In defence of ‘Permanent Revolution’

Trotsky’s fundamental work Results and Prospects, was written in 1906 after the failed Russian Revolution. The theory he laid out in this work came to be known as the Permanent Revolution. Despite being written a decade prior, it explains the course which the 1917 Revolution would take. The Permanent Revolution offers many lessons to revolutionaries today. 

Why we study the Russian Revolution

Monday marked the 105th anniversary of the October Revolution. These 10 days shook the world and spurred on proletarian movements in countries far and wide. Over a century later and the Russian Revolution one of the most distorted events in history. The international bourgeois work actively to confuse and lie about the Russian Revolution. As Marxists, we must take a more serious approach. What is the real history of the revolution and how can we replicate it today? 

Why I Fight – For revolutionary optimism, not reformist pessimism

The development of class consciousness is of prime interest to Marxists. The working class runs society, as Ted Grant said “not a wheel turns, not a lightbulb shines without the kind permission of the working class”. Despite this fact, the leadership of the left fails to see the development of class consciousness in the working class. This leads to demoralisation and pessimism. On the other hand, Marxists have complete optimism; not in the idea that capitalism can change, but that the working class can overthrow this decrepit system.

Why we are communists

Today, hundreds of thousands of students will receive their exam results and put their school days behind them. Now is the time to study the ideas of Marxism, become a committed communist, and join us in the fight for revolution.

Dual power in France – A Militant leaflet, May 1968

Supporters of the Marxist Tendency, then gathered around the Militant journal in Britain, intervened in the French events of May 1968. Here we provide the text of a leaflet that was distributed to the British workers and youth. In it they warned that with the way the French CP and trade union leaders were behaving the French bourgeois could regain control of the situation.

Not a nut or bolt turns in hundreds of occupied factories: not a wheel moves in public transport. The reactionary newspapers’ lies are “censored” by the printers and so are those of the radio and television. The French working class in its millions cocks its little finger, and the vast complex of French capitalism grinds to a halt.

What a mighty demonstration of the invincible power of the working class, when it begins to move! How crushing a refutation this is of all those cynics and sceptics who have written off the working class as “bought off”, “apathetic” etc! How clear it should be to even the most politically uneducated worker that their French brothers would now be firmly in power, but for the craven, cowardly policies of the French Labour and Trade Union leaders. This is the essence of the events which have shaken the French ruling class and terrified the exploiters of the world!