Witness to Permanent Revolution: The Documentary Record

The theory of permanent revolution has long been associated with Leon Trotsky. Though he was the most brilliant of its proponents, these newly translated documents, most of them translated into English for the first time, demonstrate that Trotsky was only one of several leading figures of international Marxism engaged in a debate, sparked by the first Russian Revolution in 1905, about the form workers’ struggle would take in less developed countries. Among the figures included in these discussions were Karl Kautsky, Rosa Luxemburg, Franz Mehring, Parvus, and David Ryazanov.