Trotsky, Trotskyism and the Transition to Socialism

Bibliographic Data

ID19940374
AuthorsP Beilharz (0000-0001-8707-5758, corresponding author)
Year2019
Publication date2019-11-19
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueTrotsky, Trotskyism and the Transition to Socialism (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.4324/9780429278167
OpenAlexW568482259
Open LibraryOL36749817M
ISBN9780429278167
LanguageEN
Citations received7

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

Communism · Economic system · Economics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Socialism · Sociology · Transition (genetics) · Anarchism and Radical Politics · Chemistry · Law · Communist revisionism · General · History · Revolutions and socialism

Tools

Open DOILibgen