Cutline · Grade 8–9 · one of sixteen

C·A·I·R

The Permanent Revolutionary

collective · centralized · internationalist · rupture

Authoritarian communism

A revolution in one country alone gets surrounded and squeezed until it fails or goes rotten. So the break has to spread, and the people coordinating it have to be organised across borders from the very start.

What the four letters mean

C Ownershipcollectivenot private (P)
A Controlcentralizednot decentralized (L)
I Horizoninternationalistnot national (N)
R Methodrupturenot gradual (G)

Where this has shown up

HistoricallyLeon Trotsky, who argued exactly this against Stalin, was exiled for it, and was killed in Mexico in 1940.

All sixteen

Columns: collective → private. Within each half, internationalist then national.

CAIRThe Permanent Revolutionary CANRThe Vanguard PAIRThe Shock Therapist PANRThe Strongman CAIGThe World Planner CANGThe Planner PAIGThe Technocrat PANGThe National Conservative CLIRThe Anarchist CLNRThe Syndicalist PLIRThe Exit Capitalist PLNRThe Secessionist CLIGThe Commoner CLNGThe Municipalist PLIGThe Free Trader PLNGThe Classical Liberal

Rows: centralized → decentralized. Within each half, rupture then gradual.

This page is not a diagnosis

The Permanent Revolutionary is a box, and a box throws almost everything away. It keeps which side of each line you landed on and forgets how far. Two people in this box can be at opposite ends of it, and somebody two points the other side of a line has more in common with this type than with their own. The four axes are real. Where the lines were drawn across them is a decision a person made.

The point

Cutline tells you the margin it used to hand you each of your four letters — including when one of them was a coin toss. That is the part every other quiz leaves out. And you are fourteen. You are supposed to change.

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