Trotskyism

Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Russian revolutionary and intellectual^[1]^[2] Leon Trotsky along with some other members of the Left Opposition and the Fourth International. Trotsky described himself as an orthodox Marxist, a revolutionary Marxist, and a Bolshevik–Leninist as well as a follower of Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Karl Liebknecht, and Rosa Luxemburg.

Trotsky advocated for a decentralized form of economic planning,^[3] elected representation of Soviet socialist parties,^[4]^[5] mass soviet democratization,^[6] the tactic of a united front against far-right parties,^[7] cultural autonomy for artistic movements,^[8] voluntary collectivisation,^[9]^[10] a transitional program^[11] and socialist internationalism.^[12] He supported founding a vanguard party of the proletariat, and a dictatorship of the proletariat (as opposed to the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie", which Marxists argue is a major component of capitalism) based on working-class self-emancipation and council democracy. Trotsky also adhered to scientific socialism and viewed this as a conscious expression of historical processes.^[13] Trotskyists are critical of Stalinism as they oppose Joseph Stalin's theory of socialism in one country in favour of Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution. Trotskyists criticize the bureaucracy and anti-democratic current developed in the Soviet Union under Stalin.

Vladimir Lenin and Trotsky, despite their ideological disputes, were close personally prior to the London Congress of Social Democrats in 1903 and during the First World War. Lenin and Trotsky were close ideologically and personally during the Russian Revolution and its aftermath. Trotskyists and some others call Trotsky its "co-leader".^{[note 1]}^[14] This was also alluded to by Rosa Luxemburg.^[15] Lenin himself never mentioned the concept of "Trotskyism" after Trotsky became a member of the Bolshevik party.^[16] Trotsky was the Red Army's paramount leader in the Revolutionary period's direct aftermath. Trotsky initially opposed some aspects of Leninism^[17]^[18] but eventually concluded that unity between the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks was impossible and joined the Bolsheviks. Trotsky played a leading role with Lenin in the October Revolution. Lenin and Trotsky were also both honorary presidents of the Third International.^[19] Trotskyists have traditionally drawn upon Lenin's testament and his alliance with Trotsky in 1922–23 against the Soviet bureaucracy as primary evidence that Lenin sought to remove Stalin from the position of General Secretary.^[20] Various historians have also cited Lenin's proposal to appoint Trotsky Vice-Chairman of the Soviet Union as further evidence that he intended Trotsky to be his successor as head of government.^[21]^[22]^[23]^[24]^[25]

Assessing Trotsky, Lenin wrote:

"Trotsky long ago said that unification is impossible. Trotsky understood this and from that time on, there has been no better Bolshevik."^[26]

In 1927, Trotsky was purged from the Communist Party and Soviet politics. In October, by order of Stalin,^[27] Trotsky was removed from power and, in November, expelled from the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (aka: VKP(b)). He was exiled to Alma-Ata (now Almaty) in January 1928 and then expelled from the USSR in February 1929. As the head of the Fourth International, Trotsky continued in exile to oppose what he termed the degenerated workers' state in the USSR. On 20 August 1940, Trotsky was attacked in Mexico City by Ramón Mercader, a Spanish-born NKVD agent, and died the next day in a hospital. His murder is considered a political assassination. Almost all Trotskyists within the VKP(b) were executed in the Great Purges of 1937–1938, effectively removing all of Trotsky's internal influence in the USSR. Nikita Khrushchev had come to power as head of the Communist Party in Ukraine, signing lists of other Trotskyists to be executed. Trotsky and the party of Trotskyists were still recognized as enemies of the USSR during Khrushchev's rule of the USSR after 1956.^[28] Trotsky's Fourth International was established in the French Third Republic in 1938 when Trotskyists argued that the Comintern or Third International had become irretrievably "lost to Stalinism" and thus incapable of leading the international working class to political power.^[29]

Definition

According to Trotsky, his programme could be distinguished from other Marxist theories by five key elements:

Support for the strategy of permanent revolution in opposition to the two-stage theory of his opponents.^[30]^[31]
Criticism of the post-1924 leadership of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and analysis of its features,^[32] after 1933, also support for political revolution in the USSR and what Trotskyists term the degenerated workers' states.
Support for social revolution in the advanced capitalist countries through working-class mass action.
Support for proletarian internationalism.^[33]
Use of a transitional programme of demands that bridge between daily struggles of the working class and the maximal ideas of the socialist transformation of society.^[34]

On the political spectrum of Marxism, Trotskyists are usually considered to be on the left. In the 1920s, they called themselves the Left Opposition, although today's left communism is distinct and usually non-Bolshevik. The terminological disagreement can be confusing because different versions of a left-right political spectrum are used. Anti-revisionists consider themselves the ultimate leftists on a spectrum from communism on the left to imperialist capitalism on the right. However, given that Stalinism is often labelled rightist within the communist spectrum and left communism leftist, anti-revisionists' idea of the left is very different from that of left communism. Despite being Bolshevik-Leninist comrades during the Russian Revolution and Russian Civil War, Trotsky and Stalin became enemies in the 1920s and, after that, opposed the legitimacy of each other's forms of Leninism. Trotsky was highly critical of the Stalinist USSR for suppressing democracy and the lack of adequate economic planning.^[27]

Overall, Trotsky and the Left-United Opposition factions advocated for rapid industrialization, voluntary collectivisation of agriculture, and the expansion of a worker's democracy.^[35]^[36]

Theory

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