Trotskyism is a theory of Marxism that the Russian revolutionary Leo Trotsky defended. He himself, however, called his views differently. Trotskyist is, accordingly, a supporter of this theory. Its founder is often described as an Orthodox Marxist and a Bolshevik-Leninist. He supported the creation of an avant-garde 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 branch of Bolshevism is very popular.
Friendship with Lenin
Their relationship was very warm. Vladimir Lenin and Trotsky were ideologically close both during the Russian Revolution and after it, and some communists of those times called Trotsky their "leader." He was the chief leader of the Red Army immediately after the revolutionary period.
Trotsky initially came to the conclusion that the unity of the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks was impossible, and joined the Bolsheviks. Lev Davidovich played a leading role with Lenin in the revolution. Assessing him, Vladimir Ilyich wrote: “Trotsky has long said that unification is impossible. Trotsky understood this, and since then there has been no better Bolshevik. ”
Trotsky and Stalin
The relationship between these two politicians was rather complicated. By order of Stalin, Trotsky was removed from power (October 1927) and expelled from the Communist Party (November 1927). Then he was first deported to Alma-Ata (January 1928), and then completely deported from the Soviet Union (February 1929). As the head of the Fourth International, an opponent of Stalin continued to engage in exile politics to counter the growing 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 a hospital. His murder 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.
Fourth International
The new international was created by our hero in France in 1938. The Trotskyists are Communists who believed that the Third International was irretrievably lost due to the hegemony of Stalinism in the socialist movement, and thus were unable to bring the international working class to political power. So they believe to this day. Famous Trotskyists include Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro.
The American supporter of our hero, James P. Cannon, wrote in his book that Trotskyism is a restoration, or even a revival of genuine Marxism in its purest form, as it was stated and practiced in the Russian Revolution and in Russia, as well as in the early days of the Communist International.
Position on the political compass
Within the framework of communist movements, the Trotskyists are often considered leftist. In the 1920s, they called themselves the Left Opposition. The terminological differences can be confusing because different versions of the left-right political spectrum are used. Stalinism is often called right in the communist spectrum, and Trotskyism is called left. But the anti-revisionist idea of the supporters of the latter trend is very different from orthodox communism.
Despite the fact that in the 1920s Trotsky and Stalin were allies during the Russian Revolution and the Civil War in Russia, they became enemies and subsequently opposed each other. Their disagreement occurred quite sharply and quickly. In the unspoken war of two politicians, many outsiders were included. Trotsky created the Left Opposition and criticized the Stalinist Soviet Union for the suppression of democracy and the lack of adequate economic planning.
Permanent revolution
In 1905, Trotsky formulated his theory of permanent revolution, which later became the defining characteristic of his ideology. The Trotskyists are those who share it. Until 1905, some revolutionaries argued that Marx's theory of history had positioned that only a class revolution in European capitalist society would lead to a socialist one. According to this position, the socialist revolution could not have occurred in a backward feudal country, such as Russia at the beginning of the 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 can be established in the absence of economic prerequisites. In alliance with the peasantry, according to Trotsky, the working class will begin its own revolution against the exploiting class, create a workers' state in Russia and appeal to the proletariat in the developed capitalist countries around the world. As a result, the world working class would follow Russia's example, and socialism could develop across the planet.
Characteristic of Trotsky
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 not Bolshevik past should not be used against him. Lenin criticized him for his too much interest and attention to purely administrative work, and also asked to remove Stalin from the post of general secretary, but these notes remained hidden until 1956. Zinoviev and Kamenev broke with Stalin in 1925 and joined Trotsky in 1926 as part of the so-called united opposition.
Rout
In 1926, Stalin entered into an alliance with Bukharin, who led the campaign against Trotskyism at that time. 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 "Proletarian". In this work, the author explains and accepts Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution, writing: “The Russian proletariat is faced with the problem of the international revolution more sharply than ever before ... The general result of the relations that arose in Europe leads to this inevitable conclusion. Thus, the permanent revolution in Russia passes into the European proletarian revolution. " However, it is well known, 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.
The collapse of the international
After 1928, various communist parties around the world expelled the 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 “fallacy” of the Soviet bureaucracy and what they call the dismantling of democracy. The Trotskyists insist that in 1928, the intra-party Soviet democracy, which was the basis of Bolshevism, was destroyed in all 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, 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 (MLO) 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 counteraction to Stalinism within the communist parties controlled by Stalin’s supporters became impossible, so it was necessary to create new movements. In 1933, MLO was renamed the International Communist League, which formed the basis of the Fourth International, founded in Paris in 1938.
Trotsky believed that only the new international, relying on Lenin's theory of the 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 and 1930s, he considered the USSR a state that departed from true Marxism.
Lev Davidovich was convinced that the rise to power of the Nazis and the reaction that had begun in Europe were partly due to errors in the policies 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 international organization of the working class. The tactics of transitional demand should have become a key element in the new proletarian revolution.
During the founding of the new international in 1938, the ideas of Trotskyism were a mass political trend in Vietnam, Sri Lanka and a little later in Bolivia.
Conclusion
Leon Trotsky became a symbol of communist resistance not only in capitalist countries, but also in socialist authoritarian states like the USSR. His supporters believe that in the Soviet Union there was not socialism, but state capitalism, and they very toughly oppose any imperialism and militarism, including Soviet-Russian. Because of this, the Trotskyists gained a reputation for Russophobia in patriotic circles. However, it was their views that became the basis of modern social-revolutionary theories, popular in third world countries.