ENGLISH

Trotsky, Trotskyism and the Transition to Socialism

By Peter Beilharz

Book information

Publisher
Routledge
Year
1987
ISBN
9780709939955, 9780367219611, 9780429354342, 9780367230586, 9780429278167
Language
english
Format
EPUB
Filesize
249 kB (254976 bytes)
Series
Routledge Library Editions: Political Thought and Political Philosophy
Pages
206\0
Time added
2022-08-02 15:28:16

Description

First published in 1987. Trotskyists have long dominated the revolutionary tradition on the Western left. Written from a critical socialist standpoint, this book provides an analysis of Trotskyism and argues that Trotskyism is increasingly irrelevant as a means of achieving socialism. It argues that, as the realisation grows that the revolutionary tradition and the authoritarianism which necessarily result from it are wrong, the importance of the problem of the transition to socialism increases. It argues that on this point Trotskyism is weak; that Trotskyism's proposals for socialist transition are largely rhetorical; and that its democratic impulse is weak. It supports this argument by showing that Trotsky’s philosophy of history, implicit in his writings, which the author characterises as evolutionary and necessitarian, coupled with a failure to grasp the moral basis of the socialist case, has a disabling effect on Trotsky's account of the transition to socialism and on his explanation of Stalinism. Moreover, it argues that Trotsky's intellectual and political heirs have been unable to escape from the contradictions inherent in his thought.

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