Editing Trotskyism (section)

=== Trotskyism and the 1917 Russian Revolution ===
During his leadership of the Russian revolution of 1905, Trotsky argued that once it became clear that the Tsar's army would not come out in support of the workers, it was necessary to retreat before the armed might of the state in as good an order as possible.{{sfn|Trotsky|1971|pp=217 ff|ref=Trotsky1971b}} In 1917, Trotsky was again elected chairman of the Petrograd soviet, but this time soon came to lead the [[Military Revolutionary Committee]], which had the allegiance of the Petrograd garrison and carried through the October 1917 insurrection. Stalin wrote: {{Blockquote|text=All practical work in connection with the organisation of the uprising was done under the immediate direction of Comrade Trotsky, the President of the Petrograd Soviet. It can be stated with certainty that the Party is indebted primarily and principally to Comrade Trotsky for the rapid going over of the garrison to the side of the Soviet and the efficient manner in which the work of the Military Revolutionary Committee was organized. The principal assistants of Comrade Trotsky were Comrades Antonov and Podvoisky.|sign=Joseph Stalin|source=''[[Pravda]]'', November 6, 1918<ref>This summary of Trotsky's role in 1917, written by Stalin for ''Pravda'', November 6, 1918, was quoted in Stalin's book ''The October Revolution'' issued in 1934, but it was expunged in Stalin's Works released in 1949.</ref>}}

As a result of his role in the Russian Revolution of 1917, the theory of permanent revolution was embraced by the young Soviet state until 1924.

The Russian revolution of 1917 was marked by two revolutions: the relatively spontaneous February 1917 revolution and the 25 October 1917 seizure of power by the Bolsheviks, who had gained the leadership of the Petrograd soviet.

Before the February 1917 Russian revolution, Lenin had formulated a slogan calling for the "democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry", but after the February revolution, through his April Theses, Lenin instead called for "all power to the Soviets". Nevertheless, Lenin continued to emphasise (as did Trotsky) the classical Marxist position that the peasantry formed a basis for the development of capitalism, not socialism.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lenin |first=V. I. |author-link=Vladimir Lenin |orig-date=30 October 1919 |chapter=Economics and Politics in the era of the dictatorship of the proletariat |title=Lenin Collected Works |publisher=[[Progress Publishers]] |date=1965 |location=Moscow |volume=30 |pages=109 |quote=Peasant farming continues to be... an extremely broad and very sound, deep-rooted basis for capitalism, a basis on which capitalism persists or arises anew in a bitter struggle against communism.}}</ref>

Also, before February 1917, Trotsky had not accepted the importance of a Bolshevik-style organisation. Once the February 1917 Russian revolution had broken out, Trotsky admitted the importance of a Bolshevik organisation and joined the Bolsheviks in July 1917. Although many, like Stalin, saw Trotsky's role in the October 1917 Russian revolution as central, Trotsky wrote that without Lenin and the Bolshevik Party, the October revolution of 1917 would not have taken place.

[[File:19191107-lenin second anniversary october revolution moscow.jpg|thumb|left|[[Vladimir Lenin|Lenin]], [[Leon Trotsky|Trotsky]] and [[Lev Kamenev|Kamenev]] celebrating the second anniversary of the October Revolution]]

Other Bolshevik figures such as [[Anatoly Lunacharsky]], [[Moisei Uritsky]] and [[Dmitry Manuilsky]] agreed that Lenin's influence on the Bolshevik party was decisive but the October insurrection was carried out according to Trotsky's, not to Lenin's plan.{{sfn|Deutscher|2015|p=1283}}

As a result, since 1917, Trotskyism as a political theory has been fully committed to a Leninist style of [[democratic centralism|democratic centralist]] party organisation, which Trotskyists argue must not be confused with the party organisation as it later developed under Stalin. Trotsky had previously suggested that Lenin's method of organisation would lead to a dictatorship. However, it is essential to emphasise that after 1917, orthodox Trotskyists argue that the loss of democracy in the USSR was caused by the failure of the revolution to spread internationally and the consequent wars, isolation, and imperialist intervention, not the Bolshevik style of organisation.

{{Quote box|width=25em|align=right|bgcolor=|quote=After the majority of the petrograd Soviet passed into the hands of the Bolsheviks, [Trotsky] was elected its chairman and in that position organized and led the insurrection of October 25.|source=Lenin on the organization of the October Revolution, Vol.XIV of the ''Collected Works''.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Trotsky |first1=Leon |title=The Stalin School of Falsification |date=1962 |publisher=Pioneer Publishers |page=12 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rv9oAAAAMAAJ&q=%E2%80%9CAfter+the+majority+of+the+petrograd+Soviet+passed+into+the+hands+of+the+Bolsheviks,+%5BTrotsky%5D+was+elected+its+chairman+and+in+that+position+organized+and+led+the+insurrection+of+October+25 |language=en}}</ref>}}

Lenin's outlook had always been that the Russian revolution would need to stimulate a Socialist revolution in Western Europe so that this European socialist society would come to the aid of the Russian revolution and enable Russia to advance towards socialism. Lenin stated: {{Blockquote|text=We have stressed in a good many written works, in all our public utterances, and in all our statements in the press that [...] 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.|sign=Vladimir Lenin|source=Speech at Tenth Congress of the RCP(B)<ref>{{cite book |last=Lenin |first=V. I. |author-link=Vladimir Lenin |orig-date=15 March 1921 |chapter=Report on the substitution of a tax in kind for the surplus-grain appropriation system, Tenth Congress |title=Collected Works |publisher=[[Progress Publishers]] |date=1965 |location=Moscow |volume=32 |pages=215}}, This speech, of course, introduced the New Economic Policy (NEP), which was intended to reinforce the basis of the second of the two conditions Lenin mentions in the quote, the support of the peasantry for the workers' state.</ref>}}

This outlook matched Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution precisely. Trotsky's permanent revolution had foreseen that the working class would not stop at the bourgeois democratic stage of the revolution but proceed towards a workers' state, as happened in 1917. The Polish Trotskyist [[Isaac Deutscher]] maintains that in 1917, Lenin changed his attitude toward Trotsky's theory of Permanent Revolution, and after the October revolution, it was adopted by the Bolsheviks.{{sfn|Deutscher|1966|p=285}}

Lenin was met with initial disbelief in April 1917. Trotsky argues that: {{Blockquote|text=[...] up to the outbreak of the February revolution and for a time after Trotskyism did not mean the idea that it was impossible to build a socialist society within the national boundaries of Russia (which "possibility" was never expressed by anybody up to 1924 and hardly came into anybody's head). Trotskyism meant the idea that the Russian proletariat might win the power in advance of the Western proletariat, and that in that case it could not confine itself within the limits of a democratic dictatorship but would be compelled to undertake the initial socialist measures. It is not surprising, then, that the April theses of Lenin were condemned as Trotskyist.|sign=Leon Trotsky|source=''History of the Russian Revolution''<ref>{{cite book |url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1930/hrr/ch16.htm |last=Trotsky |first=Leon |author-link=Leon Trotsky |title=History of the Russian Revolution |pages=332 |publisher=[[Pluto Press]] |location=London |date=1977 |via=[[Marxists Internet Archive]]}}</ref>}}