“Naturally, to affirm that the popular masses can and should never and under no conditions “leap” over the “constitutional” step, would be to manifest a ridiculous pedantry in the spirit of Stalin. In certain countries, the epoch of parliamentarism lasts long decades and even centuries. In Russia, it was only prolonged for the few years of the pseudo-constitutional régime and the one day of existence of the Constituent. From the historical point of view, one can perfectly well conceive of situations where even these few years and this one day would not exist.” (p 189)
To fight for a bourgeois-democratic or national revolution, permanent revolution posits the need for the independent organisation and programme of the proletariat. Can a bourgeois-democratic transformation occur without that? Yes, of course it can, just as imperialist wars can end with the victory of one camp over the other, rather than socialist revolution. The era of colonialism, based on mercantilism and unequal exchange, passed, and modern imperialism, based on industrial capital, and creation of surplus value in production, prefers to rule via bourgeois-democracy, where possible, because it has lower overheads, gives the ruling-class greater direct control over the state, and acts to delude and, thereby, control the proletariat. US imperialism acted as a goad to break apart the old colonial empires after WWII, just as western imperialism financed and supported the overthrow of Tsarism, by Milyukov/Kerensky.
But, the goal of Marxists is not bourgeois-democracy, just as its not some utopian pacifist end to an imperialist war, which simply results in the victory of one camp, and acts as an interlude to the next war. Our goal is Socialism, and all of these transformations from above are geared to minimise the active role of the proletariat and its ability to make the revolution permanent.
“... if the revolutionary policy had been correct, if the Communist Party had been completely independent of the Guomindang, if the soviets had been established in 1925-27, the revolutionary development could already have led China today to the dictatorship of the proletariat by passing beyond the democratic phase. But even in that case, it is not impossible that the formula of the Constituent Assembly, not tried by the peasantry at the most critical moment, not tested, and consequently still containing illusions, could, at the first serious difference between the peasantry and the proletariat, on the very morrow of the victory, become the slogan of the peasants and the petty bourgeoisie of the cities against the proletariat. Important conflicts between the proletariat and the peasantry, even in face of favourable conditions for the alliance, are quite inevitable, as is witnessed by the experience of the October revolution.” (p 189-90)
Under these conditions, formal democracy becomes the potential for a counter-revolutionary assault on the proletariat. Just consider Brexit, Trump, or the Tory government, or indeed, the actions of Zelensky's government in its own anti-working class measures against Ukrainian workers.
Trotsky quotes from the ECCI resolution, adopted following Bukharin's report. It is, Trotsky says, a classic example of doublespeak, designed to enable the leaders to cover their backs, whatever transpired in the future. It talked about China being between two revolutionary periods, thereby, avoiding discussion of the counter-revolutionary period it had entered, as a result of the past mistakes.
“A revolutionary situation does not develop uniformly, but by successive waves of ebb and flow. This formula has been chosen with premeditation, so as to be able to interpret it as recognizing the existence of a revolutionary situation, in which there takes place simply a “calm” before the tempest. At all events, they will also be able to explain it by pretending to acknowledge a whole period between two revolutions. In both cases, they will be able to begin the new resolution with the words: “as we foresaw” or “as we predicted”.” (p 190-91)
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