

LINK WITH BOURGEOISIE

But what chiefly rouses M. Trotsky's scorn, as it has done for the.past six years, is M. Stalin's eagerness to concentrate on Russia itself as the field for revolution, instead of going outside Russia's borders. Merely to profess sympathy with the world revolution is not enough, according to M. Trotsky.

"When the people who support tho nationalist theory announce! their participation in the world revolution," M. Trotsky writes, "they nro merely mixing abstract internationalism with backward looking national socialism. The democratic dictatorship of tho proletariat and the peasants—as opposed to tho 'dictatorship of the proletariat in which the proletariat leads tho peasants —is a /ielioDj a self-deception, or,

what is ■worse, a Kerenskyish sham and a Kuomintang adventure.

"The effort of the' Comintern (the Communist Ihteruation'alo) to force proletariat and the peasants:—a solution of tho democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and tho peasants—a solution long ago out of date—<!an only have a reactionary effectj. Insofar as this solution is opposed to that of the dictatorship of the proletariat, it leads to the merging of the proletariat ' with the small bourgeoisie, and hereby creates favourable conditions for the welding together of the national bourgeoisie the world over. In short, the completion of tho Socialist revolution within national limits is" unthinkable." M. Trotsky's book was written at Prinkipo after tho WiJl Street slump of last autumn,. and ho appears not unhappy in contemplating tho troubles of capitalist countries. INTERNATIONAL REVOLT. "The cause of the crisis in bourgeois society,". M. Trotsky says, "is that tho productive power it has created is inconsistent with national frontiors. Consequently you have, on tho ono hand imperialistic, wars, and on. the other hiuid the bourgeois Utopia of tho United States of America... "Tho Socialist revolution', 011 the contrary, begins :in tho1 Nationalist sphere, then develops internationally, rind must be completed on that, stage. The Socialist- revolution, in the new and broader sense of the word, becomes tho permanent revolution, and will not find its completion until there is a definite victory of the new society over tho whole planet. "Tho programme of the Comintern, formulated by Bukha-riu, is eclectic through and through. It makes a hopeless attempt to reconcile the theory of socialism in one country with Marxist internationalism, which is inseparable from the permanent character of tho world' revolution. The struggle of tho Left Communist Opposition for a correct policy and a healthy regimein tho Communist Internationale cannot bo saparated from the struggle of a Marxist programme.

"The problem of the. permanent revolution long since became more than a diflVrenco' of opinion between Lenin and Trotsky. The struggle is over the fundamental- ideas of Marx and Louiu mi Hie one sido, and of the reaction of Sliilin and the Centrists on tho otbuv."