What is Trotskyism?
MA, Sociology (Freie Universität Berlin)
Date Published: 02.09.2024,
Last Updated: 02.09.2024
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Defining Trotskyism
Trotskyism refers to the ideologies of Leon Trotsky, who was one of the leaders of the Russian Revolution (1917) and a high-ranking official in the Soviet Union under Vladimir Lenin’s leadership. Trotsky was also poised to be Lenin’s successor in leading the Soviet Union, a post which instead went to his rival, Joseph Stalin. Trotsky remained a lifelong critic of Stalin and an opponent of the direction the Soviet Union took under his leadership—which were galvanizing forces in the development of Trotskyist ideology. As such,
Trotskyism [...] has posed itself as a science of revolution in opposition to the apparently immovable but supposedly hollow strength of the capitalist state and the degenerate caricature of socialism represented by the Stalinist tradition. In short, it has constituted a tradition of embalmed Leninism. (Willie Thompson, The Left in History, 1996)
Willie Thompson
Trotskyism [...] has posed itself as a science of revolution in opposition to the apparently immovable but supposedly hollow strength of the capitalist state and the degenerate caricature of socialism represented by the Stalinist tradition. In short, it has constituted a tradition of embalmed Leninism. (Willie Thompson, The Left in History, 1996)
In addition to his opposition to Stalinism, it’s also important to note that Trotsky’s work built upon Marxism, in that he believed society was divided between capitalist and working classes, where the latter was destined to eventually overthrow the former. He was also heavily influenced by Leninism, which adapted Karl Marx’s arguments to the context of feudal Russia, where there was no large industrial working class, that was politically educated in Marxist theory who would be ready to carry out the revolution.
The core tenets of Trotskyism are numerous, but some of the main principles associated with it are:
- The belief in the importance of a revolutionary vanguard party
- The development of a transitional program between capitalism and communism that took into account the daily struggles of workers
- The theory of permanent revolution
- A staunch critique of the Soviet Union
- The formation of the Fourth International
In this study guide, we will explore more about the dramatic life of Trotsky, go into depth about the tenets associated with Trotskyism, and cover the main points of criticism against it.
Leon Trotsky’s life and work
Trotsky is a figure that has long fascinated both historians and revolutionaries. The events of his life were filled with drama, tragedy, irony, and heroism. As Ian D. Thatcher writes in Trotsky,
The political life of L.D. Trotsky (1879–1940) is a biographer's delight. It includes a rise from village obscurity to seizing power in the capital of Russia; a fall in the struggle to be Lenin's successor; and a lengthy period of exile in which current and past events were analysed in numerous publications. The last period was to be cut short by a vicious assassination, in which an ice-pick was twice inserted into the victim's skull. (2005)
Ian D. Thatcher
The political life of L.D. Trotsky (1879–1940) is a biographer's delight. It includes a rise from village obscurity to seizing power in the capital of Russia; a fall in the struggle to be Lenin's successor; and a lengthy period of exile in which current and past events were analysed in numerous publications. The last period was to be cut short by a vicious assassination, in which an ice-pick was twice inserted into the victim's skull. (2005)
Indeed, his life was full of twists and turns, perhaps the most profound of which was his shift from being a staunch supporter of Bolshevism to one of the Soviet Union’s most vocal socialist critics.
Trotsky first rose to prominence because he played a leading role in the execution of the Russian Revolution at the turn of the 20th century. He was also a central figure in the Russian Civil War (1918-21) as well as in the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1922. He was seen as Lenin’s right-hand man and second in command, holding a variety of prominent positions as a commissar in Lenin’s government. When Lenin died in 1924, Trotsky was prepared to be his successor but was outflanked for this post by Stalin:
As Trotsky formed the ‘Left Opposition’ at the end of 1923, Stalin used his growing power over the party machine to stifle criticisms, and to isolate Trotsky and his supporters before the Thirteenth Party Conference. [...] Stalin also ensured most Left Opposition supporters failed to get selected as Conference delegates. (Allan Todd, Trotsky: The Passionate Revolutionary, 2022)
Allan Todd
As Trotsky formed the ‘Left Opposition’ at the end of 1923, Stalin used his growing power over the party machine to stifle criticisms, and to isolate Trotsky and his supporters before the Thirteenth Party Conference. [...] Stalin also ensured most Left Opposition supporters failed to get selected as Conference delegates. (Allan Todd, Trotsky: The Passionate Revolutionary, 2022)
As a result of such maneuvers, Trotsky was ultimately expelled from the Politburo, deported, and exiled from the USSR.
After living for some time in Turkey, Trotsky eventually relocated to Mexico in 1936 where he continued to write—both criticisms of the turn taken by the Soviet Union under Stalin and political theory more generally.
Trotsky’s agitations against Soviet centralization, bureaucracy, and most decisions taken by Stalin would eventually prove fatal. Along with fostering close friendships with the likes of other prominent figures of the day, such as Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, Trotsky, his family, and his supporters were subject to ongoing persecution by Stalin. Following the assassinations of all four of his children, Trotsky himself met his death at the orders of Stalin in 1940.
Key Tenets of Trotskyist ideology
As the previous section indicates, Trotsky’s career certainly didn’t come to a halt when he was expelled from the Soviet Union. Much of his enduring legacy lies in the writings he produced while in exile, which would form the core tenets of Trotskyism as an ideology. As Ernst Mandel summarizes Trotsky’s contributions,
Of all the important socialists of the twentieth century, it was Trotsky who recognized most clearly the main tendencies of development and the principal contradictions of the epoch, and it was Trotsky also who gave the clearest formulation to an appropriate emancipatory strategy for the international labour movement. (Trotsky as Alternative, 2020)
Ernst Mandel
Of all the important socialists of the twentieth century, it was Trotsky who recognized most clearly the main tendencies of development and the principal contradictions of the epoch, and it was Trotsky also who gave the clearest formulation to an appropriate emancipatory strategy for the international labour movement. (Trotsky as Alternative, 2020)
In the remainder of this study guide, we will extrapolate the central principles from Trotsky’s writings during his time in exile.
Vanguard party
Along with Lenin, Trotsky was concerned about the fact that, at the turn of the 20th century, Russia was not an industrialized society, like England where Marx theorized there was the possibility of a proletarian revolution. Rather, it was still ruled by the Czar, and its population was largely made up of peasants. For Marx, the existence of an organized industrial working class was a necessary precondition for revolutionary struggle. Therefore, Lenin argued for the formation of a vanguard party, where those smaller factions of society who were educated and organized—such as intellectuals and industrial workers—would form organizations to help advance the objectives of communism on behalf of the peasant masses.
Trotsky, however, initially had some issues with Lenin’s conception of a vanguard party, as he was suspicious of creating a tightly centralized authority that was separate from the masses. While he remained skeptical of the potential for such parties to tend towards authoritarianism and bureaucratization, he did come to share Lenin’s belief in the importance of a vanguard. In his essay “Stalinism and Bolshevism” (1937), Trotsky writes,
The proletariat can take power only through its vanguard. [...] In the revolutionary vanguard, organised in a party, is crystallised the aspiration of the masses to obtain their freedom. Without the confidence of the class in the vanguard, without support of the vanguard by the class, there can be no talk of the conquest of power. In this sense the proletarian revolution and dictatorship are the work of the whole class, but only under the leadership of the vanguard. [...] A revolutionary content can be given this form only by the party. (Leon Trotsky: Writings in Exile, 2012)
Edited by Kunal Chattopadhyay and Paul Le Blanc
The proletariat can take power only through its vanguard. [...] In the revolutionary vanguard, organised in a party, is crystallised the aspiration of the masses to obtain their freedom. Without the confidence of the class in the vanguard, without support of the vanguard by the class, there can be no talk of the conquest of power. In this sense the proletarian revolution and dictatorship are the work of the whole class, but only under the leadership of the vanguard. [...] A revolutionary content can be given this form only by the party. (Leon Trotsky: Writings in Exile, 2012)
Namely, during events such as the October Revolution in 1917, Trotsky saw firsthand the importance of having a disciplined and centralized party that was prepared to guide the transition from the mass overthrow of the ruling class to the actualization of socialism. He saw this as necessary to protect the revolution from being co-opted by capitalists or other elites.
Transitional program
For Trotsky, one of the tasks of the vanguard party must be to help balance the urgent daily needs of the peasant masses, such as securing enough bread to eat, while simultaneously guiding society toward the larger objective of achieving communism. Trotsky refers to this as the transitional program. Of it, he writes,
It is necessary to help the masses in the process of the daily struggle to find the bridge between present demand and the socialist programme of the revolution. This bridge should include a system of transitional demands, stemming from today’s conditions and from today’s consciousness of wide layers of the working class and unalterably leading to one final conclusion: the conquest of power by the proletariat. (“The Transitional Programme,” 1938, in Leon Trotsky: Writings in Exile, 2012)
In particular, the demands of the transitional program were meant to be adopted by societies that were agitating against capitalism toward a horizon of socialist revolution. They are formulated to be achievable before a revolution and are intended to push against the limits of capitalism.
Some such demands associated with the transitional program include implementing a sliding scale on wages and hours to reflect inflation, bringing about workers’ control of production in factories, and the nationalization of key industries (such as banking) by the state. Moreover, as part of the transitional program, Trotsky advocated for the formation of worker-led organizations such as soviets (councils) and labor unions—that were not co-opted by the interests of reformists through making compromises with the capitalists.
Permanent revolution
The case of Russia achieving a socialist revolution without first going through a stage of capitalist industrialization was instructive for Trotsky. From it, he developed the theory of permanent revolution, which stood in contrast to the Soviet orthodoxy of the day that argued a socialist revolution could only arise after the dissolution of feudalism and the emergence of the bourgeoisie and industrialized proletariat. According to the two-stage theory, feudal or predominantly agrarian societies could not successfully undergo a socialist revolution directly. Rather, the bourgeois-democratic stage—as seen for example in the case of the French Revolution in 1789—was a precondition to industrialization and introducing foundational democratic norms upon which socialist organization could then be built.
As Trotsky writes in his autobiography, however, it was still possible for the semi-feudalist Russian proletariat to achieve their revolutionary objectives,
The partial victory of the October strike had for me a tremendous theoretical as well as political importance. It was not the opposition of the liberal bourgeoisie, not the elemental risings of the peasantry or the terrorist acts of the intelligentsia, but the strike of the workers that for the first time brought Czarism to its knees. The revolutionary leadership of the proletariat revealed itself as an incontrovertible fact. I felt that the theory of permanent revolution had withstood its first test successfully. Revolution was obviously opening up to the proletariat the prospect of seizing the power. (My Life, 1930, [2012])
Leon Trotsky
The partial victory of the October strike had for me a tremendous theoretical as well as political importance. It was not the opposition of the liberal bourgeoisie, not the elemental risings of the peasantry or the terrorist acts of the intelligentsia, but the strike of the workers that for the first time brought Czarism to its knees. The revolutionary leadership of the proletariat revealed itself as an incontrovertible fact. I felt that the theory of permanent revolution had withstood its first test successfully. Revolution was obviously opening up to the proletariat the prospect of seizing the power. (My Life, 1930, [2012])
Thus, unlike Stalin—who argued that revolutions must occur in two stages: first, a bourgeois-democratic stage which could only then be followed by a second, socialist stage—Trotsky believed a total revolution could be achieved in a single stage. The key was that the proletariat formed alliances with the peasants and organized themselves under the leadership of the vanguard party. Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution had implications for countries in the global South, such as China, agitating for revolution under imperialism who had not yet gone through industrialization.
(To learn more about the theory of permanent revolution, along with contexts in which it has been applied, check out our study guide "What is Permanent Revolution?")
Critique of Stalin’s leadership of the Soviet Union
As we’ve already established, Trotsky was a very vocal critic and close analyst of the Soviet Union under Stalin’s leadership from 1924 onward. In fact, you might even say that Trotsky criticized nearly all decisions made under his rival’s leadership. He especially took issue with the ways in which Stalin made the Soviet Union increasingly bureaucratized and authoritarian, stifling any opposition and popular decision making by increasingly privileging the party. Trotsky also believed that Stalin’s leadership significantly weakened the Soviet Union and its integrity through constant falsifications. He, therefore, was even a proponent of political revolution within the Soviet Union. Trotsky also condemned the forced collectivization of agriculture, which led to widespread famine, along with the Great Purge of 1937 which led to the execution of Stalin’s opponents—including many of Trotsky’s allies. (For more on this, see Jonathan R Adelman's Terror And Communist Politics, [2019]).
On an international level, Trotsky also blamed Stalin for misguiding and insufficiently supporting the Chinese Revolution (1925-1927), for example, by advocating for the two-stage theory of revolution. Attempts to compromise with the national bourgeoisie in an effort to overthrow Japanese imperialist forces led to horrific massacres of Chinese peasants and socialists. As Trotsky solemnly asserts,
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 [...], 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. (The Stalin School of Falsification, 1937, [2019])
Leon Trotsky
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 [...], 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. (The Stalin School of Falsification, 1937, [2019])
Meanwhile, in other contexts, such as during the General Strike in Britain in 1926, Stalin’s Communist International (Comintern) took a far too rigid approach, discouraging British communists from compromising with other groups such as the social democrats—a strategy which also failed.
In sum, Trotsky believed Stalin’s leadership took the Soviet Union in a direction that ultimately betrayed the revolutionary ideals upon which it was founded, failed to support socialist struggles around the world, and instead turned the USSR into an unjust and authoritarian regime.
The Fourth International
Perhaps one of the most distinctive features of Trotskyism is its emphasis on internationalism. This was a sharp departure from Stalinism, which advocated for socialism in one country, planned around a highly centralized and bureaucratic system of governance. In contrast, Trotsky saw proletarian internationalism as crucial for a successful socialist revolution. These views culminated in his founding of the Fourth International in 1938, which was a break from the Stalinist Third International (Comintern) that sought to take over capitalist countries to form a single Soviet Republic.
The Fourth International sought to put forth Trotskyist ideologies, such as his notions of a vanguard party and permanent revolution, as the most effective path forward for bringing about socialist revolutions around the world. He believed international coalitions were key to this process. Otherwise, single nations were more likely to turn to authoritarianism in order to withstand the external pressures of an international political economy dominated by capitalism and imperialism.
He also believed that when industrialized countries underwent socialist revolution they could then help less developed nations on their path toward the same, a process he called uneven but combined development. In Trotsky's words,
The advanced workers, united in the Fourth International, show their class the way out of the crisis. They offer a programme based on international experience in the struggle of the proletariat and of all the oppressed of the world for liberation. They offer a spotless banner. Workers – men and women – of all countries, place yourselves under the banner of the Fourth International. It is the banner of your approaching victory! (“The Transitional Programme,” 1938, in Leon Trotsky: Writings in Exile, 2012)
Despite being subject to harsh repression by Stalinist forces, the Fourth International spread throughout the world, including in Asia and South America.
Criticisms of Trotskyism
Trotskyism has faced many criticisms among various factions on the left, particularly from Marxist-Leninists who are, by definition, supporters of the Soviet Union. In the following subsection, we will examine some of the issues in more depth to give a fuller picture of Trotsky’s work and theory including its potential pain points and oversights.
Marxist-Leninist critique
As we have already alluded to, Trotsky was seen as a highly threatening figure to Stalin and the doctrines of the Soviet Union more broadly—to the point that he was kicked out of the Politburo, exiled and eventually assassinated. By forming a vocal opposition and body of critique against the positions taken by Soviet leadership and orthodoxy, he was accused of undermining party unity. Even in the early 1920s as we already witness Stalin’s maneuvers to oust Trotsky on these grounds,
With only three delegates supporting Trotsky, the Conference formally condemned the views of Trotsky and the Forty-Six as a ‘petty bourgeois deviation from Leninism’, accusing them of ‘ultra-factionalism’ and disloyalty to the Politburo. (Todd, 2022)
While Stalin was notorious for being highly threatened by even perceived criticisms or disloyalty, one could argue that Trotsky’s vocal opposition could negatively impact people’s perceptions of the USSR’s power and legitimacy both within and outside of the Soviet Union.
Anti-authoritarian critique
Ironically, others have argued that Trotskyism is authoritarian in its own right, despite the way Trotsky relentlessly positioned himself in opposition to Stalinism and disparaged its authoritarian tendencies. One such critic is Paul Mattick who writes,
That there is nothing in the arsenal of Stalinism that cannot also be found in that of Lenin and Trotsky is attested to by the earlier writings of Trotsky himself. (Anti-Bolshevik Communism, 2017)
Paul Mattick
That there is nothing in the arsenal of Stalinism that cannot also be found in that of Lenin and Trotsky is attested to by the earlier writings of Trotsky himself. (Anti-Bolshevik Communism, 2017)
Mattick goes on to point out that Trotsky also supported the use of forced labor as a “socialist principle”.
In addition to advocating for forced labor, others—including anarchist figures like Emma Goldman—have directed their criticism of Trotsky’s authoritarian tendency toward his handling of the Kronstadt rebellion against the Bolsheviks in 1921. Trotsky, then a leader in the Soviet army, signed an order to brutally crush the insurrection. Of this Goldman stated,
Leon Trotsky will have it that criticism of his part in the Kronstadt tragedy is only to aid and abet his mortal enemy, Stalin. It does not occur to him that one might detest the savage in the Kremlin and his cruel regime and yet not exonerate Leon Trotsky from the crime against the sailors of Kronstadt. In point of truth I see no marked difference between the two protagonists of the benevolent system of the dictatorship except that Leon Trotsky is no longer in power to enforce its blessings, and Josef Stalin is. (Collected works by Emma Goldman, 2021)
Emma Goldman
Leon Trotsky will have it that criticism of his part in the Kronstadt tragedy is only to aid and abet his mortal enemy, Stalin. It does not occur to him that one might detest the savage in the Kremlin and his cruel regime and yet not exonerate Leon Trotsky from the crime against the sailors of Kronstadt. In point of truth I see no marked difference between the two protagonists of the benevolent system of the dictatorship except that Leon Trotsky is no longer in power to enforce its blessings, and Josef Stalin is. (Collected works by Emma Goldman, 2021)
Indeed, other concepts associated with Trotskyism, such as the “dictatorship of the proletariat —wherein the working class seizes political power and uses it to suppress the bourgeoisie— hold characteristics of authoritarianism—even if the proletariat are the ones in charge.
Speculative critique
As Goldman pointed out in the previous section, one of the crucial differences between Trotsky and Stalin is that Trotsky was not in a position of power to exercise his approach to governing. Therefore, others have argued that his work is almost entirely speculative, in that it’s easy to formulate a critical stance against the flawed actions taken by someone else while one watches from the sidelines. No doubt, Stalinist policy was often authoritarian and led to famine, mass death, and brutal repression across the Soviet Union.
The notion that Trotsky’s approach to governing would have avoided all of this is something that we can only speculate on. Particularly because his critics point out that Trotsky himself often miscalculated his judgments. For instance, Willie Thompson suggests that Trotsky tended to over-extrapolate the possibility of an event like the October Revolution in Russia to take place elsewhere:
The flaw was rather in the perception that a repetition of the October Revolution was likely or even possible on the territory of the developed nations. The misjudgment was in the end of the ‘subjective factor’ – the willingness of industrial workforces with long traditions of ‘peaceful’ and ‘constitutional’ practice to commit themselves to revolutionary enterprises [...] All subsequent events were read against the template of Europe between 1917 and 1919 and there developed an incorrigible tendency, apparent even in Trotsky’s own lifetime, to take limited and partial developments such as major strikes or government crises for signals that the masses were ready to move into revolutionary action. (The Left in History, 1996)
As a result of this tendency, Trotsky ignored the particular conditions under which revolutions were being waged—able to remain idealistic, while writing from his desk, of the struggles he was commenting on—such as the potential need to compromise to some degree with the national bourgeoisie in order to first overthrow imperialist powers in cases such as China. Indeed, even if he has garnered followers around the world, there never has been a Trotskyist revolution to speak of.
Closing thoughts
The legacy of Trotsky’s work remains prominent in leftist movements around the world, as well as in historical analysis and political theory. In particular, the concept of permanent revolution continues to serve as a guiding principle for revolutionary socialists in the global South, as a means of overthrowing imperialist and capitalist exploitation. The internationalist emphasis on Trotskyist ideology also brings leftist organizations into conversation with each other to foster collaboration between movements across Latin America, Europe, and Asia.
Thus, there are still many Trotskyists who are dedicated to his ideas nearly a century after his death. Though there are some important critiques to be made of this ideology—in that it can be prone to factionalism within larger movements, can be dogmatic in similar ways to Marxist-Lenininism, and is perhaps overly idealistic about its views of the Russian Revolution and the potential to replicate it today—Trotsky’s works and contributions remain salient. His critiques of the Soviet Union have invited more nuance and robustness to leftist movements, enabling them to move away from Marxist orthodoxy, to center more democratic decision-making processes in their respective organizations, and to promote more transnational solidarity worldwide.
Further reading on Perlego
Contemporary Trotskyism: Parties, Sects and Social Movements in Britain (2018) by John Kelly
Trotskyism in the United States: Historical Essays and Reconsiderations (2016) by Paul Le Blanc, Alan Wald, and George Breitman
Revolutions (2020) by Michael Löwy
Trotsky: A Study in the Dynamic of His Thought (2017) by Ernest Mandel
Collected Works of Marxism, Anarchism, Communism (2021) by Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, Peter Kropotkin, et al.
What is Trotskyism in simple terms?
Who was Leon Trotsky?
What are some core elements of Trotskyist ideology?
Bibliography
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Trotsky, L. (2012) “Stalinism and Bolshevism” in Chattopadhyay, K., and Le Blanc, P. (eds.) Leon Trotsky: Writings in Exile. Pluto Press. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/665111/leon-trotsky-writings-in-exile
Trotsky, L. (2012) “The Transitional Programme,” in Chattopadhyay, K., and Le Blanc, P. (eds.) Leon Trotsky: Writings in Exile. Pluto Press. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/665111/leon-trotsky-writings-in-exile
MA, Sociology (Freie Universität Berlin)
Lily Cichanowicz has a master's degree in Sociology from Freie Universität Berlin and a dual bachelor's degree from Cornell University in Sociology and International Development. Her research interests include political economy, labor, and social movements. Her master's thesis focused on the labor shortages in the food service industry following the Covid-19 pandemic.