isaac-deutscher-the-prophet-armed-trotsky-1879-1921

AN INTELLECTUAL PARTNERSHIP
in 1906, when, awaiting trial in a Petersburg prison, Trotsky
expounded in writirig the theory of the permanent revolution
in its finished form. The time of his apprenticeship with Parvus
was briefer still: it hardly lasted longer than till the beginning
of 1905, the opening of the first revolution. This was a time of
condensed and rapid thinking; and the young Trotsky, who
had already projected the image ofJacobinism on to the Russian
revolution, was a quick learner.
After the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese war, Parvus published
a series of essays in Iskra on 'War and Revolution'.' Even
before that his contributions, which he used to sign as Molotov,
had strongly impressed Trotsky. But it was mainly the views
which he put forward in 'War and Revolution' that made the
lasting impression.
Parvus's central idea was that the nation-state, as it had
developed with capitalism, had outlived its day. This view had
belonged to the common stock of Marx's theory-it had been
stated by Marx in the Communist Manifesto. But to most Socialist
writers at the turn of the century this was one of the master's
sayings, fit to be repeated on festive occasions, but bearing little
relation to the realities ofa late Victorian, nation-conscious, and
empire-proud Europe. Only a very remote future, it was
thought, might bring the eclipse of the nation-state. Parvus, on
the contrary, saw the eclipse coming, pointed to its symptoms,
forecast its cataclysmic intensification, and urged the Socialists
to adjust their attitudes and policies accordingly. He placed an
unusual emphasis on the interdependence of nations and states,
and this emphasis gave to his reasonings a broad, worldwide
sweep, rare in other Socialists. He saw the Russo-Japanese
conflict of 1904 as the start of a long sequence of wars, in which
the nation-states, impelled by capitalist competition, would fight
for their survival. The fate of continents had become intertwined.
The opening up of the American west had sharpened the
competition for world markets between the agricultural producers.
European, especially German, farming and industrial
interests joined hands in order to do away with free trade and to
impose a protectionist system on western Europe. 'The customs
walls have become an economic barrier to the historical process
1
The series began in Iskra, no. 59, 10 February 1904.