In the historiography of Russian Marxism the name of Leon Trotsky is invariably linked with two very famous political slogans: Permanent Revolution and Socialism in One Country. Trotsky is portrayed as a dedicated internationalist, who rejected Stalin's theory of an isolated socialist state in the belief that the Russian revolution must be ‘permanent’ in a double sense. In domestic terms it was to involve a direct transition from the feudal monarchy of the tsars to socialism, without an intervening period of bourgeois capitalism. In an international context it was to be accompanied by a succession of political upheavals throughout Europe, resulting in an international socialist commonwealth.

According to his biographer, Isaac Deutscher, Trotsky's differences with Stalin arose from his belief that unless the revolution burst Russia's national boundaries it would run into a dead end. Russia was too backward and economically underdeveloped to achieve socialism by its own efforts. Summarizing the theory of Permanent Revolution, Deutscher explained that ‘Russia's industrial poverty and backwardness would … prove formidable obstacles to the building of a Socialist economy; and only with the help of the Socialist West could these obstacles be broken and removed’. George Lichtheim agreed, claiming that Trotsky thought Russia ‘Could only give the signal; it was for Europe to accomplish the main task’. In the same connection Robert V. Daniels wrote that a socialist regime could not endure in Russia alone. For its consolidation access would be necessary to the industrial resources of a socialist Europe.