Leninism

Introduction

On August 17, 1985 the National Committee of the Democratic Socialist Perpective (then named the Socialist Workers Party) voted to end the party’s affiliation to the Fourth International, the international organisation founded in 1938 by the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and his supporters around the world.

This decision, which was subsequently endorsed by the DSP’s 11th Congress, held in Canberra in January 1986, was the result of a process of rethinking within the DSP about many of the ideas it had shared in common with other parties adhering to the Trotskyist movement.

By John Riddell

By John Nebauer

Review of Trotsky's Theory of Permanent Revolution: A Leninist critique, by Doug Lorimer, Resistance Books, Sydney, 1998, A$6.95.

John Nebauer is a member of the Democratic Socialist Party of Australia.

• Ultra-left
• Convergence?
• Hungarian lesson

After Lenin, Trotsky was the foremost leader of the Russian Revolution. His contributions to the international socialist movement and to Marxism were immense. Trotsky's leadership of the Military Revolutionary Committee in November 1917 helped ensure the victory of the Bolshevik uprising. His classic History of the Russian Revolution remains the best account of the events that led to and followed the demise of the Romanov dynasty. As the founder of the Red Army, Trotsky played a vital role in defending the revolution from the forces of reaction. Later, he led the opposition to Stalinist degeneration and provided a Marxist analysis of the bureaucratic regime.

Reihana Mohideen was, at the time of writing, a member of the Executive Council of the SPP and of the Links Editorial Board.

By Norm Dixon

• Transformation of the democratic revolution into a socialist revolution
• Bolshevik policy and Two Tactics

• The central strategic problem: class alliances in the dominated countries
• The Mexican example
• End of the semi-feudal aristocracy
• National and democratic tasks in the era of neo-liberal globalisation
• The DSP on Indonesia
• The debate inside the RSDLP
• Lorimer's concessions to permanent revolution
• Lenin: from 'bourgeois republic' to 'Commune state'
• Lessons of Spain
• Two-stage theory
• Weaknesses of the permanent revolution theory
• Underestimating the role of the proletariat, underestimating the role of the party

In the fight for socialist renewal, international collaboration cannot be on the basis of total agreement on theory, strategy or tactics. All or some of the members of organisations the Democratic Socialist Party seeks collaboration with hold or tend towards the permanent revolution theory. These include the sections of the Fourth International, the Scottish Socialist Party, the Pakistani Labour Party, the NSSP in Sri Lanka, Solidarity

• Once again on the purpose of my pamphlet
• 'Two Tactics' and the bourgeois revolution
• The 'democratic dictatorship' and the bourgeois republic
• Lenin's and Trotsky's 'conceptions' of the revolution and 1905
• The October Revolution and 'permanent revolution'
• Once again: what is the socialist revolution?
• National oppression, national-democratic revolution and socialism
• Conclusion: what's wrong with 'permanent revolution'?

• Vietnam's Pol-Mil
• The Philippine pol-mil
• Terrorism and terror as tactics
• When terror is admissible
• Pol-Mil versus mass struggle strategy

A number of party formations in the Philippines, such as the PMP (Workers Party of the Philippines), RPM (Revolutionary Workers Party), PMLP (Party of Marxists-Leninists in the Philippines), adopt the politico-military ("pol-mil") strategy as a reaction to the protracted people's war strategy of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). It is defined as a combination of political and military struggles, with the military struggle playing a secondary or subordinate role to the political struggle.

by John Percy

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