Trotskyism

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Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself an orthodox Marxist and Bolshevik-Leninist, arguing for the establishment of a vanguard party. His politics differed sharply from those of Stalinism, most importantly in declaring the need for an international proletarian revolution (rather than socialism in one country) and unwavering support for a true dictatorship of the proletariat based on democratic principles. Numerous groups around the world continue to describe themselves as Trotskyist, although they have diverse interpretations of Trotsky's writings.[citation needed]

Probably the consensus English term for adherents is 'Trotskyist'. "Trotskyite" and more recently "Trot" (the latter particularly in Britain and Canada) are used pejoratively.

James P. Cannon in his 1942 book History of American Trotskyism wrote that "Trotskyism is not a new movement, a new doctrine, but the restoration, the revival of genuine Marxism as it was expounded and practiced in the Russian revolution and in the early days of the Communist International." However, Trotskyism can be distinguished from other Marxist theories by four key elements.
Support for the strategy of permanent revolution, in opposition to the Two Stage Theory of his opponents,[1]
Criticism of the post 1924 leadership of the Soviet Union, analysis of its features[2] and after 1933, support for political revolution in the Soviet Union and in what Trotskyists term the deformed workers' states,
Support for social revolution in the advanced capitalist countries through working class mass action
support for proletarian internationalism.[3]

On the political spectrum of Marxism, Trotskyists are considered to be on the left. They supported democratic rights in the USSR,[4] opposed political deals with the imperialist powers, and advocated a spreading of the revolution throughout Europe and the East.

According to Trotsky, the term 'Trotskyism' was coined by Pavel Milyukov, (sometimes transliterated as 'Paul Miliukoff'), the ideological leader of the Constitutional Democratic party (Kadets) in Russia. Milyukov waged a bitter war against 'Trotskyism' "as early as 1905", Trotsky argues.[5]

Trotsky was elected chairman of the St. Petersburg Soviet during the 1905 Russian Revolution. He pursued a policy of proletarian revolution at a time when other socialist trends advocated a transition to a "bourgeois" (capitalist) regime to replace the essentially feudal Romanov state. It was during this year that Trotsky developed the theory of Permanent Revolution, as it later became known (see below). In 1905, Trotsky quotes from a postscript to a book by Milyukov, The elections to the second state Duma, published no later than May 1907:“ Those who reproach the Kadets with failure to protest at that time, by organising meetings, against the 'revolutionary illusions' of Trotskyism and the relapse into Blanquism, simply do not understand... the mood of the democratic public at meetings during that period."


Milyukov suggests that the mood of the "democratic public" was in support of Trotsky's policy of the overthrow of the Romanov regime alongside a workers' revolution to overthrow the capitalist owners of industry, support for strike action and the establishment of democratically elected workers' councils or "soviets".

Revolutions in Britain in the 17th Century and in France in 1789 abolished feudalism, establishing the basic requisites for the development of capitalism. But Trotsky argues that these revolutions would not be repeated in Russia. In Results and Prospects, written in 1906, in which Trotsky outlines his theory in detail, he argues: "History does not repeat itself. However much one may compare the Russian Revolution with the Great French Revolution, the former can never be transformed into a repetition of the latter."[7] In the French Revolution of 1789, France experienced what Marxists called a "bourgeois-democratic revolution" – a regime was established where the "bourgeoisie", (the French term approximating to "capitalists"), overthrew feudalism. The bourgeoisie then moved towards establishing a regime of "democratic" parliamentary institutions. But while democratic rights were extended to the bourgeoisie they did not, however, generally extend to a universal franchise, let alone to the freedom for workers to organise unions or to go on strike, without a considerable struggle by the working class.

But, Trotsky argues, countries like Russia had no "enlightened, active" revolutionary bourgeoisie which could play the same role, and the working class constituted a very small minority. In fact, even by the time of the European revolutions of 1848, Trotsky argued, "the bourgeoisie was already unable to play a comparable role. It did not want and was not able to undertake the revolutionary liquidation of the social system that stood in its path to power."

Weakness of the capitalists

The theory of Permanent Revolution considers that in many countries which are thought to have not yet completed their bourgeois-democratic revolution, the capitalist class oppose the creation of any revolutionary situation, in the first instance because they fear stirring the working class into fighting for its own revolutionary aspirations against their exploitation by capitalism. In Russia the working class, although a small minority in a predominantly peasant based society, were organised in vast factories owned by the capitalist class, in large working class districts. During the Russian Revolution of 1905, the capitalist class found it necessary to ally with reactionary elements such as the essentially feudal landlords and ultimately the existing Czarist Russian state forces, in order to protect their ownership of their property, in the form of the factories, banks, and so forth, from expropriation by the revolutionary working class.

According to the theory of Permanent Revolution, therefore, in economically backward countries the capitalist class are weak and incapable of carrying through revolutionary change. They are linked to and rely on the feudal landowners in many ways. Trotsky further argues that since a majority of branches of industry in Russia were originated under the direct influence of government measures, sometimes even with the help of Government subsidies, the capitalist class was again tied to the ruling elite. In addition, the capitalist class were subservient to European capital.

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