Trotsky was an international Marxist. His central political belief at this time was in 'Permanent Revolution', a concept made up of three essential ideas:
• Revolution was not a single event but a permanent (continuous) process in which risings took place from country to country.
• The events in Russia since 1917 were simply a first step towards a worldwide revolution of the proletariat.
• The USSR could not survive alone in a hostile world. It needed to 'export revolution'. Unless there was international revolution, the Soviet Union would not survive.
Stalin countered Trotsky's notion of 'Permanent Revolution' with his own concept of 'Socialism in One Country'. He meant by this that the nation's first task was to consolidate Lenin's Revolution by turning the USSR into a modern state, capable of defending itself against its internal and external enemies. The Soviet Union's task, therefore, was to:
• overcome its present agricultural and industrial problems by its own unaided efforts
• proceed to build a modern state, the equal of any nation in the world
• make the survival of the Soviet Union an absolute priority, even if this meant suspending efforts to create international revolution.
Stalin used the contrast between his programme and Trotsky's to portray his rival as an enemy of the Soviet Union. He condemned Trotsky's ideas as a threat to the security of the USSR. Trotsky's position was further weakened by the fact that throughout the 1920s the Soviet Union had a constant fear of invasion by the combined capitalist nations. Although this fear was ill-founded, the tense atmosphere it created made Trotsky's notion of the USSR's engaging in foreign revolutionary wars appear irresponsible.
Why was Stalin able to overcome the challenge from the Left?
World History
