Le socialiste, érudit et militant, Ernest Mandel est né il y a cent ans, le 5 avril 1923. "Internationaliste flamand d'origine juive", il était un militant et un érudit, écrivant certains des ouvrages les plus importants de la théorie marxiste de la seconde moitié du vingtième siècle.

I
 

Any serious discussion in a Marxist organization has two aspects.ⁱ It is born of ongoing events and tends to respond to a need for action born from the same events. In this respect, any discussion which is not artificial is inevitably partly pragmatic. But the answer given and the method which determines it become part of the whole of Marxist theory, and in one way or another modify the ideas—and the action—of future generations of Marxists, and even the answers given by the same generation to future questions.

For eighty years, the theory of permanent revolution has been the object of a permanent debate inside the international labour and revolutionary movement.ⁱ A great number of articles and books have been devoted to the discussion. A significant number of revolutions and counter-revolutions have. occurred in the less developed countries of the world in which this theory could be tested in the light of real historical development.