Tony Cliff

Trotsky: Towards October
1879-1917

(1989)

Tony Cliff, Trotsky: Towards October 1879-1917, Bookmarks, London 1989.
Transcribed by Martin Fahlgren (July 2009).
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.

Preface

1. Youth

Revolutionary agitator and organiser

In Prison and Siberia

2. Meeting Lenin

Under the spell of the veterans

3. The 1903 Congress

Trotsky and Factional Disputes

The beginning of Congress

Marxism, Jacobinism and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat

Lenin versus Martov on party rules. Trotsky supports Martov

Split on the composition of Iskra’s editorial board

Attitude to the liberals

4. Vigorous assault on Lenin

Trotsky’s Report of the Siberian Delegation

Trotsky’s estrangement from the Mensheviks

On Substitutionism

For a Broad Mass Party

Again on Bolshevism and Jacobinism

5. An explanation of the break between Lenin and Trotsky

Trotsky’s experience of 1905 and conciliationism

Trotsky and the committee-men

Rosa Luxemburg’s opposition to Lenin’s concept of the party

In Conclusion

6. Trotsky and Parvus:
The inception of the theory of permanent revolution

Up to the 9th January

Parvus on the prospects of Russian Revolution

7. The 1905 Revolution

Beginning of the revolution

The October general strike and the emergence of the Petersburg Soviet

The Tsar’s October Manifesto

Pogroms

Soviet conquers press freedom

The November General Strike

The struggle for the eight-hour day

Impact on the peasantry

On the Armed Insurrection

The Soviet – Embryo of workers’ government

The Soviet’s last gesture

The end of the Soviet

Precursor

Mensheviks under the heady influence of Trotsky

In his element

8. The permanent revolution

Mensheviks and Bolsheviks on the prospects of Russian revolution

Trotsky on the peculiarities of Russian History

Trotsky’s unique position

Lenin and Trotsky’s theory

The Theory of Permanent Revolution breaks the hold of Kautskyian Marxism

9. Trotsky on trial

Escape from Siberia

10. Wasted years: 1906-1914

Trotsky and the Austrian socialist leaders

Liquidators and Ultra-Leftists

The Mensheviks move to the right

Trotsky ‘above the factions’

The rise of the Bolsheviks 1912-1914

War Correspondent

Conclusion: Trotsky’s basic error

11. The First World War

Lenin’s Anti-War Policy

Trotsky and ‘Revolutionary Defeatism’

Still a conciliator

The Zimmerwald Conference

Trotsky moves towards the Bolsheviks

Trotsky and the February Revolution

Returning to Russia

12. May and June 1917

Trotsky returns to the Petrograd Soviet

The Mezhraiontsy

Trotsky still hesitates about joining the Bolsheviks

Trotsky comes to Lenin

Trotsky and Kronstadt

The Mass Orator

Trotsky’s first speech at the All-Russian Congress of Soviets

The June Days

13. The July Days

The month of general slander against the Bolsheviks

Kerensky’s Bonapartism

Permanent Revolution or Permanent War?

The Sixth Congress of the Bolshevik Party

14. The Kornilov Coup

After the coup

15. Towards the insurrection

Lenin calls up the insurrection

Central committee resistance to Lenin’s call

The role of the slogan of ‘Democratic Dictatorship’

The party adapts to Constitutionalism

Lenin adopts the right strategy, wrong tactics

16. Trotsky organizes the October insurrection

The rise of the Military Revolutionary Committee

Encroaching on the Provisional Government

Challenging the Provisional Government

Sticking to Soviet legality

Smooth passage to victory

The establishment of Soviet power

Acknowledgements

Several people have helped in the writing of this book. Many thanks are due to Chris Bambery, Alex Callinicos, Leslie Cunningham, Lindsey German, Donny Gluckstein, Chris Harman, Gareth Jenkins and Steve Wright for their advice and suggestion. I owe a debt to Linda Aitken and Ahmed Shawki for help in locating material, and to Peter Marsden for editing and advice. Chanie Rosenberg deserves a special thanks for participating in the editing of the manuscript and for typing it.

Tony Cliff
20 April 1990

Tony Cliff wrote many books. These include the classic State Capitalism in Russia (1974) and two previous political biographies: Rosa Luxemburg (1959) and Lenin (in three volumes 1975-79). He is also the co-author of The Labour Party: A Marxist History (1988).

Top of the page

Last updated on 19 July 2009