Trotsky's Marxism

by Duncan Hallas

It was one of the many ironies of Trotsky's life that, as one of the major architects of the October revolution of 1917 and organiser of the Red Army, it fell to him to analyse and chronicle the degeneration of the new regime in Russia. No serious attempt to understand the tragedy of that revolution and its relevance to the building of socialism in the world today can afford to ignore the unique contribution that Trotsky made.

In this introduction to the politics of Leon Trotsky, Duncan Hallas has selected four major strands in Trotsky's

On the theory of "permanent revolution", in which Trotsky elaborated a scenario for the revolution of 1917 and for understanding the subsequent developments in the "Third World".

On the consequences of the October revolution and the development of Stalinism, in which Trotsky made the first sustained attempt at a materialist analysis.

On the strategy and tactics of mass revolutionary parties in a wide variety of situations.

On the relationship between the revolutionary socialist party and the working class in periods of mass upheavals and od decline.

As far as possible Trotsky's ideas are presented in his own words.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction

122 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2007

About the author

Duncan Hallas was a prominent member of the Trotskyist movement and a leading member of the Socialist Workers Party in Great Britain. Born into a working class family in Manchester, Duncan Hallas joined the Trotskyist Workers International League while still a young worker during World War II. Conscripted into the army in 1943 he was involved in the great mutiny in Egypt after the end of the War.

Back in Britain he was one of the small number of comrades who rallied around Tony Cliff’s critique of “orthodox” Trotskyism and was a founder member of the Socialist Review Group, the forerunner of today’s British Socialist Workers Party and the International Socialist Tendency.

During the long boom of the 1950s and early 1960s he lost contact with the group although he remained politically active in the teachers’ union and elsewhere. During the great upheaval of 1968 he rejoined the International Socialists, as the organisation was then called. From that time he was a leading member of the organisation, a great populariser of Marxism and an inspired speaker, until ill health forced him out of active politics in 1995.