In this work Nahuel Moreno explains the concept of February Revolutions. This category is fundamental to understand the development of the Theory of the Permanent Revolution in the twentieth century, and above all, in the 21st century. This work is found in the work of Nahuel Moreno of 1980 called "Update of the Transition Program", and whose Thesis XV called "A Stage of February Revolutions and no October Revolution" Moreno develops this concept. This Thesis is the one we reproduce next

Against all our odds, after the Russian has not produced any October revolution, triumphant or defeated. This post-war, despite being the most revolutionary stage of the history, it has only originated February revolutions. Some triumphant, others defeated and others frozen, but only February revolutions.

Before delving into the previous statement, We must distinguish between the October revolution and the expropriation of the bourgeoisie, since, before the war, the only revolution that came to expropriating the bourgeoisie was that of October 1917 and this led us to a false analogy and the claim that both terms are synonymous. The experience of this post-war proves that this is not the case.

Like any revolution, the one in October is a essentially political-social process with economic consequences. He's got two characteristics that differentiate it sharply from all others revolutions. The first is the emergence of revolutionary organizations of workers' and mass power, like the Soviets. The second is closely linked to the previous one and is the determining: the existence of a Marxist party revolutionary who directs insurrection and armed struggle and takes power only as a means to develop the mobilization of the masses and the international socialist revolution. Missing These two conditions, there is no October revolution.

The February revolution is different from that of October, but it is intimately linked to it; it must be the foreword to the October for the revolution to keep moving forward.

February is a workers' and people's revolution that confronts the imperialist, bourgeois and landowner exploiters linked to the bourgeoisie and destroying the bourgeois state apparatus or causing its crisis. Because of their class dynamics and the enemy they face, both are socialist revolutions.

The difference between the two lies in the different level of consciousness of the mass movement and, mainly, in the relationship of Revolutionary Marxist Party with the Mass Movement and Process revolutionary ongoing. In succinctly said, the February revolution is unconsciously socialist, while the October is in shape conscious. We could say by flirting with Hegel and Marx that the first is a socialist revolution itself, while that the second is for itself.

The February revolutions have a logic which reflects the situation of the workers' and mass movement at this stage of revolutionary ascent. Almost all revolutions arise when their deep Objective needs are for the mass movement in a situation intolerable. But in relation to this objective situation that leads to the revolution, their level of consciousness and that of their directions remains Back. Despite this backlog, revolutions occur. This has to to see that the proletariat, unlike the bourgeoisie, under feudalism, cannot mature its consciousness under the conditions of capitalism; this is not an evolutionary process but revolutionary. He acquires it as a dominated class while fighting against another class for power.

This combination under level of consciousness with revolutionary mobilization of such magnitude that it manages to carry out a Revolution originates the February revolution. The low level of consciousness that It has this workers' movement even during the revolution, it allows the apparatuses counter-revolutionaries and petty-bourgeois currents (reformists for their program and conception) splicing with it and directing it during a stage.

The February revolution is completely different from October in terms of consciousness and direction level refer. The one of October is characterized by having at its head a direction Revolutionary Marxist; the one in February is led by the apparatuses bureaucratic and petty-bourgeois of the mass movement. This sector consciously counterrevolutionary understands the meaning of revolution February and intervenes in it precisely to keep her at that low level of awareness and in the bourgeois democratic stage limited to the national framework, preventing him from becoming a socialist. That is, it intervenes to stop Its mortal enemy, the permanent mobilization of the masses.

This is possible because, generally, the Tasks facing the February revolution are democratic. Like consequence of the backwardness of the mass movement and the objective situation of the class struggle, these revolutions have always been made against dictatorships despotics, against totalitarianism and the characteristic Bonapartism of capitalism in its stage of agony. Because of this, the leading opportunism, to stop the mobilization, he can argue that the revolution must be stopped in achieving these democratic or nationalist goals.

Trotsky made a brilliant analysis of the February revolution and its relationship with that of October. He pointed out his character of socialist revolution that gives power to the national bourgeoisie through the opportunistic addresses. Both his studies, and Lenin's writings of 1917, they point out how every February revolution could be highly variant unlikely to force opportunistic parties, pressured by movement of mass but just to control it, to transcend its programs and intentions, even breaking with the bourgeoisie as a step towards the expropriation of capitalism and the structuring of a workers' state.

But this one Political and theoretical perspective was, we repeat, highly unlikely. The Classical analysis of Trotsky and our International has been that the February revolution is the lead-up to the October revolution, and without this the latter there can be no rupture with the bourgeoisie or expropriation of it, and Not even fulfilling the bourgeois democratic tasks that survive.

As for the tasks, we have not had reason, since one third of humanity except the USSR has coming to expropriate the bourgeoisie and fulfilled important democratic tasks (defeat dictators, expropriate landowners, distribute the land to the peasants, etc.) without October revolutions. But from the point of view Historical and the development of the socialist revolution, Trotsky was right: yes After the February revolution, October does not ensue, that is, the conquest of power by the revolutionary Marxist party supported by the Revolutionary organization of the mass movement there is no possibility that the revolution accelerates and acquires a permanent character.

The fact that we have confused the February revolutions with the bourgeois bourgeois have led us to subtract from them importance. In fact, February is of fundamental and decisive importance, as much as the one that had the conquest of the great unions at the time reformist. This century has shown that they are different categories, although They combined in the Russian Revolution. February is a socialist revolution, categorically socialist, which destroys the capitalist state apparatus through a revolutionary armed struggle of the workers. The fact that Whether or not the essential axis of the agenda of the revolution is democratic tasks It is a problem that falls within the program Transition. The transitional process that leads to the February revolution It gives enormous weight to democratic tasks. But this does not mean that it is one bourgeois democratic revolution. In this century with exceptions such as the There are no more bourgeois democratic revolutions; there are only socialist revolutions, although with or without the maturing of the subjective factor.

In Russia there was a combination of Socialist revolution with bourgeois democracy in February. But this is It owed to the existence of Tsarism and the landowners who held it. A Despite this, the bourgeois democratic is to say, the struggle against the remains feudals was not the determining, since Tsarism itself was part of the World imperialist regime and was intimately linked to Russian capitalism.

With some exceptions, this situation already It does not exist in the world. There are no longer any tsars or dominant feudal landowners; Everywhere I master imperialism, capitalism, landowners capitalists or bureaucracy. All the revolutions today are socialist for the enemy facing the bourgeoisie and its state apparatus, and for the class character of those who make them, the workers. The proletariat, on the one hand, due to the agony of capitalism, its rot, the general setback that provokes humanity and on the other to its prejudices, low political level and the existence of bureaucratic directions and petty-bourgeois who reinforce these prejudices and conceptions was seen forced to carry out a February revolution as a prologue to the necessary October revolution. That is, he pays with a double sacrifice and effort historical this backwardness of his level of consciousness and this decline of capitalism.

We must enrich the analysis of the Russian Revolution giving enormous importance to the revolution of 1905 and to that of February 1917. We must study their relationship with October. Because against everything What we believed, revolutions have taken place in 1905 and February, not October revolutions. All the perspectives and hypotheses that opened the February revolution, which were left on the road through the October triumph, They gave in this post-war period. We can say that this post-war period is the stage of the Unconscious socialist revolution or generalized February at the level of the whole planet. Viewed with historical, theoretical, February has a profound logic and importance.

If we accept that there will only be revolution when the Industrial proletariat led by its Marxist party make it, the process revolutionary of the mass movement would be paralyzed, could not do No revolution until their consciousness and that of their Party, the class struggle would stop and the workers could not advance in the achievement of any conquest. It is not like that: the revolutionary struggles of the masses continue to reach great historical conquests, making revolutions triumphant despite its immaturity.

This brings us to the problem of what There are chances of new October revolutions. In Ultimately, the whole attack of revisionism with the use of expressions taken from bourgeois sociology go against what they call the "model of the October revolution." Like Paul, they point out that in this Post-war the model has not been repeated, and they draw from there the conclusion revisionist that this kind of revolution is a thing of the past and not He'll repeat. According to them, a new revolutionary theory emerges. But, like all Revisionist current, he calls old theories new, of the time pre-Marxist, when the popular democratic revolutions were raised against absolutism. They call a new model to a very old one: that of all Democratic revolutions before October.

We believe the exact opposite: no there is no reason for no new October revolutions to take place; Februarys will mature in the consciousness of the proletariat and, in turn, that Maturation will contribute to the strengthening of our parties. And these two processes will inevitably lead to the October revolution, as well as that of 1905 and February 1917 led to the Bolshevik October. It's a sequence inevitable of revolutionary rise. What we must recognize is that the October triumph is much more difficult than February; and also than February revolutions are produced and advance more than we thought, due to objective circumstances. But from there we can't push back the Marxist thought to theorize that the February revolutions are unique that can be given in this revolutionary stage while that of October was an unrepeatable exception.

Moreover, every February revolution that it does not transform into the October revolution inevitably degenerates. There is no February revolution that may have permanent rhythm because the role of petty-bourgeois and bureaucratic addresses that are at the forefront is always the same: freeze the process of permanent revolution; slow down, enchalecar, defeat the mass movement. That is why every revolution in February is or not Expropriated to the bourgeoisie, it originates recurring February revolutions. This It means that the February revolution is not a substantive solution of the revolutionary process. Always force you to make new or big Februarys mass mobilizations to stop the inevitable retreat caused by the traitorous addresses. A great example of this phenomenon is the fact that the betrayal of the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries forced the masses to to carry out the great mobilization against Kornilov. Let's look at another example: the the Portuguese revolution of 1974 was a great revolution of February that did not It transformed in October and ended up leading the right-wing government of Eanes to power.

The February revolution, by not solving Nothing even when he gets great triumphs originates recurring Februarys. The February revolution does not only occur in many countries at this stage revolutionary but repeated several times in the same country, while not move on to October. That is why we must specify more the characterization of this as a revolutionary: it is the stage of objective revolutions, be present or not the subjective factor. The revolutionary rise is so great that Revolutions occur even with immature subjective factors.

But the February revolutions that They characterize this stage and possibly continue to characterize it during Long time, while the conditions for the revolutions of October are the October foreword, although the process is prolonged and many It is sometimes frustrated as has happened in all cases of this post-war period without Get to this one.

It has also created a new method for make revolution that we had not contemplated, or at least not We had captured in all its magnitude: guerrilla warfare.