Trotsky on the 90th Anniversary
              of the Communist Manifesto
                    by Pablo Guadarrama González (Cuba)
                         MARX AHORA #15, 2003            
                         version en espanol
                                                                                               Trotsky's "90 years of the Communist Manifesto":
                                                                                               http://www.marxist.com/150years/trotskyintro.html

A little more than 70 years ago a Russian revolutionary whose career was marked by both clarity and confusion, a characteristic of all social warriors, dedicated his life to the realization of the teachings of the Communist Manifesto. By 1938, ninety years after the first edition of the Manifesto, this revolutionary believed a reassessment of the main ideas contained in this historic document essential.

Leon Trotsky1, exiled by the country that had launched the world’s first socialist revolution, in which he had been one of the outstanding leaders, attempted to highlight those concepts he believed still held relevance in the middle of the 20^th century. At the same time he proposed corrections and additions to the original document in keeping with the changes that had taken place around the world, nine decades after publication.

At the beginning of the 21^st century, more than 50 years after Trotsky’s study, it is both pertinent and necessary to analyse that reassessment. This is not for mere philological curiosity, but rather to reopen the debate on the validity of the Manifesto regarding the transformation of capitalist development under current circumstances, not forgetting that prevalent attitudes towards socialism after the collapse of the Soviet model are very different to when that model was at least superficially stable2.

Future researchers of current times will most certainly be interested in attitudes towards the Manifesto at the beginning of a new century in which communist ideology has lost much of its attraction after the fall of the Berlin wall.

It will always be both a political and cultural duty to pay respect to the validity of Marxism and to commemorate important events in socialist thinking and praxis, as occurred in 1998 on the 150^th anniversary of the Manifesto3 or in 2003 on the 120^th anniversary of the death of Marx. These occasions reaffirm the belief that the struggle to change the predominant economic and social reality should never cease.

First to clarify an ethical and professional moot point. 24 years after the first edition of the text the authors themselves recognised that “some points should be re-examined”4 and that “this programme has aged in some places”5, although they maintained that “nevertheless, the Manifesto is a historical document we no longer have the right to modify”.6 The natural respect they felt for the fundamental ideas born of their fruitful early years7 persuaded them to preserve the original text and merely add new prefaces as a means of rectification and renovation.

Such an attitude should form a basic premise for later analysis of the document, although this doesn’t negate critical reflections arising from the transformations in modern society.8 This also applies to later texts such as Capital, written by the same two authors, themselves fervent critics.9

Trotsky expounded that “revolutionary thought has nothing in common with idolatry. The programmes and predictions are tested against actual experience, which is the supreme tool of human reason. The Manifesto also requires corrections and additions”10. In Trotsky’s opinion, these corrections should be formulated using the methodology that provided the basis for the original text.

Although Trotsky does not specify precisely to which methodology he refers, it is logical to presume that this was no abstract dialectic that would solve all doubts with a wave of a magic wand. Rather, the methodology was what the Russian leader referred to, when stating that the first “idea contained in the Manifesto maintains all its vigour to this day”11 as “the materialistic conception of history, discovered by Marx a little earlier and applied with consummate mastery in the Manifesto”,12 which in his opinion “has perfectly resisted the verification of events and the blows of hostile criticism”13.

Of course, such a claim was and remains controversial in that it is not a simple matter to determine with acceptable certainty which are the key components of such a materialist conception of history or of the possible core14 of Marxist theory.

Some of Trotsky’s other opinions often hyperbolise the epistemological value of Marx and Engel’s ideas. He states for example: “all other interpretations of the historical process have lost all scientific significance”15. This denial of the value of other contributions to the study of historical development  is not in keeping with the founding spirit of the authors of the Manifesto, characterized by the frank dialectic engagement advised by Marx, Engels and even Lenin, with the objective content of many products of bourgeois thought. One must not forget that the document in question is a manifesto which, owing to the normal characteristics associated with this sort of text, can be considered as a kind of call to action with grandiose phrases through which the authors explain the basic ideas, objectives and aspirations of the relevant programme. This type of convocation is usually formed in simple terms to enable its easy understanding by the broadest sectors of society. It is not designed for an intellectual elite who would naturally demand more profound reasoning and deeper theoretical foundations.

“If a manifesto is by definition schematic and purposeful”16 - as Francisco Fernández Buey claims in the prologue to the Spanish edition of the classic text published to commemorate its 150^th anniversary – analysis of such a text need not conform to the rigors of critical brevity, although this remains a worthy goal.

The authors of the Manifesto used only 23 pages in the original German edition to express the basic characteristics of historical evolution, with particular reference to capitalist society, and the Communist programme that would avoid the resultant social alienation. Trotsky used a mere 11 pages in the Spanish version of his analysis of the original text that was published in 1938 in honour of the Manifesto’s 90^th anniversary under the title “The programme of transition for the socialist revolution”.

Neither the original authors nor the critic attempted to write a treaty on the subject. Rather they outlined the fundamental theses of revolutionary transformation based upon serious and analytical examination of social development. This examination was contained in other texts and was merely touched upon in the Manifesto and required future and further amplification.

In its just over 150 years of existence countless detailed studies have been written in many languages on such a quantitatively small work as the Manifesto. There are many reasons why the dangerous ideas contained in this brief text have caused and continue to provoke unease amongst the kings of capitalism. For this reason we must also consider the literature produced by the Manifesto’s fiercest critics bent on erasing the text from the canons of world literature.

Marx and Engels accepted the responsibility of writing the Manifesto above all out of political conviction. Herein lies a great deal of its fundamental value, to which we must add its scientific and intellectual richness..

Any analysis of the Manifesto always adopts a political stance before the text, although some academics superficially claim otherwise. Trotsky was not so coy about the strong political beliefs that motivated his analysis of the document. Therefore, every one of his 12 conclusions on the relevant ideas contained in the Manifesto 90 years after its conception, as well as the eight additions and corrections he made, were motivated by his desire to carry forward the revolutionary project towards socialism which he, together with Marx and Engels, saw as a historical world project. His analysis was simultaneously a criticism of what he saw as a break from the founding socialist movement that led to the October Revolution.

In his second conclusion, supporting himself with the thesis that “the history of every society that has existed until today is the history of the class struggle”, he considers pure revisionism any actions of conciliation or collaboration between classes. He accuses those “disgraceful acolytes of the Communist International (the Stalinists)” of following the same path as the so-called Popular Front. In Trotsky’s opinion this group “arises utterly from the denial of the laws of the class war; when it is precisely the imperialist age that puts social contradictions under the most extreme tension, thereby giving the Communist Manifesto its ultimate victory”17.

On this point it seems that Trotsky completely ignores Part IV of the same Manifesto  that offers advice to the communists when dealing with different opposition parties, and not simply those in existence in Marx and Engels’ time. The Manifesto declares that “the communists work everywhere for union and agreement between democratic parties in all countries.”18

Such necessary alliances should be formed under specific circumstances which favour gains for the proletariat. This was put into practice by Lenin whom Trotsky, despite initial disagreements, greatly admired. For Trotsky, “Lenin’s school was one of revolutionary realism”19. Lenin’s acceptance of Trotsky into the Bolshevik ranks in the immediate run up to the launch of the socialist revolution in Russia is clear proof of the validity of this policy.

Therefore, opposition to the essential alliance between democratic forces and communists against fascism in the 1930s demonstrated that such extreme leftists views as those held by Trotsky on the role of the class struggle were not only foolishly romantic but also endangered the future of the first socialist revolution the world had ever seen.

Trotsky’s third observation is accurate in a general sense. Here he claims that although the anatomy of capitalism was thoroughly examined in Capital (1887): “in the Communist Manifesto the principal lines of future analysis are already outlined”20. Amongst other advanced ideas he highlights the process of “concentration of wealth amongst an ever smaller number of owners in one pole and the numerical growth of the proletariat in the other; the preparation of the material and political conditions necessary for a socialist regime.”21

It is precisely through the huge profits made through this international economic disorder that enables the capitalist intelligentsia to “unconsciously” bribe the working and under classes and thus create escape valves to prevent social explosions that could lead to revolutions.

 These protection mechanisms engendered by capitalism for its own survival were not completely apparent in their full magnitude at the time the Manifesto was written. Although by the time Trotsky was writing his analysis these techniques were more universally applied, they were still not accorded sufficient importance by the Russian revolutionary.

This is the only way in which we may understand his fourth conclusion on the theory of pauperisation, in which he considers the formation of a working class aristocracy as a transient tendency rather than an established phenomenon. Experience has demonstrated that capitalism seeks to permanently reproduce the mechanisms of division amongst the populace including the creation of a working class aristocracy or the favouring of the employed with privileges not available to the under and unemployed. This can be seen both in underdeveloped and developed countries, although a certain degree of homogenisation can be observed due to the increase in destitution the world over.22

Defending the validity of the growing pauperisation of the working class and other intermediate classes as expressed in the Manifesto , Trotsky minimizes the importance of the resources invested by capitalism to ensure its own survival, even when such investment entails certain “sacrifices” and a relative reduction in the profits taken by large and medium-sized businesses. Trotsky also pays scant attention to the numerous methods of ideological manipulation whose aim is to convince the proletariat and the middle classes that they live in the best possible of worlds.

This underestimation of capitalist self-protection mechanisms led Trotsky to hyperbolise the possibility of the triumph of the socialist revolution on a global scale. This mistake, combined with an exaggerated faith in the prestige and influence of the IV International (which for Trotsky was the sole bastion of Marxist thought at that time), led him to proclaim that when the Communist Manifesto reached its centenary the International would have become the decisive revolutionary force on the planet. This claim is interesting in that it demonstrates the exiled Russian leader’s conviction in his interpretation of Marxist thought as well as the excessive optimism that characterizes many revolutionaries.

Trotsky’s fifth point was that “reality has been seen to support Marx”, in terms of the increase in commercial and industrial crises suffered by capitalism. This constant instability challenged the revisionists who believed that the existence of trusts could lead to market control and eliminate economic boom and bust.

We could add that reality not only supports Marx and Engels, but also Lenin,23 Trotsky, Fidel Castro24 and innumerable other social scientists regardless of their ideological position25 in their belief that capitalism is unimaginable with out crisis. This is true of commercial and industrial as well as financial crises as capitalism enters its monopolization phase with the accompanying uncontrolled levels of financial speculation that have defined contemporary development.

History clearly demonstrates that if capitalism were able to eradicate crises, it would be forced to invent new ones because they are central to its reproduction and growth. If we adhere to the celebrated phrase: “all that is solid melts into air” then ever more reason to think that the flimsy trans-national financial structures will some day disappear.

The sixth thesis from the Manifesto that Trotsky examines is that which holds: “the executive power of the modern State is nothing more than a committee protecting the common affairs of the entire bourgeoisie”.26 In this aspect Trotsky believed that “democracy created by the bourgeoisie is not, as Bernstein and Kautsky thought, an empty sack than can be calmly filled by any type of class content. Bourgeois democracy will only ever be at the service of the bourgeoisie”.27 The truth of this statement does not justify Trotsky however in his fresh assault against the Popular Front governments that were coming into being in the 1930’s as a means of fighting the rising fascist tide.

Whilst being certain that a powerful bourgeoisie will never permit the implementation of democratic formulas that would jeopardize the survival of its class hegemony, this does not necessarily mean that the working class and other popular sectors can not have significant social and economic successes that will benefit the revolutionary process in the long run if they are adequately defended and gradually perfected.

The rash belief that the fight for democracy must be under the banner “all or nothing”, ignores the fact that although bourgeois society perfected and refined democracy as a means of class domination through which to shore up capitalist society, since time immemorial democracy in its very essence has been an achievement of all human kind. This will remain so provided the bourgeois expression of democracy is dialectically overcome. This will be through the creation of a superior democracy that assimilates some of the achievements of the earlier form but does not seek to discard everything in an act of pure nihilism. In such cases ultra-left wing attitudes, despite their good intentions, can lead to results far distant from the original objectives.

Nevertheless, Trotsky sought to revalidate, in his eighth conclusion the fact that: “the communists openly declare that their goals can only be achieved through the overthrow by force of all existing social conditions”.28 This statement, so controversial when studied in the light of the different experiences of socialist struggle in the 20^th century, clearly shows that those revolutionary processes that have been victorious, including through electoral victory, have had to defend themselves with popular support and force against the machinations of reactionary elements.

In a radical statement, opposing any expression of reformism, Trotsky maintained that “the proletariat cannot win power within the legal framework established by the bourgeoisie”.29 This statement, accepted as an unalterable Marxist principle, justified Trotsky’s irreconcilable attitude before any benefits offered by bourgeois democracy. Such an attitude misinterprets Marx and Engel’s thesis which accepted the possibility of the working class using parliamentary mechanisms in their struggle.

When the Manifesto speaks of the essential nature of force, this is usually interpreted as revolutionary violence. In reality, it does not exclusively and absolutely presuppose the launching of an armed insurrection. This had certainly been the predominant experience at that time from the Paris Commune to the storming of the Winter Palace in the October Revolution of 1917 in which Trotsky had played a decisive role as commander of the Revolutionary Military Committee. We must also consider his active participation in the Petrograd soviet during the failed revolution of 1905.

The 70 years after Trotsky’s death have witnessed new experiences in the fight for socialism. In the Eastern European countries occupied by the Red Army after the Second World War revolutionary transformation was guided from the Soviet Union and used parliamentary methods. Electoral struggle also led to the success of the Popular Unity party in Chile, although it was to later fall because of its failure to adequately prepare against a latent fascist threat.

The failure of these attempts in no way rules out the possibility of constructing socialism by utilizing any and all opportunities offered by political struggle.

Another issue is the defence of the successes won in revolutionary processes - regardless of how these were achieved - through force and armed defence.

The fact that up to the present day none of those countries that have attempted to build socialism through electoral processes have succeeded does not constitute irrefutable proof of the future impossibility of such struggles.

If the communists of the 20^th century had been demoralized by the defeat of the Paris Commune, none of the social victories from the October Revolution until the present day would have been possible. These triumphs have often forced governments highly critical of socialism in capitalist countries, particularly in the most developed of these, to adopt measures favourable to the working class.

In his ninth conclusion Trotsky stated that “the proletariat organised as a dominant class” that would constitute a dictatorship in his opinion, made up “the only true proletarian democracy”.30 He suggested that “the more states that take the path of socialist revolution, the freer and more flexible will be the forms assumed by the dictatorship, and more open and advanced will be the resultant working class democracy”.31 evidently, Trotsky’s thesis was historically conditioned by the existence of just one country such as the USSR in the process of constructing socialism. According to a Trotskyist interpretation of the necessity of the global and permanent revolution the Soviet Union was condemned to failure if socialist revolution was not successful in the rest of the world, or at least in the main developed countries as Marx and Engels had originally claimed in their futuristic vision of history.32

Addressing the theories contained within the Manifesto on the international development of capitalism, Trotsky, in his tenth conclusion, held that “this has predetermined the international character of the proletarian revolution”33 and therefore, in his opinion, “has completely and decisively acquired a global spirit”.34 He accused the Stalinist bureaucracy of attempting to erase this fundamental question from the Manifesto in what he considered a Bonapartist bastardisation of the text that starkly proved the impossibility of socialism in only one country.

It seems that Trotsky was closer in his analysis of the Manifesto to the original theses of Marx and Engels than Stalin and the leaders of the Soviet Union of the day. Historical analysis should not be swayed however by bare hermeneutics of the objective content of the text that stubborn theorists, as Lenin suggested, will insist on making.

This is not a study of the path taken by the Soviet Union after the death of its founder and the rise of Stalin. That is a topic for future investigation. Here we are merely evaluating whether Trotsky’s interpretation of the Manifesto was accurate and whether he had considered the transformations that occurred within capitalism in the imperialist age.35 The acceleration of unequal development led Lenin to envisage the revolutionary socialist project in terms of renovation and directly counterpoised to the fatalistic predictions of Kautsky and the acolytes of the II International. In this struggle Lenin was able to involve even Trotsky himself.

A further issue for pure speculation is to reflect on what would have occurred within 20^th century socialism if Stalin, rather than Trotsky, had been the leader deported from the Soviet Union. But such feats of historical juggling lend nothing to our present analysis.

Neither is it a question of justifying Stalinist methods. Rather a simple process of evaluating what were the options for the first socialist experiment in the circumstances of the day: to consolidate and develop even at the risk of disobeying the exact letter of the text whilst still identifying with the essential spirit; or to disqualify such attempts for their variance with the exact words of Marx and Engels back in the mid 19^th century. This fails to consider what would have been the attitude of the original authors had they witnessed an event of the magnitude of the Soviet Revolution in a country that no one had considered the birthplace of the first movements towards a socialist society in the 20^th century.

This is not mere academic speculation. We must learn from historical experience. Marx had not predicted the Paris Commune and, although he may not have agreed with some of its methods, he gave it his unconditional support.

After the collapse of the socialist camp many theorists, including some on the left wing, saw this as confirmation of Marx and Engels’ theory of revolution on a global scale. Some even suggested that history had proved Trotsky right on the question of the impossibility of building socialism in just one country.

On the basis of these opinions some even foretold the end of the Cuban Revolution after the fall of the Berlin wall. These critics ignored not only the specificity of the Cuban historical process but also the existence of other countries around the world with socialist tendencies. It is true that the world has changed radically 150 years after the publication of the Manifesto36 and yet Lenin’s thesis on the winners and losers in society remains wholly valid. Retreat from the difficult task of fighting for socialism of their own free will is not the best option for the people or their revolutionary leaders without first attempting some of the experiments, with their necessary risks, that the new epoch offers.

Fortunately, international solidarity with the Cuban revolutionary process tends to support current realities. There will be time for re-evaluation of ideas that far from  contradicting themselves, rather confirm a materialistic vision of history.

In general the anti-socialist literature criticizes the excessive interventionism of the state in this new type of society, ignoring the fact that one of the supreme goals of communism is to eradicate the State altogether. Trotsky addressed this same issue in his 11^th conclusion on the Manifesto in which he concurred with the theory that erasing class distinctions and concentrating production in the hands of the entire nation, would result in political power losing its political character. This reasoning led him to declare that once the state was abolished society would be freed from its political straight jacket and “this would mean socialism. As an inverse theorem, the monstrous growth of state coercion in the USSR is clear proof that the society is distancing itself from socialism.”.37

This attitude is paradoxical if we consider that in adverse conditions of isolation and hostility on the part of the capitalist countries it is logical for a country to strengthen its state apparatus rather than weaken it. The belief is once again confirmed that to implement ideas that are utopian, at least under current circumstances, can be totally counterproductive and bring about the worst possible scenario.

In open criticism of the anarchic-unionism and forms of “pure unionism”, Trotsky reaffirmed in his seventh thesis that “all class struggle is a political struggle”,38 basing his opinions on the experiences of the union movement up to that time in Spain and the United States. Over 50 years later the experiences of many other countries could be added, including the former two which confirm the indissoluble nexus between the two types of struggle.

The twelfth point which Trotsky selected from the Manifesto for analysis was the emancipation of working class participation. This has been polemically debated in recent times, even amongst leftist thinkers39 addressing the claim that “workers have no country”. In accordance with his internationalist vision of socialism Trotsky blamed the II International for violating this principal which he saw as leading to the devastation of Europe during the First World War. On the cusp of the Second World War, Trotsky extended the accusation of treason to the III International for betraying the appropriate posture before what he called the ‘capitalist nation’.

From a current perspective it is much easier to assess this conflictive issue when we consider the extraordinarily positive effect that the creation of socialist patriotism had amongst the ranks of the Red Army facing the Nazi invader. This patriotism did not contradict the countless acts of solidarity and internationalism on the part of the Soviet people over the seven decades of its existence. In this same way patriotism has been crucial in the defence of the socialist projects in Cuba and Vietnam against the capitalist internationalism used by North American governments as an excuse for intervention across the globe.

In neither of these examples of people threatened by the United States did the patriotism that was cultivated and actively encouraged by the revolutionary leaderships of these two countries affect the genuine sentiment of socialist internationalism that both have given to the world.

This leads us to conclude that Trotsky’s selection of the twelve ideas from the Manifesto that he beheld as relevant and durable 90 years after original publication must be examined in the light of meticulous analysis of his deep belief in the validity of Marxism and the socialist cause he maintained until the day he died. In this same light must the eight corrections and additions he formulated in 1938 also be studied.

The first of these was based on the thesis that no social system will disappear until it has exhausted all its creative potential. Despite the criticism the authors aimed at capitalism for its retardation of the productive forces and the creation of relative backwardness, this system nevertheless continued to expand up until the First World War.

Trotsky believed that Marx and Engels expected capitalism to expire well before it underwent a transformation from a relatively reactionary regime to a totally reactionary regime. This metamorphosis has only reached its conclusion in our age which has been  marked by war, revolution and fascism”.40

The revolutionary impatience so typical of Trotsky’s beliefs regarding the coming of a global revolution led him to hypothesise that: “where the organization of the economy on socialist principles were possible in the second half of the 19^th century, growth rates would undoubtedly have been immeasurably greater”.41 Despite the revolutionary pretensions of the Russian leader, historical analysis cannot be conducted on the basis of supposition, but only on the basis of fact. In this respect the positivist methodology has at least some core of validity.

Trotsky’s second correction, attributes “an overestimation of the revolutionary maturity of the proletariat” to Marx and Engels, together with the allegation that they underestimated capitalism’s future potential. This has been the error of many representatives of Marxist thought throughout history.

At times, those analysts who have formulated excessively optimistic theories on capitalism’s potential for recovery and perfection have been accused, at best, of being revisionists and at worse as agents of imperialism, with the obvious consequences of such accusations.

The end result of this failing was that the revolutionary movement has oftentimes been excessively convinced of the ultimate triumph of socialism and communism in the short term resulting in insufficient preparation for a long struggle against a society with such potential to lure fragile consciences.

The third shortcoming that Trotsky pointed to was that “for the Manifesto, capitalism was the king of free competition. Even when referring to the growing concentration of capital the Manifesto did not reach the necessary conclusion concerning the monopolies that have emerged as the dominant form of capitalism in our age and the most important precondition to a socialist economy”.42

Trotsky recognizes that in Capital, Marx examined the tendency towards the transformation of free trade into monopoly and Lenin went on to scientifically characterize monopoly capitalism in his study of imperialism. Such criticism is just and is explained not simply by an appreciation of the fledgling knowledge the young authors had of capitalism, but also because capitalism’s tendencies towards the formation of monopolies in the first half of the 19^th century (the reference point for Marx and Engels) had not begun in earnest.

“Based on the example of the ‘industrial revolution’ in England (Trotsky states in the forth error he perceives in the document) they described an excessively unilateral dissolution of intermediate classes through the large scale proletarianization of the artisans, small businessmen and peasants”.43 Trotsky rather claims that “in reality the elemental forces of competition are far from having completed this both progressive and barbaric task”,44 aside from the fact that “concurrently capitalist development has greatly accelerated the development of legions of technicians, administrators, employees, in short, the so-called “new middle class”.45

A consideration of the question in the present day leads to agreement with the Russian leader in terms of the permanent reproduction of such intermediate classes, particularly the petit bourgeoisie, as highlighted by Lenin. Nevertheless, even when we accept that the idea of the capitalist process of social polarization is unilaterally presented in the Manifesto, we must not ignore the fact that such a tendency can be seen in contemporary capitalism, and the proletarianization of the middles classes is an unquestionable fact (more so in the developing countries of course) even when in quantitative terms these classes are seen to burgeon.

Marx and Engels themselves made certain amendments in the preface to the 1872 edition to the ten measures recommended for the proletariat to achieve political domination, but these were considered antiquated only 25 years later, especially the point drawn from the experience of the Commune stating that the proletariat could not simply take over the existing state apparatus and use it for their own benefit. Trotsky used this very self-rectification to attack social democratic reformism and the so-called “minimal programme”.

With current appreciation of the development of social democracy, especially where this has assumed government and has functioned as a means of patching up capitalism rather than seeking the establishment of a socialist society based on Marxist ideas,46 we can confirm that Trotsky’s criticism of the social democratic distortion of Marx and Engels’ own amendments in no way implied that such corrections should be disregarded all together, as the reformist interpretations advocated.

According to Trotsky, “there can be no revolutionary programme today without soviets and workers’ control. Therefore, the ten amendments to the Manifesto, that seemed ‘archaic’ in an era of parliamentarian passivity, have recovered their true significance”.47 Of course, when the Russian leader formulated these ideas he was greatly influenced by the positive experience in his country up to that point in the formation of the councils, or soviets, to implement socialist transformations. This opinion is no longer tenable, although it remains certain that no revolutionary programme will be possible without workers’ control, regardless of the different forms this may take between countries.

When a balance is drawn between the successes and failures of the socialist transformations implemented in the 20th century, attention must be paid to the attitude towards such measures proposed in the fundamental text of the communist project, whose ultimate aspiration after all was an effective conclusion to modernity.

The sixth error that Trotsky observes in the Manifesto was the mistaken prediction that the long-awaited bourgeois revolution in Germany would be the immediate precursor to the proletarian revolution.

“The error of this prediction – Trotsky maintained – was not simply temporal. The revolution of 1848 revealed, after only a few months, that even in the most advanced conditions no bourgeois class is capable of carrying a revolution to its conclusion. The high and middle bourgeoisie are too firmly tied to the landowners and too afraid of the masses; the petit bourgeoisies is too divided and too reliant on their superiors for direction”.48 Trotsky concluded therefore that no purely bourgeois revolution could take place in Europe or anywhere else in the world.

He went on to infer that “complete elimination of the feudal remains from society will only occur where the proletariat, freed from the influence of the bourgeois parties, places itself at the head of the peasantry and established its revolutionary dictatorship. Under these circumstances the bourgeois revolution becomes intertwined with the first stage of the socialist revolution to later dissolve itself within this. The national revolution in this way becomes one step towards the world revolution. The transformation of the economic base and of all other relations acquires a permanent (uninterrupted) character”.49

Such beliefs led him to recommend that “the revolutionary parties of the backward countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa must clearly understand the organic connection between democratic revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat, and therefore with the international socialist revolution. This is a question of life or death”.50

We must not ignore that at the time of writing Trotsky was living in Mexico and was well up to date on the historical development of Latin American countries, as testified by the selection of books from these countries carefully preserved in the library in his house in Coyoacán as well as several studies he dedicated specifically to the revolutionary possibilities in the region.

Nowadays, it is very easy to rule out a Trotskyist interpretation of the permanent revolution simply because it has never occurred. But if we get to grips with the rational seeds of such a theory we will at least conclude with the critical assessment of the Manifesto in that “no bourgeois class is capable of carrying a revolution to its conclusion”. It has been socialist revolutions such as the Chinese, Russian and Cuban that have taken on the full responsibility of shaking off the pre-capitalist bonds in their respective countries precisely because these revolutions took place in such underdeveloped areas.

If the course of history had been different and the Manifesto’s prediction that the bourgeois revolution in Germany would be the precursor to a proletarian revolution, this would not invalidate Trotsky’s belief that the sweeping away of the last vestiges of feudalism in the so-called Third World would remain the task of socialist and not bourgeois revolutions.

The bourgeoisie in underdeveloped capitalist countries have no great interest in the consummation of modernity, benefiting as they do from relations of servitude, even slavery, from intolerance, authoritarianism, clericalism, ignorance, violation of human rights, etc. First World countries have an even greater incentive to postpone modernity, although they preach otherwise whilst building ever greater walls against immigration so that the barbarity they themselves have created and perpetuated does not leak in and contaminate their ‘civilization’.

But a Marxist such as Trotsky – regardless of the debate amongst those who have stripped him of his Marxist credentials considering themselves the sole and unique authorities on ‘official’ Marxism – was greatly interested in the consummation of the successes made by bourgeois society in its struggle against feudalism in underdeveloped countries. Trotsky stated that “although it describes how capitalism drags its holocaust over the backward and barbaric countries, the Manifesto makes no reference to the struggle of the colonial and semi-colonial countries for their independence (…) the question of a revolutionary strategy for the colonial and semi-colonial countries is not addressed anywhere in the Manifesto”.51  He goes on to say that “praise for the development of a revolutionary strategy for the oppressed nations goes directly to Lenin”.52

Trotsky seems to understand that such a shortcoming in the Manifesto was due to the authors conviction that the colonial problem would be automatically resolved upon the launching of the revolution in the principal civilized countries. Adhering more to the spirit than the letter of the document, however, he could not ignore such an important issue upon which the destiny of socialism in the 20^th century came to rest when it became obvious that the revolution would not begin in any of the more advanced capitalist countries as predicted in the Manifesto.

Trotsky’s creative and positive attitude towards the possible shortcomings of the Manifesto, added to his great appreciation for the document, allowed him to address broader themes such as the fight against racial discrimination in his own era.

Adhering to the ideas contained in the original text which states: “communists everywhere uphold revolutionary movements against the established social and political order” he supported the coloured races’ struggle against their imperialist oppressors and demanded complete, unconditional and unlimited support from the white proletariat against racism. Not forgetting of course that Trotsky was of Jewish origin and in his frequent periods in exile, both before and after the revolution, he had suffered personally from acts of discrimination.

We could also add a whole range of problems from our contemporary world that remain unconsidered in the Manifesto such as sexual equality, generational tensions, manipulations of culture and conscience, ecological devastation, the consequences of the accelerated scientific and technical development, especially in communications, etc. None of these, or the many other contemporary topics were within the scope of the original text but have been addressed more recently by the social sciences including those of Marxist tendencies.53 This is the task facing those who agree with the objectives of the authors of the Manifesto  and seek to find solutions to the world’s new problems and the old problems that have been ignored. As Wolfgang Haug suggests, Marx has undoubtedly contributed in an extraordinary way to the fundamental understanding of the general development of the historical process, but despite this it is unthinkable to align oneself to Marxist thought without accepting the central role of criticism.54At the same time it is interesting to note the premonitory ideas contained in the Manifesto that point to new forms of post-capitalist development such as globalisation. Some authors claim that this phenomenon was already outlined as a tendency in the historical text.55

Finally, in his eighth observation Trotsky accurately points out that the most dated part of the Manifesto is logically that which refers to the criticism of socialist literature in the first half of the 19^th century and assesses the attitudes of the communists to the opposition parties of the day that gradually disappeared over time.

Nevertheless, Trotsky believes that this final and supposedly most dated part of the Manifesto is more resonant with his own rather than with the previous revolutionary generation. In the age of the blossoming of the II International in which Marxist ideas truly took root, the ideas of the utopians and reformists of the first half of the 19^th century were considered definitively overcome.

But in Trotsky’s opinion “things are very different today. The decomposition of social democracy and the Communist International engenders ever greater and more monstrous ideological errors. It seems that senile thought has become infantile”.56 For this reason Trotsky recommends that the Manifesto be amplified to include the documents from the first congresses of the Communist International, the basic literature of Bolshevism and the decisions taken in the conferences of the IV International.

Such an attitude is to be expected from a warrior such as Trotsky, convinced of the accuracy of his attitudes on socialism. He defended Marxism and the ideas of communism to the very day of his assassination in 1940, even when these led him into open hostility, for theoretical and practical differences, with the leaders of the first socialist State in history.

Today things are very different to when the Manifesto celebrated its 90^th anniversary. But above agreeing or disagreeing with Trotsky on the outmodedness of this section of the document above others, the most important thing is to rescue the value of the ideas therein.

For example, is Marx and Engels’ criticism of the speculative German socialist thought and its self-defeating attitude to French socialist and communist literature not still valid? This thought occupied “in place of the interests of the proletariat, the interests of human essence, of men in general, of humans belonging to no class nor reality that exists anywhere other than the cloudy sky of philosophical fantasy”.57

This analysis is of remarkable importance today when new and old artificial philanthropic formulas that portray themselves as predestined to emancipate humanity with the simple don of the most beautiful words through which they also fruitlessly attempt to bury Marxism.

Whilst in many universities around the world Marxism is presented as an obsolete and outdated theory, a growing number of academics from several countries, coordinated by the Institute of Critical Theory and the Faculty of Philosophy of the Free University of Berlin under the direction of Wolfgang and Frigga Haug, have been compiling a Critical and historical dictionary of Marxism whose weighty first five volumes have already been published to be followed by ten remaining volumes of a total of one thousand pages that will be released up until 2013.

Many and fertile are the ideas that may still be extracted from the works of Marx, and particularly from the final part of the Manifesto. But this is a task for future study. As is the examination of some ideas that are no longer relevant today but held great importance at the time of first publication.58

This study was an intellectual exercise aimed at appreciating the act of validation of the principal ideas of the Communist Manifesto as well as the highlighting of some of its defects by Leon Trotsky on the 90^th anniversary of its appearance.

In the present analysis, six decades after Trotsky’s study and a little more than 150 years after the publication of the historic text, it is not easy to come to the same conclusions in all aspects, especially concerning the contemporary validity of the original theses,59 but concordance has still been reached with many of the ideas. Trotsky drew a fundamental conclusion that seems to be reconfirmed after the collapse of Soviet socialism, although Trotsky’s criticism was not the only cause of this crisis.

After close examination of the respective leaderships of the I and II Internationals, Trotsky conclude that: “the prolonged crisis in the international revolution that leads ever more to a crisis in human civilization, is reducible in its essence to a crisis in revolutionary leadership”.60

The issue at hand is not to judge Trotsky’s claim that the only solution to this crisis was to be found in the thesis and programme of the IV International, this would merely open old wounds between Trotskyists and Stalinists.

History in this sense did not favour Trotsky’s proposals, regardless of the solidity of their fundamental logic. Nor did history preserve Stalin’s theories and practices, regardless of how justified or otherwise they were at a certain historical juncture.

What we aim towards is to learn from history and its analysts, not simply to generate new academic interpretations, but to stimulate revolutionary action in the fight for a more beneficial socialism.

150 years ago Marx and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto. Ninety years later Trotsky attempted an appraisal of this document highlighting its merits and deficits just as other revolutionaries, before and after him have also attempted. Is it not perhaps time to use all these invaluable ideas to begin new documents for this age and for the ages to come?61