A
political revolution
, in the
Trotskyist
theory, is an upheaval in which the government is replaced, or the form of government altered, but in which property relations are predominantly left intact. The revolutions in
France
in 1830 and 1848 are often cited as political revolutions.
Political revolutions are contrasted with
social revolutions
in which old property relations are overturned.
Leon Trotsky
's book,
The Revolution Betrayed
, is the most widely cited development of the theory.
Origins
[
edit
]
The movement advocates political revolution, as opposed to capitalist counter-revolution, in the countries with
deformed workers states
. Such political revolutions are envisioned to overthrow undemocratic governments of bureaucratic privilege, replacing them with governments based on workers' democracy while maintaining state-owned property relations.
Academics have identified certain factors that have mitigated the rise of political revolutions. Many historians have held that the rise and spread of
Methodism
in Great Britain prevented the development of a revolution there.
[1]
In addition to preaching the Christian Gospel,
John Wesley
and his Methodist followers visited those imprisoned, as well as the poor and aged, building hospitals and
dispensaries
which provided free healthcare for the masses.
[2]
The sociologist William H. Swatos stated that "Methodist enthusiasm transformed men, summoning them to assert rational control over their own lives, while providing in its system of mutual discipline the psychological security necessary for autonomous conscience and liberal ideals to become internalized, an integrated part of the 'new men' ... regenerated by Wesleyan preaching."
[3]
The practice of
temperance
among Methodists, as well as their rejection of
gambling
, allowed them to eliminate
secondary poverty
and accumulate capital.
[3]
Individuals who attended Methodist chapels and
Sunday schools
"took into industrial and political life the qualities and talents they had developed within Methodism and used them on behalf of the working classes in non-revolutionary ways."
[4]
The spread of the Methodist Church in Great Britain, author and professor Michael Hill states, "filled both a social
and
an ideological vacuum" in English society, thus "opening up the channels of social and ideological mobility ... which worked against the polarization of English society into rigid social classes."
[3]
The historian
Bernard Semmel
argues that "Methodism was an antirevolutionary movement that succeeded (to the extent that it did) because it was a revolution of a radically different kind" that was capable of effecting social change on a large scale.
[3]
Application
[
edit
]
While the Trotskyist movement does not recognize any political revolution to have occurred against the deformed worker's states, it saw a strong possibility for that potential in the
Hungarian Revolution of 1956
and the Czechoslovakian
Prague Spring
of 1968, both crushed by Soviet invasion. Many trotskyists see
Valery Sablin
's mutinity in 1975 as an example of a true socialist attempt to provoke a political revolution. Sablin thought that Leninism had been betrayed by the Soviet government, and started a mutinity in hopes of inspiring the soviet people to overthrow the current leadership and install true socialism.
[5]
Another uprising seen to have the possibility of sweeping in the political revolution was the
1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre
, crushed by the
People's Liberation Army
of the
Chinese Communist Party
.
Unlike the movements that led to capitalist counter-revolution such
Boris Yeltsin
's 1991 coup in the
USSR
and
Lech Wał?sa
's
Solidarno??
in
Poland
, these previous movements were not seen as having stated capitalist goals and were not seen as hostile to
socialism
. As such the Trotskyist movement opposed the 1956 invasion of Hungary, the 1969 invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the Tiananmen Square massacre as the crimes of
Stalinist
governments.
While there is general agreement among Trotskyists on these questions regarding Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and China in events above, there is disagreement on questions regarding capitalist counter-revolution. Some Trotskyist groups cheered the fall of the Stalinist governments of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, even under the leadership of pro-capitalist forces. Arguments put forward by some of these groups included the idea that the mobilizations and political space created by smashing the Stalinist bureaucracy could bring about the ability of the working class to carry out the political revolution as a step towards creating a truly democratic and egalitarian socialist society.
Most Trotskyists hold on to the historic position of
Leon Trotsky
in advocating only Political Revolution against
Stalinism
while also standing for the defense of the deformed and
degenerated workers' states
from imperialism and internal capitalist counter-revolution. They argue that their position has been proven correct by the drop of the standard of living of the people of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe including the lack of medical care and jobs. Internationally they point to the strengthened hand of U.S. Imperialism with the fall of the Soviet Union as a major cause of war, including the Anglo-American war in
Iraq
.
Today these debates continue regarding what some Trotskyists consider the
deformed workers' states
of the
Republic of Cuba
, the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea
, the
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
, the
Lao People's Democratic Republic
and the
People's Republic of China
.
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
External links
[
edit
]
|
---|
Concepts
| | |
---|
Groups
| |
---|
People
| |
---|
Related topics
| |
---|
|