The Revolution Betrayed
The Revolution Betrayed is a book by the Russian Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky, published in 1937, analyzing and criticizing Stalinism and the post-Lenin development in the Soviet Union.
Trotsky wrote the book during his exile in Norway.
The book was originally translated into French by Victor Serge and its most notable English translation is by Max Eastman.
Content
The book, as a critique of Stalin, opens by praising the economic and political advance of the USSR since the death of Lenin- citing growth in electrical power, agricultural output, industry, etc.
The first few chapters examine the situation of the "Zigzags," as Trotsky described them, in the leadership of the Party. Trotsky segues into economic policy, criticizing Stalin and Bukharin's policy of moving slowly into collectivization and increased privatization of land. Trotsky then discusses labor productivity and criticizes the uselessness of the Stakhanovite movement and "shock brigades."
Trotsky then analyzes the "The Soviet Thermidor," analyzing the triumph of Stalin, the separation of the party from Bolshevism, and the rising bureaucratic stratum. He now discusses everyday life in the Soviet Union, economic inequality and the oppression of the new proletariat.
From here he discusses foreign policy and the Soviet military: The failure to defeat fascism, the re-institution of ranks and the loss of a militia, and closes by examining the future of the Soviet Union.
The main characteristic of this work is that by using marxist methods, Trotsky predicted -in 1936- that the USSR would come before a disjuncture: either the toppling of the ruling bureaucracy by means of a political revolution, or capitalist restoration led by the bureaucracy.
Depending on one's point of view, both or neither happened. There was an attempted 'communist' restoration by the bureaucracy which deposed Gorbachev; that coup by old communist party hardliners failed in the face of a popular political revolution, eventually led by Yeltsin, and in the wake of economic collapse the criminal élite metamorphosed into super-capitalists. In either event, Trotsky did predict the downfall of the Soviet Union as a result of internal contradictions. So, however, did many others.
External links
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