ABSTRACT
Revolutions are historical facts of life. Almost all major states are born from revolutions. Revolutions have been, and will remain, facts of life because of the structural nature of prevailing relations of production and relations of political power. The materialist explanation of revolutions offered by Marxism seems indispensable for answering the question: "Why, and why just at the moment?" The Marxist theory of revolution supersedes a peculiar variant of the conspiracy theory of history, which tends to substitute for an explanation of victorious revolutions an exclusive reference to the technical mechanism of successful insurrections or coups d'état. Revolutionary Marxists will combine a struggle for reforms with constant and systematic anti-capitalist propaganda. Trotsky's prognosis of political revolution, like his analysis of the contradictions of Soviet society, appear as one of his most brilliant contributions to Marxism. The strongest justification for world revolution is that humankind is literally faced with the long-term dilemma: either a world socialist federation or death.
