World revolution
According to the Marxist view, the world revolution is a revolution which , growing out of national revolutions, affects all countries of the world. It is seen as a prerequisite for the transition from socialism to communism . After the Bolsheviks had not succeeded in exporting the revolution of 1917 worldwide - the failure of the 1923 revolution in Germany, which was regarded as decisive, was a severe setback - in order to prevent the isolation of the Soviet Union , Stalin went to the principle of “ socialism in one country " over.
development
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were already of the opinion that socialism must be realized from an international point of view: “ The emancipation of the working class (is) neither a local nor a national, but a social task which includes all countries in which the modern Society exists and its solution depends on the practical and theoretical cooperation of the most advanced countries ”(Marx, founding declaration of the International Workers' Association).
Marx's best-known work, the “ Communist Manifesto ”, ends with the lines: “Workers of all countries, unite!”. Under Lenin the idea of world revolution was seen as the guiding principle, and so in March 1919 the Third, the Communist International (Comintern) was founded. The task of this organization was not yet united and victorious, but still existing world revolution of the years 1917 - 1926 to support at all costs: " It follows from the principles set out that the mutual approach of the proletariat and working people of all nations and countries on common revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of the landlords and the bourgeoisie must be made the cornerstone of the entire policy of the Comintern on the national and colonial question. “(Lenin, Original draft of the theses on the national and colonial question).
Importance of the Soviet Union
After the October Revolution in Russia in 1917, communists tried to come to power in other parts of Europe as well. However, these attempts were ultimately unsuccessful. For example, there were several, sometimes only local, uprisings in Germany from 1918 to 1923, such as the March fighting in Central Germany in 1921. In Hungary there was the Hungarian Soviet Republic in the spring and summer of 1919. These uprisings and regimes were developed by democratic or reactionary forces in a relatively short time down or eliminated.
After Lenin's death, there was an open power struggle in the Soviet Union between the General Secretary of the CPSU, Josef Stalin, and the War Minister and later leader of the Left Opposition , Leon Trotsky . The successor should determine the progress of the international politics of the Soviet Union . Stalin advocated a “national course of neutralizing the world bourgeoisie” and diplomatic negotiation, which was underpinned by a thesis that contradicted the view of Marx and Engels, but not of Lenin (“Socialism in one country”): “In the past one held that Victory of the revolution in one country was impossible, since it was assumed that a victory over the bourgeoisie would require joint action by the proletarians of all advanced countries, or at least most of these countries. Now this point of view no longer corresponds to reality. Now one must start from the possibility of such a victory ”(Stalin, On the foundations of Leninism). In accordance with his theory of permanent revolution , the theoretical basis of his life's work, Trotsky defended the slogan of the world revolution, which was based on Marx's analysis, that in an international mode of production, any thought about the long-term survival of an autarkic economic organization is a pipe dream. In contrast to Stalin, he considered socialism in the national framework to be impossible, especially in a backward peasant country like Russia : “ Do you think so,” replied the Stalins, Rykovs and all other Molotovs dozen times between 1905 and 1917, “that Russia is ripe for the socialist revolution? ”To which I always replied: No, I don't think so. But the world economy as a whole, and especially the European economy, is completely ripe for the socialist revolution. “(Trotsky, The Permanent Revolution).
Stalin, who was able to prevail in the inner-party power struggle, considered the advancement of industrialization to be more important than the attempt to spark a world revolution immediately. Stalin emphasized that each country should have its own timing of the revolution, measured by the level of development of the proletariat, as can be seen in the interview ( Scripps-Howard Newspapers , March 1, 1936 issue) with the American journalist Roy Howard. During this conversation something like this took place:
“ What about the plans and intentions regarding the world revolution? “So Howard asked. Then Stalin asserted: " We never had such plans and intentions ". To the perplexed stammering “ Yes, but ... ” Howards replied to Stalin that everything was “ the result of a tragic misunderstanding ”, to which Howard, who had now recovered somewhat, “ A tragic misunderstanding? “Followed up. After a slightly subtle and here irrelevant discussion, which ended with the result that the presumption of plans for a world revolution by the Soviet leadership was a tragicomic misunderstanding, Stalin continued to lecture: “ Exporting the revolution - that is nonsense. Every country carries out its own revolution if it wants to, but if it doesn't want to, there will be no revolution. Our country, for example, wanted to carry out the revolution and carried it out. "
criticism
The similarity of the concept of the Marxist “world revolution” with the aims of a number of world religions ( Christianity , Islam ), to (in principle) put all people in an optimal state for the whole of humanity (to “ redeem ” them), has the concept the criticism registered (e.g. by Eric Voegelin ) to be a disguised religious message and not a scientific prediction or possibility. ( See also chiliasmus .)
Direct critics of the world revolution mostly accused the postulate that - if taken seriously - it endangered world peace , since the (apparent) ways to get there had always been violently shortened, or more sharply: could never be achieved other than through mass oppression.
On the other hand, the Trotskyist side holds the Stalinist narrow-mindedness responsible for the non-occurrence of the world revolution, and considers other processes leading to the world revolution to be predictable or other paths to be walkable.
