Leon Trotsky's Theory of Revolution by John MolyneuxReview by: George D. JacksonThe American Historical Review, Vol. 88, No. 1 (Feb., 1983), p. 79Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1869352 .

Accessed: 28/06/2014 16:03

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Oxford University Press and American Historical Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,preserve and extend access to The American Historical Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 141.101.201.19 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 16:03:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

General 79

perhaps a gram too much confusion. But it is just this juxtaposition of penetrating analysis and pro- vocative-if occasionally outrageous-judgment that makes this book so refreshing and stimulating. Jacoby has written one of the most challenging books on Marxism ever to come from the pen of an American author.

WOODFORD MCCLELLAN

University of Virginia

JOHN MOLYNEUX. Leon Trotskys Theory of Revolution. New York: St. Martin's Press. 1981. Pp. xii, 252.

It is courageous to attempt a critical evaluation of Trotsky's thought, as John Molyneux does, without knowing the Russian language or consulting all the available works of scholarship in non-Russian lan- guages. And it is bold to approach Trotsky's ideas without attempting objectivity. This account is frankly partisan. As the author admits, it derives from the theoretical tradition of the British Socialist Workers' party. For all of the above reasons the book will not satisfy most scholars, though the author has written a lively, brisk, and intelligent essay on Trotskyism then and now.

Scholars will wish that Molyneux had referred more frequently to the excellent study of Trotsky's political thought by B. Knei-Paz, or that he had consulted R. B. Day's evaluation of Trotsky's eco- nomic thought. Knei-Paz is accused of being "mis- taken at every point," and Day receives a single passing footnote. Isaac Deutscher is quoted approv- ingly, but more recent works by I. Howe or J. Carmichael are not mentioned at all, and neither are the other assorted works in non-Russian lan- guages. The Trotsky archives in the Houghton Library at Harvard University were not consulted at all.

The value of Molyneux's highly subjective and personal interpretation is its refreshing directness. Like many others, Molyneux pictures Trotsky as a revolutionary theorist who was frequently out of touch with the reality of his own time. Trotsky was also guilty of ignoring the need for creating political and organizational agencies that would bring about the goals of Bolshevism. He left behind no "system" or "program" of international revolution. But, un- like most observers, Molyneux believes that Trotsky had a more profound insight into the great rhythms of history than most Marxists of the twentieth century. For one thing, Molyneux points out, Trot- sky correctly perceived that revolution was inevita- ble in Russia in 1917 and that there were only two possible outcomes, "dictatorship of the proletariat or the dictatorship of Kornilov." Unlike most of his contemporaries in the social democratic movement, Trotsky believed that to bring about the "inevitable" socialist revolution, even in economically advanced

countries, would require human intervention and initiative.

Molyneux's major thesis is that Trotsky saw more clearly than his contemporaries that for a Marxist revolution to be successful in terms of its avowed goals it must be made by workers, not peasants or bureaucrats. Molyneux indicts, therefore, most of the Marxist revolutions of the twentieth century, which have brought one-third of the population of the world under their sway. Yet there is some merit to his conclusion that the shortcomings of both the Chinese and the Russian revolutions, especially their authoritarian statism, grow out of their domination by parties that do not have a constituency.

Students of international revolution will find this book interesting and provocative, providing they understand that it is more of a polemical essay than a scholarly analysis.

GEORGE D. JACKSON

Hofstra University

WILLIAM G. ROSENBERG and MARILYN B. YOUNG.

Transforming Russia and China: Revolutionary Struggle in the Twentieth Century. New York: Oxford Universi- ty Press. 1982. Pp. xix, 397. $19.95.

This engaging work juxtaposes the Russian and Chinese revolutions from the beginning of the twentieth century to the 1970s. William G. Rosen- berg and Marilyn B. Young draw on published historical writings, memoirs, literary works, and political documents to synthesize a vivid account of both revolutionary histories and to explore a num- ber of common interpretive themes. Early chapters of the book recount the emergence of revolutionary situations and communist movements, focusing sep- arately on Russia (chaps. 1 and 2) and on China (chaps. 3 and 4). Once the narrative reaches the 1930s, however, every subsequent chapter ranges back and forth to cover simultaneous sets of events in both countries, moving from "Party-Mass Rela- tions in the 1930s" through the "Great Patriotic Struggles" of World War II, from there to "Socialist Roads" and "Great Leaps Forward" in the 1950s and 1960s, and finally to the periods of "revisionist" stabilization in the Soviet Union after the death of Nikita Khrushchev and in China after the passing of Mao Tse-tung.

In any work of comparative history, choices about subject matter and time periods to be covered and compared naturally express the authors' special understanding of their subject matter. Here Rosen- berg and Young most fundamentally cover each revolution in its own terms as a lengthy process viewed "from the inside out" (p. x)-that is, from the perspective of the articulate and self-conscious leaders who pursued change from the time of the Old Regime through the struggle for revolutionary

This content downloaded from 141.101.201.19 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 16:03:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions