The Stages Theory
The old idea that the revolution could somehow be stopped in its tracks once it had reached the bourgeois-democratic stage had been disproved by history. In fact, it had been disproved as far back as the revolutions of 1848. The defeat of the workers, at that time, had not resulted in some benign period of bourgeois-democracy, but, everywhere, by reaction, and the imposition of Bonapartist regimes. A further example was given by the defeat of the Paris Commune in 1871. The idea that the workers could, somehow, subordinate themselves to the interests of the peasants and petty-bourgeois democracy was now absurd, as large sections of that peasantry and petty-bourgeoisie were being drawn in behind the bourgeoisie itself. Meanwhile, the representatives of the bourgeoisie in the Provisional Government were already preparing a clampdown on the workers, and an alliance with those very forces of reaction, such as Kornilov, not to mention a large number of imperialist powers waiting for the chance to carve up Russia, in the same way they had done with China, and other parts of the globe.
The proponents of the stages theory based their argument on the “possibility” that the peasantry would become detached from the bourgeoisie, as the interests of these two classes diverged.
“A Marxist who, in view of the possibility of such a future stage, were to forget his duties in the present, when the peasantry is in agreement with the bourgeoisie, would turn petty bourgeois. For he would in practice be preaching to the proletariat confidence in the petty bourgeoisie (“this petty bourgeoisie, this peasantry, must separate from the bourgeoisie while the bourgeois-democratic revolution is still on”). Because of the “possibility” of so pleasing and sweet a future, in which the peasantry would not be the tail of the bourgeoisie, in which the Socialist-Revolutionaries, the Chkheidzes, Tseretelis, and Steklovs would not be an appendage of the bourgeois government—because of the “possibility” of so pleasing a future, he would be forgetting the unpleasant present, in which the peasantry still forms the tail of the bourgeoisie, and in which the Socialist- Revolutionaries and Social-Democrats have not yet given up their role as an appendage of the bourgeois government, as “His Majesty” Lvov’s Opposition.”
“A new and different task now faces us: to effect a split within this dictatorship between the proletarian elements (the anti-defencist, internationalist, “Communist” elements, who stand for a transition to the commune) and the small-proprietor or petty-bourgeois elements (Chkheidze, Tsereteli, Steklov, the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the other revolutionary defencists, who are opposed to moving towards the commune and are in favour of “supporting” the bourgeoisie and the bourgeois government).
The person who now speaks only of a “revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry” is behind the times, consequently, he has in effect gone over to the petty bourgeoisie against the proletarian class struggle; that person should be consigned to the archive of “Bolshevik” pre-revolutionary antiques (it may be called the archive of “old Bolsheviks”).
This concept, criticised by Lenin, here, is also what lies behind the tactic of the Popular Front. It bases itself on a hope that such petty-bourgeois, liberal forces will align with the proletariat, and split from their attachment to the bourgeoisie. All such hopes have been shown, by history, to be in vain, precisely because these petty-bourgeois, liberal forces' interests ultimately align more closely with those of the bourgeoisie than with those of the workers, for whom they retain a great deal of fear. The petty-bourgeoisie see themselves as future bourgeois, not future proletarians.
But, this was also the position of supporting the Provisional Government that Stalin, Kamenev and Zinoviev were putting forward in February 1917, on the basis of the stages theory. Its most manifest consequence was the support for the defencist position of the Provisional Government in relation to the continuing imperialist war. Trotsky notes Lenin's alarm at that position,
"On March 6 he telegraphed through Stockholm to Petrograd: “Our tactic; absolute lack of confidence; no support to the new government; suspect Kerensky especially; arming of proletariat the sole guarantee; immediate elections to the Petrograd Duma; no rapprochement with other parties. In this directive, only the suggestion about elections to the Duma instead of the Soviet, had an episodic character and soon dropped out of sight...
On the 17th of March, through friends in Stockholm, he wrote a letter filled with alarm. “Our party would disgrace itself for ever, kill itself politically, if it took part in such deceit ... I would choose an immediate split with no matter whom in our party rather than surrender to social patriotism ...” After this apparently impersonal threat – having definite people in mind however – Lenin adjures: “Kamenev must understand that a world historic responsibility rests upon him.” Kamenev is named here because it is a question of political principle. If Lenin had had a practical militant problem in mind, he would have been more likely to mention Stalin. But in just those hours Lenin was striving to communicate the intensity of his will to Petrograd across smoking Europe, Kamenev with the co-operation of Stalin was turning sharply toward social patriotism."
(Trotsky - History of The Russian Revolution, Chapter 15)
In fact, Kamenev, Zinoviev and Stalin never moved away from this position of the stages theory, and the slogan of the Democratic Dictatorship of the Proletariat and Peasantry. Unlike Kamenev, who continued to argue with Lenin over the formulation, Stalin slunk into the background on the issue, but, after Lenin's death, it was to re-emerge, centre stage, in Stalin's adoption of a Popular Front strategy in China, interrupted briefly by the ultra-Left idiocy of the Third Period, but once again pursued with the same disastrous effects in France, and in Spain, in the 1930's. Alongside, the national socialist theory of building Socialism In One Country, it formed the bedrock of Stalinist strategy and tactics in the subsequent period. It can be seen in the reactionary populist movements based upon “anti-imperialist”, and “anti-monopoly” alliances, for example. It was the foundation of the Stalinist strategy of Maoism, and used with the same disastrous consequences in a range of national struggles across the globe led by these Stalinist forces.
It was the decision to use Permanent Revolution as the basis of Stalin's attack on Trotsky that led him into the lunacy of the theory of building Socialism In One Country. As late as Spring 1924, Stalin rejected the notion, and stated the correct position.
“In April 1924, three months after the death of Lenin, Stalin wrote, his brochure of compilations called The Foundations of Leninism:
'For the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the efforts of one country are enough – to this the history of our own revolution testifies. For the final victory of socialism, for the organization of socialist production, the efforts of one country, especially a peasant country like ours, are not enough – for this we must have the efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries.'
These lines need no comment. The edition in which they were printed, however, has been withdrawn from circulation.”
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