100 Years of Permanent Revolution (English, Bill Dunn | Hugo Radice)

Product description About the Author Bill Dunn is a lecturer in the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Sydney. He is the author of Global Restructuring and the Power of Labour (Palgrave, 2004). Hugo Radice is head of the School of Politics and International Studies at the University of Leeds. His latest book Political Economy of Global Capitalism is due to be published in December 2005.Bill Dunn teaches International Studies in the department of Political Economy at the University of Sydney. He is author of Global Restructuring and the Power of Labour (Palgrave, 2004), and co-editor, with Hugo Radice, of 100 Years of Permanent Revolution (Pluto, 2006). Hugo Radice is head of the School of Politics and International Studies at the University of Leeds. His latest book Political Economy of Global Capitalism is due to be published in December 2005. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. 100 Years of Permanent RevolutionResults and ProspectsBy Bill Dunn, Hugo RadicePluto PressCopyright © 2006 Bill Dunn and Hugo RadiceAll rights reserved.ISBN: 978-0-7453-2521-7Contents1. Permanent Revolution: Results and Prospects 100 Years On Hugo Radice and Bill Dunn, 1, 2. From Uneven to Combined Development Neil Davidson, 10, 3. The Marxism of Results and Prospects Michael Löwy, 27, 4. Trotsky, 1905, and the Anticipation of the Concept of Decline Hillel Ticktin, 35, 5. Results and Prospects: Trotsky and his Critics Paul Blackledge, 48, 6. The Baggage of Exodus Daniel Bensaïd, 61, 7. Beyond Trotsky: Extending Combined and Uneven Development Colin Barker, 72, 8. From World Market to World Economy Sam Ashman, 88, 9. Trotsky, Social Science and Irish Revolution Michael Hanagan, 105, 10. Uneven and Combined Development and 'Revolution of Backwardness': The Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 1906–11 Kamran Matin, 119, 11. A Veteran of the Epoch of Revolution Looks Forward: Trotsky, Serge and the Soviets Suzi Weissman, 133, 12. Trotsky's Omission: Labour's Role in Combined and Uneven Development Andrew Herod, 152, 13. Combined and Uneven Development as a Strategic Concept Bill Dunn, 166, 14. The Geography of Uneven Development Neil Smith, 180, 15. The Reinvention of Populism: Islamist Responses to Capitalist Development in the Contemporary Maghreb Alejandro Colás, 196, 16. China: Unevenness, Combination, Revolution? Neil Davidson, 211, 17. Explaining Uneven and Combined Development in South Africa Patrick Bond and Ashwin Desai, 230, Notes on the Contributors, 245, Index, 248, CHAPTER 1Permanent Revolution: Results and Prospects 100 Years On1Hugo Radice and Bill DunnThe year 2006 marks the centenary of the publication of Trotsky's Results and Prospects. This short essay gave the first considered articulation of his theory of permanent revolution. In a sense, it therefore represents the founding document or original sin of 'Trotskyism'. The elaboration and defence of its perspective would remain a primary feature of Trotsky's political life (Deutscher 1954).The basic ideas are straightforward. We will elaborate briefly below, while several of the subsequent chapters illuminate particular aspects in more detail. In short, Trotsky rejected a 'stages' theory of revolution – that Russia would have to wait until capitalism was fully developed before socialism could be put on the agenda. Any Russian revolution had to be understood not in isolation, but as a world event both in its causes and its consequences. Despite its absolute 'backwardness', competition with the West, and penetration of capital from the West, produced vast concentrations of workers capable of challenging Tsarist power. Russia alone lacked the material basis for establishing socialism, but the seizure of power by a workers' government could lead an international revolutionary process. On a world scale, the development of capitalism already provided ample economic foundations for socialism.The last 100 years have not produced the envisaged international revolution. Meanwhile several attempts to build socialisms on a national basis have produced monstrous dictatorships. These also provided easy targets for the defenders of capitalism and the status quo. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, for many the Marxist project is redundant and its continued articulation at best quaint. Yet reading Trotsky today one is struck by his potential relevance. The contemporary talk of 'globalisation' again insists, with Trotsky, that we have to understand the world in its interconnections. National economies are not separate and independent either from each other or from a global capitalist system. Still we experience poverty and 'backwardness' alongside extremes of wealth and the latest technology. Again, we still grapple with the problems of the causes and consequences of that world system's unevenness and with the relations between economic and political action. These are longstanding questions of social science, but they are being played out with