Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism advocated by the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky. He himself, however, called his views differently. A Trotskyist is, accordingly, a supporter of this theory. Its founder is often described as an orthodox Marxist and Bolshevik-Leninist. He supported the creation of a vanguard party. Trotskyists criticize Stalinism, opposing the theory of socialism in one country. They adhere to the theory of permanent revolution. Trotskyists are also people who criticize the bureaucracy that developed in the Soviet Union under Stalin. Today, this offshoot of Bolshevism is quite popular.
Friendship with Lenin
Their relationship was quite warm. Vladimir Lenin and Trotsky were very close ideologically, both during the Russian revolution and after it, and some communists of those times called Trotsky their "leader". He was the main leader of the Red Army immediately after the revolutionary period.
Initially, Trotsky came to the conclusion that the unity of the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks was impossible, and joined the Bolsheviks. Lev Davidovich playedleading role together with Lenin in the revolution. Evaluating it, Vladimir Ilyich wrote: “Trotsky has long said that unification is impossible. Trotsky understood this, and since then there has not been a better Bolshevik.”
Trotsky and Stalin
The relationship between these two politicians was quite complicated. By order of Stalin, Trotsky was removed from power (October 1927) and expelled from the Communist Party (November 1927). Then he was deported first to Alma-Ata (January 1928), and then completely deported from the Soviet Union (February 1929). As head of the Fourth International, Stalin's opponent continued to engage in politics in exile to counter the rising power and influence of the Soviet bureaucracy.
On August 20, 1940, he was attacked by Ramon Mercader, an NKVD agent born in Spain, and died the next day in hospital. His assassination is considered political. Almost all Trotskyists in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union were executed during the great purges of 1937-1938. Stalin actually destroyed all the internal influence of Lev Davidovich in the Soviet Union.
The Fourth International
The New International was created by our hero in France in 1938. Trotskyists are communists who believed that the Third International was irretrievably lost due to the hegemony of Stalinism in the socialist movement, and thus unable to bring the international working class to political power. So they think to this day. Famous Trotskyists include Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro.
An American supporter of our hero, James P. Cannon, wrote in his book that Trotskyism is a restoration, or even a revival, of true Marxism in its purest form, as it was expounded and practiced in the Russian Revolution and in Russia, and also in early days of the Communist International.
Position on the political compass
Within communist currents, Trotskyists are often considered leftists. In the 1920s they called themselves the Left Opposition. Terminological disagreements can be confusing because different versions of the left-right political spectrum are used. Stalinism is often described as being on the right in the communist spectrum, while Trotskyism is on the left. But the anti-revisionist idea of the latter movement is very different from orthodox communism.
Despite the fact that in the 1920s Trotsky and Stalin were comrades-in-arms during the Russian Revolution and the Russian Civil War, they became enemies and subsequently turned against each other. Their quarrel happened quite abruptly and quickly. A lot of third-party people were included in the silent war between the two politicians. Trotsky created a leftist opposition and criticized the Stalinist Soviet Union for suppressing democracy and lacking adequate economic planning.
Permanent Revolution
In 1905, Trotsky formulated his theory of permanent revolution, which later became the defining characteristic of his ideology. Trotskyists are those who share it. Until 1905, some revolutionaries argued that Marx's theory of historypositioned that only a class revolution in European capitalist society would lead to a socialist one. According to this position, a socialist revolution could not have taken place in a backward feudal country like Russia in the early 20th century, when it had such a small and almost powerless capitalist class.
The theory of permanent revolution addressed the question of how such feudal regimes should be overthrown and how socialism could be established in the absence of economic prerequisites. In alliance with the peasantry, according to Trotsky, the working class would launch its own revolution against the exploiting class, establish a workers' state in Russia, and appeal to the proletariat in advanced capitalist countries around the world. As a result, the global working class would follow the example of Russia, and socialism could develop throughout the planet.
Trotsky's characterization
During 1922-1924 Lenin suffered a series of strokes and became more and more incapacitated. Before his death in 1924, characterizing Trotsky as a talented ideologist and leader, he also noted that his non-Bolshevik past should not be used against him. Lenin criticized him for being too interested in and focused on purely administrative work, and also asked to remove Stalin from the post of general secretary, but these records remained hidden until 1956. Zinoviev and Kamenev broke with Stalin in 1925 and joined Trotsky in 1926 inwithin the so-called united opposition.
Debacle
In 1926, Stalin allied himself with Bukharin, who at the time was leading the campaign against Trotskyism. The latter wrote a pamphlet "From the collapse of tsarism to the fall of the bourgeoisie", which was reprinted in 1923 by the party publishing house "Proletary". In this work, the author explains and accepts Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution, writing: "The Russian proletariat is confronted with the problem of international revolution more acutely than ever before … The sum total of the relations that have arisen in Europe leads to this inevitable conclusion. Thus, the permanent revolution in Russia passes into the European proletarian revolution. However, it is common knowledge, Trotsky claims, that three years later, in 1926, this man was the main ideologist of the campaign against the movement led by the hero of this article.
Collapse of the International
After 1928, various communist parties around the world expelled Trotskyists from their ranks. Most Trotskyists defend the economic achievements of the planned economy in the Soviet Union during the 1920s and 1930s, despite the "delusion" of the Soviet bureaucracy and what they call the dismantling of democracy. The Trotskyists insist that in 1928 the inner-party Soviet democracy that underlay Bolshevism was destroyed in all the communist parties in the world. Anyone who did not agree with the party line was immediately called a Trotskyist and even a fascist.
In 1937, Stalin again unleashed, as supporters of the hero of the article say, political terror against the opposition and many of the remaining old Bolsheviks (those who played key roles in the October Revolution of 1917).
Activities abroad
Trotsky founded the International Left Opposition (ILO) in 1930. Initially, it was supposed to be a protest group in the Comintern, but anyone who joined or was suspected of joining this organization was immediately expelled from the Comintern. Therefore, the opposition came to the conclusion that opposition to Stalinism within the communist parties controlled by Stalin's supporters had become impossible, so new movements had to be created. In 1933, the ILO was renamed the International Communist League, which formed the basis of the Fourth International, founded in Paris in 1938.
Trotsky believed that only a new international, based on Lenin's theory of a vanguard party, could lead the world revolution and that it should be built in opposition to both the capitalists and the Stalinists. In the 1920s-1930s, he considered the USSR a state that had departed from true Marxism.
Lev Davidovich was convinced that the rise to power of the Nazis and the reaction that followed in Europe were partly due to the mistakes of the policy of the Communist International in the third period and that the old revolutionary parties were no longer capable of reform. Therefore, it is necessary to organize a new internationalorganization of the working class. Transitional demand tactics were to be a key element in the new proletarian revolution.
During the founding of the New International in 1938, Trotskyism was a mainstream political movement in Vietnam, Sri Lanka, and a little later in Bolivia.
Conclusion
Leo Trotsky became a symbol of communist resistance not only in capitalist countries, but also in socialist authoritarian states like the USSR. Its supporters believe that in the Soviet Union there was not socialism, but state capitalism, and they are very harshly opposed to any imperialism and militarism, including Soviet-Russian. Because of this, the Trotskyists gained a reputation as Russophobes in patriotic circles. However, it was their views that became the basis of modern social revolutionary theories popular in third world countries.
