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One reason why Russian radicals were interested in Marxism at the turn of the century was the attraction of its quasi-scientific laws of progress towards utopia, even though the doctrine was difficult to apply to a country that seemed unprepared for proletarian revolution and socialism. Leon Trotsky articulated a broad theory of the nature of revolution, but the events which he tried to understand and in which he was involved actually led to his downfall. For Trotsky, revolution was a long but interconnected process of political and social struggle. This chapter explores Trotsky's conception of the process of revolution in the context of the Russian Revolution of 1917. It discusses Marxism in Russia and its flawed notion of revolution, Karl Marx's theory of revolution, the connection between revolution and capitalism, Trotsky's “theory of permanent revolution” or “uninterrupted revolution,” Thermidor and the rise of postrevolutionary dictatorship in Russia, and Trotsky's view of the War Communism.

The problematic of the book is presented: whether wherever the proletariat appeared as an independent force, the bourgeoisie shifted to the camp of the counter-revolution; whether the bolder the struggle of the masses, the quicker the reactionary transformation of liberalism. A ‘left-wing’ version and a ‘right-wing’ version are summarised. An original social definition of the ‘bourgeoisie’ is suggested, and the ‘proletariat’ defined. The terms ‘bourgeois civil society’ and ‘proletarian democracy’ are defined. An overview of the book's contents is outlined.

The conclusion poses the ongoing and continually unfinished quality of Dada that brings the book’s positions into the present, invoking permanent revolution and a notion of ‘permanent Dada’. The revised readings developed in the book present us today with an imposing sense of Dada’s continuous, permanent, uninterrupted revision and variation within limits.

Few historical figures of the 20th century are as intriguing from a Transatlantic perspective as Leon Trotsky. Trotsky can be thought of as “transatlantic” in at least three ways. First, and perhaps most obviously, we can consider Trotsky’s transnationalism in terms of the internationalist basis and verve of his political theories. Second, we might explore how Trotsky’s exilic fate placed him in contact with intellectuals, followers and enemies in multiple linguistic and cultural communities in Europe, Turkey and the Americas—places in which he could further observe the “unevenness” of capitalism in space and time. Third, we might consider the cultural representations of the Old Man’s exile and assassination at the hands of a Catalan Stalinist agent, Ramón Mercader, in Coyoacán Mexico in 1940, whereupon the Revolutionary leader becomes a vessel of Hispanic Atlantic contemplation and circulation.

This chapter discusses America's “permanent revolution,” which envisioned a land of ultimate emancipation for every individual and “for all human spirit” on Earth. The “permanent revolution” had a compelling premise in another revolution, that of “rising expectations.” This was how U.S. economic advisor Harlan Cleveland described the quantitative and qualitative effects of modernization, mass consumption, and mass democracy that the United States had experienced since the end of World War I, and was now supposed to transmit to Europe. The message stressed the universal logic of the connection between prosperity, democracy, and, in general, a sense of self-fulfillment. Europe's postwar hardship required emphasis on the “quantitative” aspects first.