Inhoudsopgave:
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The Defence of Terrorism, originally written in 1920 on a military train during the Russian Civil War, represents one of Trotskyâs most wide-ranging and original contributions to the debates that dominated the 1920s and â30s. Trotskyâs intention is \"far away from any thought of defending terrorism in general\". Rather, he seeks to promote an historical justification for the Revolution, by demonstrating that history has set up the ârevolutionary violence of the progressive classâ against the âconservative violence of the outworn classesâ. The argument is developed in response to the influential Marxist intellectual Karl Kautsky, who refuted Trotskyâs âmilitarisation of labourâ and Leninâs wholesale rejection of a âbloodless revolutionâ. The introduction, written for the second edition of 1935, presents Trotskyâs reflections on the similarities between Kautsky and the burgeoning British Labour Party: specifically, it recapitulates Trotskyâs belief that revolution conducted according to the norms of Parliamentarianism is no revolution at all. |
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