Results and Prospects

by Leon Trotsky, The Perfect Library (Editor)

"Results and Prospects " from Leon Trotsky. Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist (1879-1940).

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Theory, Philosophy

102 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1906

About the author

See also Лев Троцкий

Russian theoretician Leon Trotsky or Leon Trotski, originally Lev Davidovitch Bronstein, led the Bolshevik of 1917, wrote Literature and Revolution in 1924, opposed the authoritarianism of Joseph Stalin, and emphasized world; therefore later, the Communist party in 1927 expelled him and in 1929 banished him, but he included the autobiographical My Life in 1930, and the behest murdered him in exile in Mexico.

The exile of Leon Trotsky in 1929 marked rule of Joseph Stalin.

People better know this Marxist. In October 1917, he ranked second only to Vladimir Lenin. During the early days of the Soviet Union, he served first as commissar of people for foreign affairs and as the founder and commander of the Red Army and of war. He also ranked among the first members of the Politburo.

After a failed struggle of the left against the policies and rise in the 1920s, the increasing role of bureaucracy in the Soviet Union deported Trotsky. An early advocate of intervention of Army of Red against European fascism, Trotsky also agreed on peace with Adolf Hitler in the 1930s. As the head of the fourth International, Trotsky continued to the bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, and Ramón Mercader, a Soviet agent, eventually assassinated him. From Marxism, his separate ideas form the basis of Trotskyism, a term, coined as early as 1905. Ideas of Trotsky constitute a major school of Marxist. The Soviet administration never rehabilitated him and few other political figures.

Reviews

[Samir Dathi · Rating 5 out of 5]

When the left experiences the kind of catastrophic drubbing we faced in the general election last month, comrades can find reorientation by returning to the classics. By reading Lenin, Trotsky, Luxembourg, Gramsci et al. we remind ourselves that we stand on the shoulders of giants. Giants who also failed miserably to smash capitalism and, for the most part, were routinely dispatched by the forces of bourgeois reaction. So I turned to Results and Prospects over the Christmas hols.

If you've spent any time infused in Trotskyist organisation (guilty - soz), the description of the strategy of permanent revolution contained in these pages may already feel like second nature to you - cadre tend to absorb these ideas through osmosis. It feels familiar to read this little book for the first time. Read on regardless! The earnest promise of impending workers' power in our current time of defeat, will be all the more deliciously heart-rending. It's a real page turner. So, comrades, treat yourself to a flick through R&P and allow yourself to dissolve into the morass of melancholia. Available on marxists.org.

[Owen Arquette]

Interesting. His argument for why Russia can skip the bourgeois-democracy stage of development of a prolonged revolutionary government seems compelling enough to me. Why should the class who would conceivably actually drive the revolution hand power back to Russia’s undeveloped bourgeoisie? Because you’re a nerd and a loser and you think that’s what Marx thought had to happen? Yeah right. Another flawless debate club win for Trostky.

If for no other reason, i have so much respect for Trotsky for naming this theory the Theory of Permanent Revolution. That’s so awesome. Doesn’t really matter what it’s about at that point.

In the forward, published 15 years later (1919), Trotsky brags that all of of his predictions came true and that he was right about everything. This is right around where he stops being right about anything. I think this is a little bit goated of him.

[T · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half of the text is an impressive exposition of how one may apply the Marxist method to the specific conditions (in this case, Russia) of a given geographic delineation. In this sense it is impressive and useful as a text. The second half of the text, however, provides more predictions than analysis. In his enthusiasm for Russia's vanguard position, he ignores the the specificity of European conditions, and accompanies this with a high number of predictions about Europe that lack any sense of rigor, particularly in ignoring the political complexity of European states and their ability to outmaneuver the working class. While Trotsky can't be singlehandedly blamed for this, it is noteworthy that like other intellectuals at the time assuming the question of European (his analysis of Poland is disastrous!) revolution as inevitable proved to be a nightmare. His selective application of what he calls the Marxist method, then, is the biggest internal contradiction of the text.

[Roberto Yoed · Rating 2 out of 5]

Trotsky the idealist: "Socialism does not aim at creating a socialist psychology as a pre-requisite to socialism but at creating socialist conditions of life as a pre-requisite to socialist psychology."

Socialism, as a movement, is a revolutionary process: that process inflicts on the minds of the people who are taking part of it. So yeah, the socialist psychology has a previous one: revolutionary. And this one is needed as a "pre-requisite" to create the socialist conditions of life.

Even one could argue that the ashes of the capitalist system are going to be somewhat alive in socialism: one has to work with the best elements of the previous historical moments.

[Glenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Second time reading, and understood/appreciated so much more having now studied more of the context in which this was written (especially the 1925 Chinese Revolution).

Would thoroughly recommend; especially to any serious "Marxist-Leninist" who I think would be shocked to read what Trotsky and Lenin really thought in 1905 and 1917+ (compared to what Stalin says about them), and pleasantly surprised to see a real Leninist method on display throughout Trotsky's polemic.

[Aidan Young · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't understand how Trots can throw their weight behind this theory when it has been so thoroughly disproven by history.

[aren · Rating 5 out of 5]

ooh baby 0_0
oooh baby oooh O_O

[Leonardo]

En Resultados y Perspectivas expuso las ideas que defendería el resto de su vida.

Trotsky Para Principiantes Pág.43

[Kade · Rating 5 out of 5]

amazing predictions of what happened in 1917 and beyond - written in 1906!