[The Immortal Goon]

In the United States of Europe, Lenin is defending the concept of imperialism. The Social Democrats were saying that Europe needs to be tied together, that another war was impossible as their economies were merged, and that from these integrated economies a single world would emerge, free of imperialism. From that single capitalist non-imperialist world, the fight for socialism would begin.

Lenin, rightfully, calls bullshit on this. Part of what made him appear as a prophet was that he anticipated that the leading Marxists at the time who held such view were not only incorrect, but that imperialism would lead the major powers to get into a major conflict after there was no more land to colonize. And he was exactly right.

---

In Lenin's speech to the Third All-Russia Congress of the Soviets, he's saying exactly the opposite of what you're trying to snip from a single reference. Marx and Engels, amongst others, had assumed that the revolution would start in Britain, France, or Germany because imperialism had not developed at their time. When it had, it created a world market (though not one without competing imperialism) that allowed Marx's conception of a permanent revolution to have taken place the next time. This is why, for instance, Lenin is so set on pointing out the wars of the 18th century often, "were wars of a bourgeois-progressive, national-liberating character," and that World War I was different.

That aside, Lenin is clearly saying that a socialist revolution would be international in character and not confined to one country. In fact, it actually counters Stalin's attempts to stifle revolution abroad to defend the "socialist" character of his Soviet Union. Your cut point in full context:

And with us will go the masses of the more advanced countries, countries which have been divided by a predatory war, whose workers have passed through a longer period of training in democracy. When people depict the difficulties of our task, when we are told that the victory of socialism is possible only on a world scale, we regard this merely as an attempt, a particularly hopeless attempt, on the part of the bourgeoisie and of its voluntary and involuntary supporters to distort the irrefutable truth. The final victory of socialism in a single country is of course impossible. Our contingent of workers and peasants which is upholding Soviet power is one of the contingents of the great world army, which at present has been split by the world war, but which is striving for unity, and every piece of information, every fragment of a report about our revolution, every name, the proletariat greets with loud and sympathetic cheers, because it knows that in Russia the common cause is being pursued, the cause of the proletariat’s uprising, the international socialist revolution. A living example, tackling the job somewhere in one country is more effective than any proclamations and conferences; this is what inspires the working people in all countries.

The October strike in 1905—the first steps of the victorious revolution—immediately spread to Western Europe and then, in 1905, called forth the movement of the Austrian workers; already at that time we had a practical illustration of the value of the example of revolution, of the action by the workers in one country, and today we see that the socialist revolution is maturing by the hour in all countries of the world.

If we make mistakes and blunders and meet with obstacles on our way, that is not what is important to them; what is important to them is our example, that is what unites them. They say: we shall go together and conquer, come what may. (Applause).

The great founders of socialism, Marx and Engels, having watched the development of the labour movement and the growth of the world socialist revolution for a number of decades saw clearly that the transition from capitalism to socialism would require prolonged birth-pangs, a long period of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the break-up of all that belonged to the past, the ruthless destruction of all forms of capitalism, the co.-operation of the workers of all countries, who would have to combine their efforts to ensure complete victory. And they said that at the end of the nineteenth century “the Frenchman will begin it, and the German will finish it”[164]—.the Frenchman would begin it because in the course of decades of revolution he had acquired that intrepid initiative in revolutionary action that made him the vanguard of the socialist revolution.

Today we see a different combination of international socialist forces. We say that it is easier for the movement to start in the countries that are not among those exploiting countries which have opportunities for easy plunder and are able to bribe the upper section of their workers. The pseudo-socialist, nearly all ministerial, Chernov-Tsereteli parties of Western Europe do not accomplish anything, and they lack firm foundations. We have seen the example of Italy; during the past few days we witnessed the heroic struggle of the Austrian workers against the predatory imperialists.185 Though the pirates may succeed in holding up the movement for a time, they cannot stop it altogether, it is invincible.

The example of the Soviet Republic will stand before them for a long time to come. Our socialist Republic of Soviets will stand secure, as a torch of international socialism and as an example to all the working people. Over there—conflict, war, bloodshed, the sacrifice of millions of people, capitalist exploitation; here—a genuine policy of peace and a socialist Republic of Soviets.

Things have turned out differently from what Marx and Engels expected and we, the Russian working and exploited classes, have the honour of being the vanguard of the international socialist revolution; we can now see clearly how far the development of the revolution will go. The Russian began it—the German, the Frenchman and the Englishman will finish it, and socialism will be victorious. (Applause)

This is always the problem with this argument though.

I can lay a clean line from Marx to Lenin and beyond that conceives of socialism as being part of a dialectical-materialist model.

The people that advocate socialism in one country have, thus far, been able to say that it was a pragmatic Real Politick move, and then half-heartedly provide out-of-context quotes from Lenin (that contradict other works from Lenin, Marx, and Engels).

The thing is, I can contextualize Lenin's work. I'm not even saying that the Real Politick move would be a bad move should everything else had collapsed. Even Trotsky acknowledges this.

But, we must call these things what they are. If it's a Real Politick move to defend the gains of a now hopeless revolution, let it be so. The Soviet Union, then, becomes a glorious attempt to create a worker's state that history will remember in the mold of the Paris Commune. Which, I think, is fair.

To destroy Marx, Engels, and Lenin in order to apply an unscientific designation to the Soviet Union means that our end goal is a fifty year old state that struggled and ultimately failed.

And why go to such extraordinary lengths to do something so grim?

This isn't just rhetoric, I'm making a defense of the dialectic and Marxism in general.

[ingliz]

Ingliz, those are Lenin's arguments for the seizure of power by the socialists

Lenin was not merely referring to socialist revolution in one country, but also to the possibility of constructing a socialist economy in a single country; and, in this regard, it can be said that during the 1920s Stalin interpreted Lenin's views more correctly than did Trotsky.

"A living example, tackling the job somewhere in one country is more effective than any proclamations and conferences; this is what inspires the working people in all countries."

— V.I. Lenin, Speech to the Third All-Russia Congress of Soviets, 1918.

“As a matter of fact, the political power of the Soviet over all large-scale means of production, the power in the state in the hands of the proletariat, the alliance of this proletariat with the many millions of small and very small peasants, the assured leadership of the peasantry by the proletariat, etc, … is not this all that is necessary in order… to build a complete socialist society? This is not yet the building of socialist society but it is all that is necessary and sufficient for this building.”

— V.I. Lenin, “On Cooperation,” 1923.

[Rich]

I have to say Ingliz you're an impressive and tenaciousness debater. I was particular impressed with your violence in the Bible posts in another thread.

[The Immortal Goon]

A living example, tackling the job somewhere in one country is more effective than any proclamations and conferences; this is what inspires the working people in all countries.

I in no way see how this invalidates anything that I said at all.

Indeed, since political power is in the hands of the working-class, since this political power owns all the means of production, the only task, indeed, that remains for us is to organize the population in cooperative societies. With most of the population organizing cooperatives, the socialism which in the past was legitimately treated with ridicule, scorn and contempt by those who were rightly convinced that it was necessary to wage the class struggle, the struggle for political power, etc., will achieve its aim automatically. But not all comrades realize how vastly, how infinitely important it is now to organize the population of Russia in cooperative societies. By adopting NEP we made a concession to the peasant as a trader, to the principal of private trade; it is precisely for this reason (contrary to what some people think) that the cooperative movement is of such immense importance. All we actually need under NEP is to organize the population of Russia in cooperative societies on a sufficiently large-scale, for we have now found the degree of combination of private interest, of private commercial interest, with state supervision and control of this interest, that degree of its subordination to the common interests which was formerly the stumbling block for very many socialists.

As a matter of fact, the political power of the Soviet over all large-scale means of production, the power in the state in the hands of the proletariat, the alliance of this proletariat with the many millions of small and very small peasants, the assured leadership of the peasantry by the proletariat, etc, is this not all that is necessary to build a complete socialist society out of cooperatives, out of cooperatives alone, which we formerly ridiculed as huckstering and which from a certain aspect we have the right to treat as such now, under NEP? is not this all that is necessary in order to build a complete socialist society? This is not yet the building of socialist society but it is all that is necessary and sufficient for this building.

Again, in context and with the removed parts put into place, you can see that he's defending the NEP, not at all advocating Socialism in one Country. He is, again, doing the opposite.

[ingliz]

you can see that he's defending the NEP

I in no way see how this invalidates anything that I said at all.

Lenin said that the characteristic of the Russian revolution was that it was proletarian in method, but bourgeois in content.

"Trotsky's major mistake is that he ignores the bourgeois character of the revolution and has no clear conception of the transition from this revolution to the socialist revolution"

— V. I. Lenin, The Aim of the Proletarian Struggle in Our Revolution

[The Immortal Goon]

This invalidates Marx and Engels by promoting Socialism in One Country how?

[ingliz]

"Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism. Hence, the victory of socialism is possible in several or even in one capitalist country, taken singly."

— V.I. Lenin: Selected works; Eng. Ed., Vol.5

"The development of capitalism proceeds extremely unevenly in the various countries. It cannot be otherwise under the commodity production system. From this, it follows irrefutably that socialism cannot achieve victory simultaneously in all countries. It will achieve victory first in one or several countries, while the others will remain bourgeois or pre-bourgeois for some time."

— V.I. Lenin "War Programme of the Proletarian Revolution; Collected Works Vol. 29

"...the only conceivable basis under capitalism for the division of spheres of influence, interests, colonies, etc., is a calculation of the strength of those participating, their general economic, financial, military strength, etc. And the strength of these participants in the division does not change to an equal degree, for the even development of different undertakings, trusts, branches of industry, or countries is impossible under capitalism. Half a century ago Germany was a miserable, insignificant country, if her capitalist strength is compared with that of the Britain of that time; Japan compared with Russia in the same way. Is it “conceivable” that in ten or twenty years’ time the relative strength of the imperialist powers will have remained unchanged? It is out of the question."

— V. I. Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, chapter IX, "Critique of Imperialism."

The origins of Lenin’s theory concerning the possibility of the victory of socialism in one country as part of the international revolutionary process, was a development of the Marxist theory of revolution, which formed a new theoretical response consequent to the transformation of pre-imperialist capitalism into imperialist capitalism. This development intensified the effects of the uneven development, leading to increasing conflicts between the imperialist powers in the struggle for markets and raw materials. The wars generated by these conflicts weakened imperialism, creating the possibility of breaching the weak links in the chain of imperialism. This in turn created favourable opportunities for the victory of socialism in individual countries.

What Lenin showed was that this development of capitalism gave

‘…rise to imperialist wars, which undermine the strength of imperialism and make it possible to break the front of imperialism at its weakest point’.

— J. V. Stalin: Works Vol. 18

[Conscript]

Why is this an argument? I'm pretty sure based on Marx's economics and law of value we can debunk the idea that socialism (in the sense of the lower phase of communism) is possible in one country. A DotP, sure, and that can be interpreted as a socialist victory, and Lenin is even straight up saying under such victories will be bourgeois economic conditions. That's all that is possible on such a limited scale.

The only question seems to be whether that is socialism, or if a DotP is socialism. Both questions are just Stalinist revisionism and the manufactured lines of a Kremlin-directed, half-dead comintern in the interwar era.

[Rich]

One thing I don't get is why there was this debate about the possibility of socialism in one country anyway. It was totally academic. When Lenin died they were trying to build socialism in six countries: Russia, Ukraine, Byelorussia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia and that number only increased.

[annatar1914]

This thread is depressing. To me it's like seeing that a dead man I hated all my life was in fact only partly my enemy and in fact had my interests at heart, and was generally correct about things. It's almost 2016, and Capitalism of the most vile and soul-destroying sort is nearly universal in sway, and I have gone from being an Arch-Anti-Communist to something of a Marxist Leninist.

Strange.

[The Immortal Goon]

Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism. Hence, the victory of socialism is possible in several or even in one capitalist country, taken singly.

Why are you attributing different sources to the same work? You've already cited this twice as two different things, it's been explained, and now you're citing it as a third source. This is still On the United States of Europe. Are you just mining a thread on some other forum that doesn't exist?

But, again, like the last two times, this is a reaction to the Social Democrats and their contention that all of Europe would make up a single country in the absences of competitive imperialism. Again, Lenin denied this.

And, yet again, if that context in which the writing took place isn't enough, the context of the surrounding text invalidates what you're trying to imagine what it says:

Of course, temporary agreements are possible between capitalists and between states. In this sense a United States of Europe is possible as an agreement between the European capitalists ... but to what end? Only for the purpose of jointly suppressing socialism in Europe, of jointly protecting colonial booty against Japan and America, who have been badly done out of their share by the present partition of colonies, and the increase of whose might during the last fifty years has been immeasurably more rapid than that of backward and monarchist Europe, now turning senile. Compared with the United States of America, Europe as a whole denotes economic stagnation. On the present economic basis, i.e., under capitalism, a United States of Europe would signify an organisation of reaction to retard America’s more rapid development. The times when the cause of democracy and socialism was associated only with Europe alone have gone for ever.

A United States of the World (not of Europe alone) is the state form of the unification and freedom of nations which we associate with socialism—about the total disappearance of the state, including the democratic. As a separate slogan, however, the slogan of a United States of the World would hardly be a correct one, first, because it merges with socialism; second, because it may be wrongly interpreted to mean that the victory of socialism in a single country is impossible, and it may also create misconceptions as to the relations of such a country to the others.

Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism. Hence, the victory of socialism is possible first in several or even in one capitalist country alone. After expropriating the capitalists and organising their own socialist production, the victorious proletariat of that country will arise against the rest of the world—the capitalist world—attracting to its cause the oppressed classes of other countries, stirring uprisings in those countries against the capitalists, and in case of need using even armed force against the exploiting classes and their states. The political form of a society wherein the proletariat is victorious in overthrowing the bourgeoisie will be a democratic republic, which will more and more concentrate the forces of the proletariat of a given nation or nations, in the struggle against states that have not yet gone over to socialism. The abolition of classes is impossible without a dictatorship of the oppressed class, of the proletariat. A free union of nations in socialism is impossible without a more or less prolonged and stubborn struggle of the socialist republics against the backward states.

Further, and it might be pointed out, that"Combined and Uneven Development," is a concept popularized by Trotsky that, again, disproves the idea of Socialism in One Country.

The fact that Lenin is dropping it is hardly an endorsement of Socialism in One Country.

"The development of capitalism proceeds extremely unevenly in the various countries. It cannot be otherwise under the commodity production system. From this, it follows irrefutably that socialism cannot achieve victory simultaneously in all countries. It will achieve victory first in one or several countries, while the others will remain bourgeois or pre-bourgeois for some time."

Again, this is taken out of context. Again, with the context, it's clear that Lenin is speaking of war (as the title indicates) and the ideology of socialism instead of actual socialism. Much in the same way a communist can live in the United States without having to say the United States is communist:

To deny all possibility of national wars under imperialism is wrong in theory, obviously mistaken historically, and tantamount to European chauvinism in practice: we who belong to nations that oppress hundreds of millions in Europe, Africa, Asia, etc., are invited to tell the oppressed peoples that it is “impossible” for them to wage war against “our” nations!

Secondly, civil war is just as much a war as any other. He who accepts the class struggle cannot fail to accept civil wars, which in every class society are the natural, and under certain conditions inevitable, continuation, development and intensification of the class struggle. That has been confirmed by every great revolution. To repudiate civil war, or to forget about it, is to fall into extreme opportunism and renounce the socialist revolution.

Thirdly, the victory of socialism in one country does not at one stroke eliminate all wars in general. On the contrary, it presupposes wars. The development of capitalism proceeds extremely unevenly in different countries. It cannot be otherwise under commodity production. From this it follows irrefutably that socialism cannot achieve victory simultaneously in all countries. It will achieve victory first in one or several countries, while the others will for some time remain bourgeois or pre-bourgeois. This is bound to create not only friction, but a direct attempt on the part of the bourgeoisie of other countries to crush the socialist state’s victorious proletariat. In such cases, a war on our part would be a legitimate and just war. It would be a war for socialism, for the liberation of other nations from the bourgeoisie. Engels was perfectly right when, in his letter to Kautsky of September 12, 1882, he clearly stated that it was possible for already victorious socialism to wage “defensive wars”. What he had in mind was defense of the victorious proletariat against the bourgeoisie of other countries.

Only after we have overthrown, finally vanquished and expropriated the bourgeoisie of the whole world, and not merely in one country, will wars become impossible. And from a scientific point of view it would be utterly wrong—and utterly unrevolutionary—for us to evade or gloss over the most important things: crushing the resistance of the bourgeoisie—the most difficult task, and one demanding the greatest amount of fighting, in the transition to socialism. The “social” parsons and opportunists are always ready to build dreams of future peaceful socialism. But the very thing that distinguishes them from revolutionary Social-Democrats is that they refuse to think about and reflect on the fierce class struggle and class wars needed to achieve that beautiful future.

"...the only conceivable basis under capitalism for the division of spheres of influence, interests, colonies, etc., is a calculation of the strength of those participating, their general economic, financial, military strength, etc. And the strength of these participants in the division does not change to an equal degree, for the even development of different undertakings, trusts, branches of industry, or countries is impossible under capitalism. Half a century ago Germany was a miserable, insignificant country, if her capitalist strength is compared with that of the Britain of that time; Japan compared with Russia in the same way. Is it “conceivable” that in ten or twenty years’ time the relative strength of the imperialist powers will have remained unchanged? It is out of the question."

I fail to understand what this random quote is attempting to articulate.

The origins of Lenin’s theory concerning the possibility of the victory of socialism in one country as part of the international revolutionary process, was a development of the Marxist theory of revolution, which formed a new theoretical response consequent to the transformation of pre-imperialist capitalism into imperialist capitalism. This development intensified the effects of the uneven development, leading to increasing conflicts between the imperialist powers in the struggle for markets and raw materials. The wars generated by these conflicts weakened imperialism, creating the possibility of breaching the weak links in the chain of imperialism. This in turn created favourable opportunities for the victory of socialism in individual countries.

Wait...Are you conceding combined and uneven development? Because that's Trotsky's 1906 theory pretty universally makes Socialism in One Country impossible. In order for Combined and Uneven Development to work, it has to presuppose a world capitalist system that can only advance to socialism through an international revolution.

The rest of the statement means nothing. A revolution leads to wars...so Marx, Engels, (and at least most of Lenin's writings) were wrong? That doesn't make sense. You're going to have to spell it out more than that.

And even then, why does that mean that revolutionary movements like socialists in Germany, France, Spain, and China need to join the bourgeoisie (as the Third Period dictated to protect SIOC)? The wars that weakened imperialism to break the chain of capitalism...need to be subordinated to protect capitalism because of SIOC?

None of that paragraph makes any sense. Bluntly, with the weird different citations to the same work without any context and full ellipsis removing relevant parts of the data, I do suspect you're spamming quotes from somewhere else with faith that it works out.

I want an actual dialectic-mateiralis explanation of why Marx, Engels, and much of Lenin was wrong in denouncing the concept of SIOC. The string of almost related out-of-context quotes isn't cutting it.

[ingliz]

On the United States of Europe.

Yes, it is, but as you always say you can never find my quotes, I provided a book to reference instead of an obscure journal.

and now you're citing it as a third source.

No, you will find this quote at The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution

"Thirdly, the victory of socialism in one country does not at one stroke eliminate all wars in general. On the contrary, it presupposes wars. The development of capitalism proceeds extremely unevenly in different countries. It cannot be otherwise under commodity production. From this it follows irrefutably that socialism cannot achieve victory simultaneously in all countries. It will achieve victory first in one or several countries, while the others will for some time remain bourgeois or pre-bourgeois. This is bound to create not only friction, but a direct attempt on the part of the bourgeoisie of other countries to crush the socialist state’s victorious proletariat. In such cases, a war on our part would be a legitimate and just war. It would be a war for socialism, for the liberation of other nations from the bourgeoisie. Engels was perfectly right when, in his letter to Kautsky of September 12, 1882, he clearly stated that it was possible for already victorious socialism to wage “defensive wars”. What he had in mind was defense of the victorious proletariat against the bourgeoisie of other countries."

Combined and Uneven Development

"The discovery and formulation of this law is the outcome of over 2500 years of theoretical investigation into the modes of social development. The first observations upon which it is based were made by the Greek historians and philosophers. But the law itself was first brought into prominence and consistently applied by the founders of historical materialism, Marx and Engels, over a century ago. This law is one of Marxism’s greatest contributions to a scientific understanding of history and one of the most powerful instruments of historical analysis.

Marx and Engels derived the essence of this law in turn from the dialectical philosophy of Hegel. Hegel utilised the law in his works on universal history and the history of philosophy without, however, giving it any special name or explicit recognition.

Many dialectically minded thinkers before and since Hegel have likewise used this law in their studies and applied it more or less consciously to the solution of complex historical, social and political problems. All the outstanding theoreticians of Marxism, from Kautsky and Luxemburg to Plekhanov and Lenin, grasped its importance, observed its operations and consequences, and used it for the solution of problems which baffled other schools of thought."

— George Novack, Uneven And Combined Development In History

Wait...Are you conceding combined and uneven development? Because that's Trotsky's 1906 theory pretty universally makes Socialism in One Country impossible

Only if you take on board the theory of permanent revolution set forth by Parvus and Trotsky, and disregard Lenin's two-stage uninterrupted revolution.

[The Immortal Goon]

[Wait...Are you conceding combined and uneven development? Because that's Trotsky's 1906 theory pretty universally makes Socialism in One Country impossible?]

Only if you take on board the theory of permanent revolution set forth by Parvus and Trotsky, and disregard Lenin's two-stage uninterrupted revolution.

I don't even have to. You do so:

George Novack (August 5, 1905, Boston, Massachusetts – July 30, 1992, New York City) was an American Communist politician and Marxist theoretician.

He attended Harvard University, earning a B.A. in 1926, and an M.A. in 1927. He was on a successful track in the publishing business, when the beginning of the Great Depression radicalized him. He joined the Trotskyist Communist League of America in 1933 and was a member of the National Committee of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) from 1940 to 1973.

In 1937-40 Novack served as the secretary of the American Committee for the Defence of Leon Trotsky. This body initiated the celebrated 1937 Dewey Commission that inquired into the charges made against Trotsky in the Moscow show trials, and found the Moscow trials to have been a complete frame-up.

More directly:

Trotsky was no defeatist; he did not declare in advance that the worst would happen. On the contrary, he threw all his forces and resources into the balance to help the favourable outcome prevail. Now, 20 years after his death, his struggle and foresight have been vindicated. While imperialism tore itself to pieces for the second time and was further weakened by the Second World War, the Soviet state survived, despite all the crimes of Stalinism. After revealing its powers of resistance in the war against Hitlerism, it has displayed amazing capacities for recuperation and swift growth in the postwar years. The socialist revolution itself broke through to new ground, extending into Eastern Europe and Asia and scuttling Stalin’s theory of “socialism in one country” as a by-product.

You're admitting to messing around with the sourcing, and you're using someone who explicitly says that the results of history had been, "scuttling Stalin’s theory of 'socialism in one country.'"

I do fail to see how this does anything but complete my argument.

Further, I'm still waiting for a dialectic-materialist analysis on why Marx, Engels, and Lenin were incorrect on their theories about socialism.

[ingliz]

I don't even have to. You do so

No, I was purposely quoting a Trotskyite stating that the law of uneven and combined development was not something dreamt up by Trotsky.

More directly

Mr. Novack is entitled to his opinion, as am I.

Further, I'm still waiting for a dialectic-materialist analysis on why Marx, Engels, and Lenin were incorrect on their theories about socialism.

I do not believe Marx, Engels, and Lenin were incorrect. I do believe Trotsky's calling for a socialist revolution, that capitalism had flourished and the productive forces had developed adequately in Russia between February and October 1917 to warrant the call for a socialist revolution, to be very silly.

Building socialism is a process:

“The great basic thought, that the world is not to be comprehended as a complex of ready-made things, but as a complex of processes, in which the things apparently stable no less than their mind images in our heads, the concepts, go through an uninterrupted change of coming into being and passing away..."

— Frederick Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy

the NEP

"But as to what social and political phases these countries will then have to pass through before they likewise arrive at socialist organisation, we to-day can only advance rather idle hypotheses."

— Engels to Karl Kautsky in Vienna

"Concessions to foreign capitalists (true, only very few have been accepted, especially when compared with the number we have offered) and leasing enterprises to private capitalists definitely mean restoring capitalism."

— V. I. Lenin, The New Economic Policy

Allowing the petty proprietor to trade was a retreat. Encouraging large scale capitalist production an even greater contradiction - capital is the enemy - but it was one of the contradictions which, in actual life, lead from a small-peasant economy via state capitalism to socialism.* It was only the creation of a rural proletariat, and the expansion of the industrial proletariat, that made possible the 'vanquishing' of the millions upon millions of petty proprietors, whose activities tend to restore the bourgeoisie.


* V. I. Lenin, Fourth Anniversary of the October Revolution

[The Immortal Goon]

No, I was purposely quoting a Trotskyite stating that the law of uneven and combined development was not something dreamt up by Trotsky.

Known and noted again.

Mr. Novack is entitled to his opinion, as am I.

Though one of the main conclusions he draws is that you are incorrect.

I do not believe Marx, Engels, and Lenin were incorrect.

They all explicitly say that capitalism in one country is impossible. You claim this is incorrect.

I do believe Trotsky's calling for a socialist revolution, that capitalism had flourished and the productive forces had developed adequately in Russia between February and October 1917 to warrant the call for a socialist revolution, to be very silly.

I'm unaware of this. Cite?

The great basic thought, that the world is not to be comprehended as a complex of ready-made things, but as a complex of processes, in which the things apparently stable no less than their mind images in our heads, the concepts, go through an uninterrupted change of coming into being and passing away...

Will it be possible for this revolution to take place in one country alone?

No. By creating the world market, big industry has already brought all the peoples of the Earth, and especially the civilized peoples, into such close relation with one another that none is independent of what happens to the others.

Further, it has co-ordinated the social development of the civilized countries to such an extent that, in all of them, bourgeoisie and proletariat have become the decisive classes, and the struggle between them the great struggle of the day. It follows that the communist revolution will not merely be a national phenomenon but must take place simultaneously in all civilized countries – that is to say, at least in England, America, France, and Germany.

It will develop in each of these countries more or less rapidly, according as one country or the other has a more developed industry, greater wealth, a more significant mass of productive forces.

As seems to be the norm, it's a lot of dust and random quotes out of context that serve to cloud the things these people explicitly say. For no other reason than to imply Stalin was flawless and never did a thing wrong. A reverence we don't even extend to Marx.

[ingliz]

Though one of the main conclusions he draws is that you are incorrect.

That is not a surprise, surely. He is a Trotskyite.

Lenin regarded Trotsky as the living embodiment, at times talented, at times trivial and unecessarily verbose, of an element that was hostile to the cause of the proletariat. He regarded Trotsky, like Martov, Chernov, and Axelrod, simply as the embodiment of certain social phenomena, and not at all as a personality. This systematic struggle against Trotskyism, as a tendency hostile to Bolshevism, can be found throughout all the volumes of Lenin’s work up to the moment when Trotsky joined our Party. Then a pause followed, followed by a return to this same struggle— but in a different form.

They all explicitly say that capitalism in one country is impossible

Lenin's theory of the possibility of socialism in one country as part of the world revolutionary process?

Trotsky on Lenin's theory of the possibility of socialism in one country as part of the world revolutionary process:

The only more or less concrete historical argument advanced against the slogan of the United States of Europe was formulated in the Swiss Sotsial-Democrat (at the time the central organs of the Bolsheviks) in the following sentence, "Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism". From this Sotsial-Democrat draws the conclusion that the victory of socialism is possible in one country, and that therefore there is no reason to make the dictatorship of the proletariat in each separate country contingent upon the establishment of a United States of Europe.

United States of Europe

Lenin is attacking Trotsky's position.

I'm unaware of this. Cite?

"It* pointed out that the democratic tasks of the backward bourgeois nations in our epoch led directly to the dictatorship of the proletariat and that the dictatorship of the proletariat puts the socialist tasks on the order of the day. In that lay the central idea of the theory."

Trotsky, The Permanent Revolution

As Lenin rightly pointed out, Trotsky's 'Permanent' revolution is tantamount to 'skipping' the peasant movement and "playing at the seizure of power." Any attempt at such a revolution as was advocated by Trotsky would have ended in certain failure, for it would have denied the Russian proletariat the support of its most dependable ally, the poor peasantry. Only this explains Leninism's unrelenting struggle against Trotskyism from 1905 onwards.

* "It" being the theory of permanent revolution

two-stage uninterrupted revolution

"A radical social revolution depends on certain definite historical conditions of economic development as its precondition."

and

" ... is only possible where the capitalist tenant farmer has forced out the peasants, and where the true cultivator is just as good a proletarian, a wage-labourer, as is the town worker, and so has immediately, not just indirectly, the very same interests as him."

Marx, Conspectus of Bakunin’s Statism and Anarchy

Though one of the main conclusions he draws is that you are incorrect.

Trotsky attacks "the theory of socialism in one country" as an attempt to achieve a "closed equilibrium" within the economic sphere of one country, or as a "reactionary utopia". However, socialism is not a question of the mutual dependency between states, but a historical form of social production and a question of relations between people within production.

* Hayashi Hiroyoshi, Critique of Trotsky's Theory of Permanent Revolution. The Study of Scientific Communism No.28

[The Immortal Goon]

Lenin's theory of the possibility of socialism in one country as part of the world revolutionary process?

Lenin does not have this theory.

Complete and final victory on a world scale cannot be achieved in Russia alone; it can be achieved only when the proletariat is victorious in at least all the advanced countries, or, at all events, in some of the largest of the advanced countries. Only then shall we be able to say with absolute confidence that the cause of the proletariat has triumphed, that our first objective—the overthrow of capitalism—has been achieved.

We have achieved this objective in one country, and this confronts us with a second task. Since Soviet power has been established, since the bourgeoisie has been overthrown in one country, the second task is to wage the struggle on a world scale, on a different plane, the struggle of the proletarian state surrounded by capitalist states.

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. As you know we have done very much in comparison with the past to bring about this condition, but far from enough to make it a reality.

The second condition is agreement between the proletariat, which is exercising its dictatorship, that is holds state power,and the majority of the peasant population

But we have not finished building even the foundations of socialist economy and the hostile power of moribund capitalism can still deprive us of that. We must clearly appreciate this and frankly admit it; for there is nothing more dangerous than illusions (and vertigo, particularly at high altitudes). And there is absolutely nothing terrible, nothing that should give legitimate grounds for the slightest despondency, in admitting this bitter truth; we have always urged and reiterated the elementary truth of Marxism - that the joint efforts of the workers of several advanced countries are needed for the victory of socialism.

Moreover, this is consistent with Marx and Engels, while Lenin's supposed Socialism in One Country is not. As a concept, it did not even exist until Bukharin's pamphlet a year after Lenin's death.

Leon Trotsky, Collected Works, Russian Edition, Vol. III, Part I

The only known citation for that quote is Stalin saying Trotsky had written as much. Which isn't reliable, nor would it be to quote Trotsky saying Stalin had written something.

Lenin is attacking Trotsky's position...[in the] United States of Europe.

Two years before the revolution even occurred, Lenin attacked Kerensky's conception of imperialism...and that was actually secretly about events almost ten years later when the revolution had succeeded and Lenin needed to show Trotsky up? What?

As Lenin rightly pointed out, Trotsky's 'Permanent' revolution is tantamount to 'skipping' the peasant movement and "playing at the seizure of power."

Lenin does not point this out, mostly because it's not even true:

2. With regard to countries with a belated bourgeois development, especially the colonial and semi-colonial countries, the theory of the 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.

3. Not only the agrarian, but also the national question assigns to the peasantry – the overwhelming majority of the population in backward countries – an exceptional place in the democratic revolution. 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 realized in no other way than through an irreconcilable struggle against the influence of the national-liberal bourgeoisie.

4. No matter what the first episodic stages of the revolution may be in the individual countries, the realization of the revolutionary alliance between the proletariat and the peasantry is conceivable only under the political leadership of the proletariat vanguard, organized in the Communist Party. This in turn means that the victory of the democratic revolution is conceivable only through the dictatorship of the proletariat which bases itself upon the alliance with the peasantry and solves first of all the tasks of the democratic revolution.

5. Assessed historically, the old slogan of Bolshevism – ’the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry’ – expressed precisely the above-characterized relationship of the proletariat, the peasantry and the liberal bourgeoisie.

But despite you trying to change the argument into what a creep Trotsky was, this has nothing to do with anything, really.

Only this explains Leninism's unrelenting struggle against Trotskyism from 1905 onwards.

There was no "unrelenting struggle against Trotskyism from 1905 onwards." "Trotskyism" didn't even exist until, at the absolute earliest, the formation of the Left Opposition after the NEP was formed in 1923. Even then, this, "opposition," from Lenin took the form of condemning Trotsky for thinking that the USSR was closer to socialism than it was:

While betraying this lack of thoughtfulness, Comrade Trotsky falls into error himself. He seems to say that in a workers’ state it is not the business of the trade unions to stand up for the material and spiritual interests of the working class. That is a mistake. Comrade Trotsky speaks of a “workers’ state”. May I say that this is an abstraction. It was natural for us to write about a workers’ state in 1917; but it is now a patent error to say: “Since this is a workers’ state without any bourgeoisie, against whom then is the working class to be protected, and for what purpose?” The whole point is that it is not quite a workers’ state. That is where Comrade Trotsky makes one of his main mistakes. We have got down from general principles to practical discussion and decrees, and here we are being dragged back and prevented from tackling the business at hand. This will not do. For one thing, ours is not actually a workers’ state but a workers’ and peasants’ state. And a lot depends on that. (Bukharin : “What kind of state? A workers’ and peasants’ state?”) Comrade Bukharin back there may well shout “What kind of state? A workers’ and peasants’ state?” I shall not stop to answer him. Anyone who has a mind to should recall the recent Congress of Soviets,[3] and that will be answer enough.

But that is not all. Our Party Programme—a document which the author of the ABC of Communism knows very well—shows that ours is a workers’ state with a bureacratic twist to it. We have had to mark it with this dismal, shall I say, tag. There you have the reality of the transition.

Lenin is actually saying that he's less inclined to believe in socialism in one country than Trotsky is as the USSR could not come to even the most remedial underpinnings of socialism:

It is Trotsky who is in “ideological confusion”, because in this key question of the trade unions’ role, from the standpoint of transition from capitalism to communism, he has lost sight of the fact that we have here a complex arrangement of cogwheels which cannot be a simple one; for the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised by a mass proletarian organisation. It cannot work without a number of “transmission belts” running from the vanguard to the mass of the advanced class, and from the latter to the mass of the working people. In Russia, this mass is a peasant one. There is no such mass anywhere else, but even in the most advanced countries there is a non-proletarian, or a not entirely proletarian, mass. That is in itself enough to produce ideological confusion. But it’s no use Trotsky’s pinning it on others.

So, yes. Trotsky was wrong about this (as he'd later admit), but this does the opposite of prove that Lenin conceived of Socialism in One Country.

[ingliz]

Trotsky wrote

Trotsky constantly altered his conception of the permanent revolution (1905, 1917, 1922, 1929, and 1939).

because it's not even true:

"Many sections of the working masses, particularly in the countryside will be drawn into the revolution and become politically organised only after the advance-guard of the revolution, the urban proletariat, stands at the helm of the state. Revolutionary agitation and organisation will then be conducted with the help of state resources... In such a situation, created by the transference of power to the proletariat, nothing remains for the peasantry to do but to rally to the regime of the workers' democracy. It will not matter much even if the peasantry does this with a degree of consciousness no larger than that with which it usually rallies to the bourgeois regime."

Leon Trotsky, Results and Prospects, 1906

Alluding to Lenin's policy, he wrote: '

"Lenin now proposes that the proletariat’s political self-limitation should be supplemented with an objective anti-socialist “safeguard” in the form of the muzhik as collaborator or co-dictator"

Leon Trotsky, Our Differences, Chapter 25 in '1905', 1922

There was no "unrelenting struggle against Trotskyism from 1905 onwards

"In the present pamphlet the latter are frequently referred to as “new Iskra-ists” because while continuing to publish the Iskra they declared, through their then adherent, Trotsky, that there was a gulf between the old and the new Iskra."

V. I. Lenin, Footnote to the Preface, Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution, 1905

trying to change the argument into what a creep Trotsky was

Don't be silly. Is it my fault that Lenin insulted Trotsky in his letters, telegrams and articles 219 times. What did Lenin call him? "Pustozvon" (bell, man who talks much and does nothing), "svin'ya" (pig), "podlec iz podlecov" (scoundrel of scoundrels), "iudushka" (Judas/traitor), "politicheskaya prostitutka" (political prostitute) and his most elegant phrase concerning Trotsky that became proverbial in Russia - "pizdeet kak Trotskiy"* - to lie/bitch/bullshit like Trotsky.

Trotsky seeks to defend both camps in a “popular fashion”... It is an adventure in the ideological sense. Trotsky groups all the enemies of Marxism, he unites Potresov and Maximov, who detest the 'Lenin-Plekhanov' bloc, as they like to call it. Trotsky unites all to whom ideological decay is dear, all who are not concerned with the defence of Marxism; all philistines who do not understand the reasons for the struggle and who do not wish to learn, think, and discover the ideological roots of the divergence of views. At this time of confusion, disintegration, and wavering it is easy for Trotsky to become the “hero of the hour” and gather all the shabby elements around himself, The more openly this attempt is made, the more spectacular will be the defeat

* This phrase could be ruder than it appears in my translation as "pizdeet is derived from the word pizda, meaning ‘cunt’

[The Immortal Goon]

Trotsky constantly altered his conception of the permanent revolution (1905, 1917, 1922, 1929, and 1939).

I fail to see what this has to do with Socialism in One Country.

Leon Trotsky, Our Differences

V. I. Lenin, Footnote to the Preface, Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution, 1905

Yes. Trotsky, by accident or not, fell upon the same conclusion Lenin later did in the April Theses. However, I fail to see what this has to do with Socialism in One Country.

Don't be silly. Is it my fault that Lenin insulted Trotsky in his letters, telegrams and articles 219 times.

Nor does this has anything to do with Socialism in One Country. The entire post you made was exactly what I said:

despite you trying to change the argument into what a creep Trotsky was, this has nothing to do with anything, really.

[ingliz]

Yes. Trotsky, by accident or not, fell upon the same conclusion Lenin later did in the April Theses

No, he did not.

Hint: 'Our Differences' is a clue.

The entire post you made was exactly what I said

No, it was not.

despite you trying to change the argument into what a creep Trotsky was

I fail to see how a speech Kamenev gave at the session held by the Moscow Committee, enlarged by the active Party functionaries, and repeated at the session of the Communist fraction of the Trade Union Council, and at the conference of military functionaries, would lead you to believe I was trying to change the argument into what a creep Trotsky was. But, seeing as you were attempting to introduce the argument, I obliged in my next post.

I fail to see what this has to do with Socialism in One Country.

As I see it, the whole argument against Lenin and the possibility of socialism in one country as part of the world revolutionary process revolves around uneven and combined development and the theory of permanent revolution.