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 revolution
Social revolutions are sudden changes in the structure and nature of society. These revolutions are usually recognized as having transformed society, economy, culture, philosophy, and technology along with but more than just the political syst ...
s in which old property relations are overturned. Leon Trotsky's book, '' The Revolution Betrayed'', is the most widely cited development of the theory.
Origins
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. In addition to preaching the Christian Gospel,
John Wesley
John Wesley (; 2 March 1791) was an English people, English cleric, Christian theology, theologian, and Evangelism, evangelist who was a leader of a Christian revival, revival movement within the Church of England known as Methodism. The soci ...
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. 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." The practice of temperance among Methodists, as well as their rejection of gambling, allowed them to eliminate secondary poverty and accumulate capital. Individuals who attended Methodist chapels and
Sunday school
A Sunday school is an educational institution, usually (but not always) Christian in character. Other religions including Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism have also organised Sunday schools in their temples and mosques, particularly in the West.
Su ...
s "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." 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." The historian
Bernard Semmel
Bernard Semmel (23 July 1928 – 18 August 2008) was an American historian specialising in British imperial history.
Application
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
The Prague Spring ( cs, Pražské jaro, sk, Pražská jar) was a period of political liberalization and mass protest in
the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. It began on 5 January 1968, when reformist Alexander Dubček was elected First Sec ...
of 1968, both crushed by Soviet invasion. Many trotskyists see
Valery Sablin
Captain 3rd Rank Valery Mikhailovich Sablin (russian: Вале́рий Миха́йлович Са́блин) (1 January 1939 – 3 August 1976) was a Soviet Navy officer and a member of the Communist Party. In November 1975, he noticed t ...
'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. Another uprising seen to have the possibility of sweeping in the political revolution was the
1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre
The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident (), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourth ...
, crushed by the
People's Liberation Army
The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the principal military force of the People's Republic of China and the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The PLA consists of five service branches: the Ground Force, Navy, Air Force, ...
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 Wałęsa's Solidarność 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
Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory o ...
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
Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory ...
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
North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and ...