u/aimixin - originally from r/GenZhou
Just ask a Trot what permanent rev is. None of them even know. They can't give you a consistent and coherent definition because Trotsky's own explanation is inconsistent and incoherent and relies heavily on misrepresenting other people's viewpoints.
All trots know is Stalin bad and perm rev would've fixed every problem in the USSR... somehow. Trotskyism really is just an attempt to turn not liking Stalin into an entire ideology, they constantly bring up Stalin, blame Stalin for all modern issues, call everyone they dislike a "Stalinist", they even refuse to use the term "Marxist-Leninist" unironically calling themselves "Marxist and Leninist" because Stalin used the term therefore it's icky and can't be used.
Permanent revolution when actually taken seriously is a completely nonsensical theory. It comes from a few quotes from Marx and Engels, saying that the revolution must continue until its completion, i.e. that revolutionary countries must push forward until there is a global revolution, that the revolution has to be international.
Many Marxists prior often did not even believe revolution in a single country could even be successful at all and many were expecting an international revolution almost all at once. This made sense from the classical Marxian perspective that it would be the more developed nations to have the revolution first, and thus would drag the world along with it. But as we know, revolutions in the developed world all failed, and then Russia was left isolated trying to build socialism alone.
Often, socialism in one country is misrepresented as the claim that socialism should only be built in one country. This isn't what MLs believe. Rather, SIOC argues that capitalism inevitably develops the world unevenly, and so different countries will have revolutions at different points, and it's possible for a country to break free and establish socialism, and sort of develop a stronghold for socialism so to speak, which could potentially be used to help other countries in the future become socialist.
“The development of capitalism proceeds extremely unevenly in different countries. It cannot be otherwise under commodity production. From this it follows irrefutably that socialism cannot achieve victory simultaneously in all countries. It will achieve victory first in one or several countries, while the others will for some time remain bourgeois or pre-bourgeois. This is bound to create not only friction, but a direct attempt on the part of the bourgeoisie of other countries to crush the socialist state’s victorious proletariat. In such cases, a war on our part would be a legitimate and just war. It would be a war for socialism, for the liberation of other nations from the bourgeoisie.”
— Lenin, The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution: I
Hence, SIOC is not answering the question of "should we build socialism internationally or in one country?" It's instead answering the question "if we're isolated and left alone, should we continue to try and build socialism in our country or give up?"
“Consequently, the only guarantee of the final victory of socialism, i.e., the guarantee against restoration, is a victorious socialist revolution in a number of countries...Leninism teaches that the final victory of socialism, in the sense of a full guarantee against the restoration of bourgeois relationships, is possible only on an international scale...But it does not follow from this that it is impossible to build a complete socialist society in a backward country like Russia, without the 'state aid' (Trotsky) of countries more developed technically and economically."
— Stalin, Problems of Leninism
While Lenin did agree that socialism could be built much faster with the help of developed countries, he also believed it could be built without them, just that it would take longer.
“Is an immediate transition to socialism from the state of affairs predominating in Russia conceivable? Yes, it is, to a certain degree, but on one condition...electrification...But we know perfectly well that it will take at least ten years only to complete the first stage of this ‘one’ condition; this period can be conceivably reduced only if the proletarian revolution is victorious in such countries as Britain, Germany or the U.S.A.”
— Lenin, The Tax in Kind
Trotskyism became outdated the moment there was successful construction of socialism in the Soviet Union. Clearly it was possible to build socialism without needing an international revolution. Yes, you ultimately do desire an international revolution, because this is necessary to secure socialism's survival. The question of SIOC deals with the short term of things, and clearly in the short term socialism can be established in one country.
The completion of the socialist revolution within national limits is unthinkable. One of the basic reasons for the crisis in bourgeois society is the fact that the productive forces created by it can no longer be reconciled with the framework of the national state. From this follows on the one hand, imperialist wars, on the other, the utopia of a bourgeois United States of Europe. The socialist revolution begins on the national arena, it unfolds on the international arena, and is completed on the world arena. Thus, the socialist revolution becomes a permanent revolution in a newer and broader sense of the word; it attains completion, only in the final victory of the new society on our entire planet.
— Trotsky, The Permanent Revolution
This is a talking point Trots repeat a lot, that socialism requires international victory to secure itself, therefore SIOC is bad, and even Trotsky himself makes this conclusion, but it's just a complete non-sequitur. Stalin said the exact same thing. The fact socialism needs to eventually become international to secure its long-term survival does not mean that you can't establish socialism in one country in the here-and-now, since international revolution will inherently be a long term process.
Both sides agree spreading the revolution is the ultimate goal, that we ultimately want all countries to come to socialism. However, where Trots and MLs ultimately differ on the most fundamental level is that only MLs think a viable strategy is to build socialism at home, to create a bulwark of socialist powers which can then challenge the capitalist world. Building socialism and socialist power inherently requires building up the country's productive forces. Trots reject this because Trotsky didn't think building up the productive forces at home even mattered much, rather, what matters is merely the scale of the international revolution.
...in a country where the proletariat has power in its hands as the result of the democratic revolution, the subsequent fate of the dictatorship and socialism depends in the last analysis not only and not so much upon the national productive forces as upon the development of the international socialist revolution.
— Trotsky, The Permanent Revolution
How is one supposed to interpret this? If all that matters is spreading the revolution, then what? The USSR was incredibly isolated, if it just tried to "spread the revolution" by invading all its neighbors it would've collapsed, In fact, in the prior chapter, Trotsky also hilariously calls Stalin a "pacifist" for trying to avoid war.
The USSR did spread the revolution to many countries, but it did so by building a stronghold for socialism at home which could then support other revolutions abroad. If it didn't do the former, it couldn't have done the latter.
I would recommend people really read Lenin's The Tax in Kind in its entirety. Lenin explains the entire purpose of the New Economic Policy was to build the productive forces in order to establish socialist socioeconomic structures, and Lenin explicitly says he believed NEP Russia would eventually become socialist Russia, and even believed it was possible, just more difficult, without western Europe. Basically defeating every point perm rev tries to make.
Another misrepresentation Trots as well as Trotsky himself stated was that MLs view the proletariat and peasant partnership as an equal dictatorship, i.e. that you have a dictatorship of both proletarian and peasantry rather than a dictatorship of the proletariat. I'm not really sure where this claim came from, the ML stuff I've read all say you establish a dictatorship of the proletariat and the proletariat is supposed to lead the peasantry because the peasantry cannot be revolutionary without leadership. China and the USSR referred/refer to themselves as a DOTP in the constitution, not some sort of joint dictatorship.
The peasantry are not inherently revolutionary because their material conditions makes them isolated from one another and thus incapable of leading a revolution. But if the proletariat just leads it, then history has proven the peasantry can become an incredibly powerful and revolutionary force. It was actually Engels who, to my knowledge, originally argued for an alliance between workers and peasants in a revolution.
Anyways, the point is that perm rev does not really make much sense at all and is hardly even coherent of an idea, and heavily relies on misrepresenting their opponents' viewpoint. It is so incoherent as an ideology that I find the motivation for Trots to actually believe in it is always just being anti-Stalin. They can't just say they dislike like Stalin and move on, they feel the need to obsessively turn anti-Stalin into its own ideology, and stretch to the moon to try and find some huge ideological deviation.
I mean, I'm not a Hoxhaist, I have my own criticisms of Stalin. But I'm not going to turn my criticisms of Stalin into an entire ideology.