Dictionary Definition
Trotskyist n : radicals who support Trotsky's
theory that socialism must be established throughout the world by
continuing revolution [syn: Trotskyite, Trot]
Extensive Definition
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.
Trotsky was, together with Lenin, the most
important and well-known leader of the Russian
Revolution and the international Communist
movement in 1917 and the following years. Nowadays, numerous groups
around the world continue to describe themselves as Trotskyist,
although they have developed Trotsky's ideas in different ways. A
follower of Trotskyist ideas is usually called a "Trotskyist" or
(in an informal or pejorative way) a "Trotskyite" or "Trot".
Definition
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;
- Criticism of the post-1924 leadership of the Soviet Union, analysis of its features 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.
On the political
spectrum of Marxism,
Trotskyists are considered to be on the left. They supported
democratic rights in the USSR, opposed political deals with the
imperialist powers, and advocated a spreading of the revolution
throughout Europe and the East.
Origins of Trotskyism and the 1905 Russian Revolution
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.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." – The elections to the
second state Duma by Pavel Milyukov
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".
Theory of Permanent Revolution
In 1905, Trotsky formulated a theory that became known as the Trotskyist theory of Permanent Revolution. It may be considered one of the defining characteristics of Trotskyism. Until 1905, Marxists had only shown how a revolution in a European capitalist society could lead to a socialist one. But this excluded countries such as Russia. Russia in 1905 was widely considered to have not yet established a capitalist society, but was instead largely feudal with a small, weak and almost powerless capitalist class.The theory of Permanent Revolution addressed the
question of how such feudal regimes were to be overthrown, and how
socialism could be established given the lack of economic
prerequisites. Trotsky argued that in Russia only the working class
could overthrow feudalism winning the support of the peasantry, but
that the working class would not stop there. It would seize the
moment to go on to win its own revolution against the weak
capitalist class, establishing a workers' state, and appeal to the
working class in the advanced capitalist countries to come to its
aid, so that socialism could develop in Russia and worldwide.
The capitalist or bourgeois-democratic revolution
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." 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.
The working class steps in
Instead, Trotsky argued, only the 'proletariat' or working class were capable of achieving the tasks of that 'bourgeois' revolution. In 1905, the working class in Russia, a generation brought together in vast factories from the relative isolation of peasant life, saw the result of its labour as a vast collective effort, and the only means of struggling against its oppression in terms of a collective effort also, forming workers councils, (soviets), in the course of the revolution of that year. In 1906, Trotsky argued:The factory system brings the proletariat to the
foreground… The proletariat immediately found itself concentrated
in tremendous masses, while between these masses and the autocracy
there stood a capitalist bourgeoisie, very small in numbers,
isolated from the 'people', half-foreign, without historical
traditions, and inspired only by the greed for gain. – Trotsky,
Results and Prospects
The Putilov
Factory, for instance, numbered 12,000 workers in 1900, and,
according to Trotsky, 36,000 in July 1917. The theory of Permanent
Revolution considers that the peasantry as a whole cannot take on
this task, because it is dispersed in small holdings throughout the
country, and forms a heterogeneous grouping, including the rich
peasants who employ rural workers and aspire to landlordism as well
as the poor peasants who aspire to own more land. Trotsky argues:
"All historical experience… shows that the peasantry are absolutely
incapable of taking up an independent political role."
Trotskyists differ on the extent to which this is
true today, but even the most orthodox tend to recognise in the
late twentieth century a new development in the revolts of the
rural poor, the self-organising struggles of the landless, and many
other struggles which in some ways reflect the militant united
organised struggles of the working class, and which to various
degrees do not bear the marks of class divisions typical of the
heroic peasant struggles of previous epochs. However, orthodox
Trotskyists today still argue that the town and city based working
class struggle is central to the task of a successful socialist
revolution, linked to these struggles of the rural poor. They argue
that the working class learns of necessity to conduct a collective
struggle, for instance in trade unions, arising from its social
conditions in the factories and workplaces, and that the collective
consciousness it achieves as a result is an essential ingredient of
the socialist reconstruction of society.
Although only a small minority in Russian
society, the proletariat would lead a revolution to emancipate the
peasantry and thus "secure the support of the peasantry" as part of
that revolution, on whose support it will rely. But the working
class, in order to improve their own conditions, will find it
necessary to create a revolution of their own, which would
accomplish both the bourgeois and then establish a workers'
state.
International revolution
Yet, according to classical Marxism, revolution in peasant based countries, such as Russia, prepares the ground ultimately only for a development of capitalism since the liberated peasants become small owners, producers and traders which leads to the growth of commodity markets, from which a new capitalist class emerges. Only fully developed capitalist conditions prepare the basis for socialism.Trotsky agreed that a new socialist state and
economy in a country like Russia would not be able to hold out
against the pressures of a hostile capitalist world, as well as the
internal pressures of its backward economy. The revolution, Trotsky
argued, must quickly spread to capitalist countries, bringing about
a socialist revolution which must spread world-wide. But this
position was shared by all Marxists until 1924 when Stalin began to
put forward the slogan of "Socialism in one country".
In this way the revolution is "permanent", moving
of necessity first from the bourgeois revolution to the workers’
revolution, and from there uninterruptedly to European and
world-wide revolutions. Socialism until then had always seen
capitalism as an international enemy to be replaced
internationally.
Origins of the term
An internationalist outlook of permanent revolution is found in the works of Karl Marx. The term "permanent revolution" is taken from a remark of Marx from his March 1850 Address: "it is our task", Marx said,to make the revolution permanent until all the
more or less propertied classes have been driven from their ruling
positions, until the proletariat has conquered state power and
until the association of the proletarians has progressed
sufficiently far – not only in one country but in all the leading
countries of the world – that competition between the proletarians
of these countries ceases and at least the decisive forces of
production are concentrated in the hands of the workers. – Marx,
Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League
Trotskyism and the 1917 Russian Revolution
During his leadership of the Russian revolution
of 1905, Trotsky argued that once it became clear that the Tsar's
army would not come out in support of the workers, it was necessary
to retreat before the armed might of the state in as good an order
as possible. In 1917, Trotsky was again elected chairman of the
Petrograd soviet, but this time soon came to lead the
Military Revolutionary Committee which had the allegiance of
the Petrograd garrison, and carried through the October 1917
insurrection. Stalin wrote:
All practical work in connection with the
organization of the uprising was done under the immediate direction
of Comrade Trotsky, the President of the Petrograd Soviet. It can
be stated with certainty that the Party is indebted primarily and
principally to Comrade Trotsky for the rapid going over of the
garrison to the side of the Soviet and the efficient manner in
which the work of the Military Revolutionary Committee was
organized. – Stalin, Pravda, November 6,
1918
As a result of his role in the Russian Revolution
of 1917, the theory of Permanent Revolution was embraced by the
young Soviet state until 1924.
The Russian revolution of 1917 was marked by two
revolutions: the relatively spontaneous February 1917 revolution,
and the 25
October 1917 seizure of power
by the Bolsheviks, who had won the leadership of the Petrograd
soviet.
Before the February 1917 Russian revolution,
Lenin had formulated a slogan calling for the 'democratic
dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry', but after the
February revolution, through his April theses, Lenin instead called
for "all power to the Soviets". Lenin nevertheless continued to
emphasise however (as did Trotsky also) the classical Marxist
position that the peasantry formed a basis for the development of
capitalism, not socialism.
But also before February 1917, Trotsky had not
accepted the importance of a Bolshevik style organisation. Once the
February 1917 Russian revolution had broken out Trotsky admitted
the importance of a Bolshevik organisation, and joined the
Bolsheviks in July 1917. Despite the fact that many, like Stalin,
saw Trotsky's role in the October 1917 Russian revolution as
central, Trotsky says that without Lenin and the Bolshevik party
the October revolution of 1917 would not have taken place.
As a result, since 1917, Trotskyism as a
political theory is fully committed to a Leninist style of democratic
centralist party organisation, which Trotskyists argue must not
be confused with the party organisation as it later developed under
Stalin. Trotsky had previously suggested that Lenin's method of
organisation would lead to a dictatorship, but it is important to
emphasise that after 1917 orthodox Trotskyists argue that the loss
of democracy in the Soviet Union was caused by the failure of the
revolution to successfully spread internationally and the
consequent wars, isolation and imperialist intervention, not the
Bolshevik style of organisation.
Lenin's outlook had always been that the Russian
revolution would need to stimulate a Socialist revolution in
western Europe in order that this European socialist society would
then come to the aid of the Russian revolution and enable Russia to
advance towards socialism. Lenin stated:
We have stressed in a good many written works, in
all our public utterances, and in all our statements in the press
that… the socialist revolution can triumph only on two conditions.
First, if it is given timely support by a socialist revolution in
one or several advanced countries. – Lenin, Speech at Tenth
Congress of the RCP(B)
This outlook matched precisely Trotsky's theory
of Permanent Revolution. Trotsky's Permanent Revolution had
foreseen that the working class would not stop at the bourgeois
democratic stage of the revolution, but proceed towards a workers'
state, as happened in 1917. In 1917, Lenin changed his attitude to
Trotsky's theory of Permanent Revolution and after the October
revolution it was adopted by the Bolsheviks.
Lenin was met with initial disbelief in April
1917. Trotsky argues that:
up to the outbreak of the February revolution and
for a time after Trotskyism did not mean the idea that it was
impossible to build a socialist society within the national
boundaries of Russia (which "possibility" was never expressed by
anybody up to 1924 and hardly came into anybody’s head). Trotskyism
meant the idea that the Russian proletariat might win the power in
advance of the Western proletariat, and that in that case it could
not confine itself within the limits of a democratic dictatorship
but would be compelled to undertake the initial socialist measures.
It is not surprising, then, that the April theses of Lenin were
condemned as Trotskyist. – Leon Trotsky, History of the Russian
Revolution
The 'legend of Trotskyism'
In The Stalin School of Falsification, Trotsky
argues that what he calls the "legend of Trotskyism" was formulated
by Zinoviev and
Kamenev in
collaboration with Stalin in 1924, in response to the criticisms
Trotsky raised of Politburo policy. Orlando
Figes argues that "The urge to silence Trotsky, and all
criticism of the Politburo, was in itself a crucial factor in
Stalin's rise to power."
During 1922–24, Lenin suffered a series of
strokes and became increasingly incapacitated. Before his death in
1924, Lenin, while describing Trotsky as "distinguished not only by
his exceptional abilities – personally he is, to be sure, the most
able man in the present Central Committee", criticized him for
"showing excessive preoccupation with the purely administrative
side of the work" and "non-Bolshevism", and also requested that
Stalin be removed from his position of General Secretary, but his
notes remained suppressed until 1956. Zinoviev and Kamenev broke
with Stalin in 1925 and joined Trotsky in 1926 in what was known as
the United
Opposition.
In 1926, Stalin allied with Bukharin who then
led the campaign against "Trotskyism". In The Stalin School of
Falsification, Trotsky quotes Bukharin's 1918 pamphlet, From the
Collapse of Czarism to the Fall of the Bourgeoisie, which was
re-printed by the party publishing house, Proletari, in 1923. In
this pamphlet, Bukharin explains and embraces Trotsky's theory of
permanent revolution, writing: "The Russian proletariat is
confronted more sharply than ever before with the problem of the
international revolution … The grand total of relationships which
have arisen in Europe leads to this inevitable conclusion. Thus,
the permanent revolution in Russia is passing into the European
proletarian revolution." Yet it is common knowledge, Trotsky
argues, that three years later, in 1926, "Bukharin was the chief
and indeed the sole theoretician of the entire campaign against
'Trotskyism', summed up in the struggle against the theory of the
permanent revolution."
Trotsky wrote that the Left
Opposition grew in influence throughout the 1920s, attempting
to reform the Communist Party. But in 1927 Stalin declared "civil
war" against them:
During the first ten years of its struggle, the
Left Opposition did not abandon the program of ideological conquest
of the party for that of conquest of power against the party. Its
slogan was: reform, not revolution. The bureaucracy, however, even
in those times, was ready for any revolution in order to defend
itself against a democratic reform. In 1927, when the struggle
reached an especially bitter stage, Stalin declared at a session of
the Central Committee, addressing himself to the Opposition: “Those
cadres can be removed only by civil war!” What was a threat in
Stalin’s words became, thanks to a series of defeats of the
European proletariat, a historic fact. The road of reform was
turned into a road of revolution. – Trotsky, Leon, Revolution
Betrayed, p279, Pathfinder (1972)
Defeat of the European working class led to
further isolation in Russia, and further suppression of the
Opposition. Trotsky argued that the "so-called struggle against
'Trotskyism' grew out of the bureaucratic reaction against the
October Revolution [of 1917]". He responded to the one sided civil
war with his Letter to the Bureau of Party History, (1927),
contrasting what he claimed to be the falsification of history with
the official history of just a few years before. He further accused
Stalin of derailing the Chinese revolution, and causing the
massacre of the Chinese workers:
In the year 1918, Stalin, at the very outset of
his campaign against me, found it necessary, as we have already
learned, to write the following words: “All the work of practical
organization of the insurrection was carried out under the direct
leadership of the Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, comrade
Trotsky…” (Stalin, Pravda, Nov. 6, 1918) With full responsibility
for my words, I am now compelled to say that the cruel massacre of
the Chinese proletariat and the Chinese Revolution at its three
most important turning points, the strengthening of the position of
the trade union agents of British imperialism after the General
Strike of 1926, and, finally, the general weakening of the position
of the Communist International and the Soviet Union, the party owes
principally and above all to Stalin. – Trotsky, Leon, The Stalin
School of Falsification, p87, Pathfinder (1971)
Trotsky was sent into internal exile and his
supporters were jailed. Victor Serge, for instance, first "spent
six weeks in a cell" after a visit at midnight, then 85 days in an
inner GPU cell, most of it in solitary confinement. He details the
jailings of the Left Opposition. The Left Opposition, however,
continued to work in secret within the Soviet Union. Trotsky was
eventually exiled to Turkey. He moved from there to Norway, and
finally to Mexico.
After 1928, the various Communist Parties
throughout the world expelled Trotskyists from their ranks. Most
Trotskyists defend the economic achievements of the planned economy
in the Soviet Union during the 1920's and 1930's, despite the
"misleadership" of the soviet bureaucracy, and what they claim to
be the loss of democracy. Trotskyists claim that in 1928 inner
party democracy, and indeed soviet democracy, which was at the
foundation of Bolshevism, had been destroyed within the various
Communist Parties. Anyone who disagreed with the party line was
labeled a Trotskyist and even a fascist.
In 1937, Stalin again unleashed a political
terror against the Left Opposition and many of the remaining
'Old
Bolsheviks' (those who had played key roles in the October
Revolution in 1917), in the face of increased opposition,
particularly in the army.
Degenerated workers' state
Trotsky developed the theory that the Russian
workers' state had become a "degenerated
workers' state." Capitalist rule had not been restored, and
nationalized industry and economic planning, instituted under
Lenin, were still in effect. However, Trotskyists claim that the
state was controlled by a bureaucratic caste with interests hostile
to those of the working class. Stalinism was a
counter-revolutionary force.
Trotsky defended the Soviet Union against attack
from foreign powers and against internal counter-revolution,
but called for a political
revolution within the USSR to bring about his version of
socialist democracy: "The bureaucracy can be removed only by a
revolutionary force". He argued that if the working class did not
take power away from the "Stalinist" bureaucracy, the bureaucracy
would restore capitalism in order to enrich itself. In the view of
many Trotskyists, this is exactly what has happened since the
beginning of Glasnost and
Perestroika in
the USSR. Some argue that the adoption of market
socialism by the
People's Republic of China has also led to capitalist
counter-revolution. Many of Trotsky's criticisms of Stalinism were
described in his book, The
Revolution Betrayed.
"Trotskyist" has been used by "Stalinists" to
mean a traitor; in the Spanish
Civil War, being called a "Trot," "Trotskyist" or "Trotskyite"
by the USSR-supported elements implied that the person was some
sort of fascist spy or agent
provocateur. For instance, George
Orwell, a prominent Anti-Stalinist writer,
wrote about this practice in his book Homage
to Catalonia and in his essay Spilling the Spanish Beans. In
his book Animal Farm,
an allegory for the Russian Revolution, he represented Trotsky with
the character "Snowball"
and Stalin with the character "Napoleon."
Emmanuel
Goldstein in Orwell's Nineteen
Eighty-Four has also been linked to Trotsky.
In 1937 Trotsky wrote: To maintain itself,
Stalinism is now forced to conduct a direct civil war against
Bolshevism, under the name of "Trotskyism," not only in the USSR
but also in Spain. The old Bolshevik Party is dead, but Bolshevism
is raising its head everywhere. To deduce Stalinism from Bolshevism
or from Marxism is the same as to deduce, in a larger sense,
counterrevolution from revolution. – Trotsky, Leon, Stalinism and
Bolshevism 1937, in Living Marxism, No. 18, April 1990.
Stalin put out a general call for the
assassination of Trotsky, and he was finally killed with an
ice axe
in Mexico in
1940, by
Ramon
Mercader, a Spanish supporter of Stalin, under direct
orders from the GPU.
Founding of the Fourth International
In 1938, Trotsky and the organisations that supported his outlook established the Fourth International. He said that only the Fourth International, basing itself on Lenin's theory of the vanguard party, could lead the world revolution, and that it would need to be built in opposition to both the capitalists and the Stalinists.Trotsky argued that the defeat of the German
working class and the coming to power of Hitler in 1933 was due in
part to the mistakes of the Third Period
policy of the Communist International and that the subsequent
failure of the Communist Parties to draw the correct lessons from
those defeats showed that they were no longer capable of reform,
and a new international organisation of the working class must be
organised.
At the time of the founding of the Fourth
International in 1938 Trotskyism was a mass political current in
Vietnam,
Sri
Lanka and slightly later Bolivia. There was
also a substantial Trotskyist movement in China which included the
founding father of the Chinese Communist movement, Chen Duxiu,
amongst its number. Wherever Stalinists gained power, they made it
a priority to hunt down Trotskyists and treated them as the worst
of enemies.
The Fourth International suffered repression and
disruption through the Second World War. Isolated from each other,
and faced with political developments quite unlike those
anticipated by Trotsky, some Trotskyist organizations decided that
the USSR no longer could be called a degenerated
workers state and withdrew from the Fourth International. After
1945
Trotskyism was smashed as a mass movement in Vietnam and
marginalised in a number of other countries.
The
International Secretariat of the Fourth International organised
an international conference in 1946, and then World Congresses in
1948 and 1951 to assess the expropriation of the capitalists in
Eastern Europe and Yugoslavia, the threat of a Third World War, and
the tasks for revolutionaries. The Eastern European Communist-led
governments which came into being after World War
II without a social revolution were described by a
resolution of the 1948 congress as presiding over capitalist
economies. By 1951, the Congress had concluded that they had become
"deformed
workers' states." As the Cold War
intensified, the FI's 1951 World Congress adopted theses by
Michel
Pablo that anticipated an international civil war. Pablo's
followers considered that the Communist Parties, insofar as they
were placed under pressure by the real workers' movement, could
escape Stalin's manipulations and follow a revolutionary
orientation.
The 1951 Congress argued that Trotskyists should
start to conduct systematic work inside those Communist Parties
which were followed by the majority of the working class. However,
the ISFI's
view that the Soviet leadership was counter-revolutionary remained
unchanged. The 1951 Congress argued that the Soviet Union took over
these countries because of the military and political results of
World War II, and instituted nationalized property relations only
after its attempts at placating capitalism failed to protect those
countries from the threat of incursion by the West.
Pablo began expelling large numbers of people who
did not agree with his thesis and who did not want to dissolve
their organizations within the Communist Parties. For instance, he
expelled the majority of the French section and replaced its
leadership. As a result, the opposition to Pablo eventually rose to
the surface, with an open letter to Trotskyists of the world, by
Socialist Workers Party leader James P.
Cannon.
The Fourth International split in 1953 into two
public factions. The
International Committee of the Fourth International was
established by several sections of the International as an
alternative centre to the International Secretariat, in which they
felt a revisionist
faction led by Michel Pablo had taken power. From 1960, a number of
ICFI sections started to reunify with the IS. After the 1963
reunification congress which established the
reunified Fourth International, the French and British sections
maintained the ICFI. Other groups took different paths and
originated the present complex map of Trotskyist groupings.
Trotskyist movements
Latin America
Trotskyism has had some influence in some recent major social upheavals, particularly in Latin America. In particular, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez declared himself to be a Trotskyist during his swearing in of his cabinet two days before his own inauguration on 10 January 2007.The
Bolivian Trotskyist party (Partido Obrero Revolucionario, POR)
became a mass party in the period of the late 1940s and early
1950s, and together with other groups played a central role during
and immediately after the period termed the Bolivian National
Revolution.
In Brazil, as an officially recognised platform
or faction of the PT, the Trotskyist Movimento Convergência
Socialista (CS), now the
United Socialist Workers' Party saw a number of its members
elected to national, state and local legislative bodies during the
1980s. Today the
Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL) is described as Trotskyist.
Its presidential candidate in the 2006 general elections,
Heloísa Helena is termed a Trotskyist who was a member of the
Workers
Party of Brazil (PT), a legislative deputy in Alagoas and in
1999 was elected to the Federal Senate. Expelled from the PT in
December 2003, she helped found PSOL, in which various Trotskyist
groups play a prominent role.
During the 1980s in Argentina, the Trotskyist
party founded in 1982 by Nahuel
Moreno, MAS, (Movimiento al Socialismo, Movement Toward
Socialism), claimed to be the "largest Trotskyist party" in the
world, before it broke into a number of different fragments in the
late 1980s, including the present-day MST. During the 1980s it
obtained around 10% of the electorate, representing 3.5 million
voters.. Today the Workers'
Party in Argentina has an electoral base in Salta Province in
the far north, particularly in the city of Salta itself, and has
become the third political force in the provinces of Tucuman, also
in the north, and Santa Cruz, in the south.
Asia
In Indochina during the 1930s, Vietnamese Trotskyism led by Ta Thu Thau was a significant current, particularly in Saigon.In Sri Lanka, the Sri
Lankan Trotskyist party (LSSP) expelled its pro-Moscow wing in
1940, becoming a Trotskyist-led party. In the general election of
1947 the LSSP became the main opposition party, winning 10 seats.
It joined the Trotskyist Fourth International in 1950, and led a
general strike (Hartal) in 1953.
Europe
In France, 10% of the electorate voted in 2002 for parties calling themselves Trotskyist.In the UK in the 1980s, the entrist Militant
tendency won three members of parliament and effective control
of Liverpool City Council while in the Labour Party. Described as
"Britain's fifth most important political party" in 1986 it led the
1989–1991 mass anti-poll tax movement which was widely thought to
have led to the downfall of British Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher.
Trotskyism today
There is a wide range of Trotskyist organisations around the world. These include but are not limited to:The reunified Fourth International
The reunified Fourth International derives from the 1963 reunification of the majorities of the two public factions into which the FI split in 1953: the International Secretariat of the Fourth International (ISFI) and the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). It is often referred to as the United Secretariat of the Fourth International, the name of its leading committee before 2003. It is widely described as the largest contemporary Trotskyist organisation. http://ito.gn.apc.org/page24.html, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_for_a_Workers'_International, http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=3&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cpgb.org.uk%2Fworker%2F496%2Fletters.html&ei=YbC8RPyaAsPswQHFpvmwCg&sig2=-UoAv1g3pFvDGnm0MOVELA. Its best known section is the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire of France.In many countries its sections work within
working class parties, and alliances, in which Trotskyists are a
minority.
Committee for a Workers' International
The Committee for a Workers' International (CWI) was founded in 1974 and now has sections in over 35 countries. Before 1997, most organisations affiliated to the CWI sought to build an entrist Marxist wing within the large social democratic parties. Since the early 1990s it has argued that most social democratic parties have moved so far to the right that there is little point trying to work within them. Instead the CWI has adopted a range of tactics, mostly seeking to build independent parties, but in some cases working within other broad working-class parties.International Socialist Tendency
The International Socialist Tendency, led by the Socialist Workers Party, the largest Trotskyist group in Britain .Internationalist Communist Union
In France, the LCR is rivalled by Lutte Ouvrière. That group is the French section of the Internationalist Communist Union (UCI). UCI has small sections in a handful of other countries. It focuses its activities, whether propaganda or intervention, within the industrial proletariat.International Marxist Tendency
The Committee for a Marxist International (CMI) split from CWI, when CWI abandoned entryism. Since 2006, it has been known as the International Marxist Tendency (IMT). CMI/IMT groups continue the policy of entering mainstream social democratic, communist or radical parties. In Pakistan, the group had three MPs elected as candidates of the Pakistan Peoples Party. Leading figures in CMI/IMT are Ted Grant (who died in 2006) and Alan Woods.International Committee of the Fourth International
There used to be several groups claiming the name of International Committee of the Fourth International, but now only two remain. Further, only one of these ICFIs has national groups in more than one country. Its sections are called Socialist Equality Parties and publish the World Socialist Web Site.Others
The list of Trotskyist internationals shows that there are a large number of other multinational tendencies that stand in the tradition of Leon Trotsky. Some Trotskyist organisations are only organised in one country.References
External links
trotskyist in Asturian: Trotskismu
trotskyist in Breton: Trotskiouriezh
trotskyist in Bulgarian: Троцкизъм
trotskyist in Catalan: Trotskisme
trotskyist in Czech: Trockismus
trotskyist in Danish: Trotskisme
trotskyist in German: Trotzkismus
trotskyist in Estonian: Trotskism
trotskyist in Modern Greek (1453-):
Τροτσκισμός
trotskyist in Spanish: Trotskismo
trotskyist in Esperanto: Trockismo
trotskyist in French: Trotskisme
trotskyist in Galician: Trotskismo
trotskyist in Korean: 트로츠키주의
trotskyist in Icelandic: Trotskíismi
trotskyist in Italian: Trotskismo
trotskyist in Hebrew: טרוצקיזם
trotskyist in Georgian: ტროცკიზმი
trotskyist in Hungarian: Trockizmus
trotskyist in Dutch: Trotskisme
trotskyist in Japanese: トロツキズム
trotskyist in Norwegian: Trotskisme
trotskyist in Norwegian Nynorsk:
Trotskisme
trotskyist in Polish: Trockizm
trotskyist in Portuguese: Trotskismo
trotskyist in Romanian: Troţkism
trotskyist in Russian: Троцкизм
trotskyist in Simple English: Trotskyism
trotskyist in Finnish: Trotskilaisuus
trotskyist in Swedish: Trotskism
trotskyist in Turkish: Troçkizm
trotskyist in Chinese: 托洛茨基主义