Permanent Revolution

Permanent Revolution was Leon Trotsky’s belief for the future of world communism. Permanent Revolution, as a belief, was also to bring Trotsky into direct conflict with Joseph Stalin after the death of Lenin in January 1924.

Permanent Revolution, in the eyes of Trotsky, was a world where somewhere a communist revolution was taking place and the old order was being overthrown, bringing in government by the people. To achieve this, he wanted Russia post-1921 to actively export revolution abroad, using the expertise that the Communists had gained since November 1917 to achieve this. He wanted Russia to send experts abroad to assist revolutionary movements and he wanted Russia to help finance such movements. Trotsky believed that a world experiencing a permanent revolution could only strengthen the hold of the working class and destroy what he viewed as the old order that had done all it could to strangulate the workers.

The closest Trotsky got to seeing a revolution of any importance abroad was the doomed attempt by the Spartacists to take over Weimar Germany after World War One.

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