What do you know about Trotsky's theoretical contributions to Marxism, e.g., Permanent Revolution and the theory of the USSR as a degenerated workers state? What do you know about Trotsky's revolutionary activities in Russia and his contribution to organizing the first successful workers state? What do you know about Trotsky's opposition to the bureaucratization of the Soviet Union under Stalin? What do you know about the founding of the Fourth International and it's historical development after Trotsky was murdered?
Non-Trotskyists, what do you know about Trotskyism and what do you disagree with?
Trotsky didn't come up with the idea of permanent revolution, hes just the person mostly associated with it.
It was never a workers state to begin with.
Hes a murderer, never forget Kronstadt. He tried to turn the USSR into a workers army, which had nothing to do with establishing socialism and was just a blatant power grab for the state.
I think if he were in charge instead of Stalin things wouldn't have been much better, but obviously theirs no way to prove that so it doesn't really matter.
Trotskiest went "were gonna build our own workers revolution, with black jack, hookers, and international communism!"
Angel Gutierrez
Trotsky was nothing more then an unprincipled wrecker sabouter who contributed nothing to the creation of socialism. His purpose was to tear down what exists rather then building it up (so he made his living on negativity about the Soviet Union rather then doing anything positive with his life). It is in this sense that he was an unprincipled wrecker. He wanted to wreck any chance of the Soviet Union achieving any success right from the start by constantly invoking war with the entire capitalist world with his theory of permanent imperialism which is why he wrecked peace negotiations with Germany in WW1.
Matthew Brown
I'd say I'm a "trotskyist" simply out of anti stalinism, not for any hypocritical love of Trotsky as a prophet or saviour, which the stalinists will no doubt try to pin on people like they do in every thread.
The USSR was a degenerated workers state while Trotsky was alive, but certainly after a point it lost it's ability for reforms to bring building socialism back, and the only outcome possible was a return to full cree market capitalism instead.
The biggest claim by stalinists is that Trotsky was a fascist and a wrecker trying to destroy Bolshevism, but it should be obvious that this is just slander designed to kill any opposition to stalinism, with their evidence coming down to 'Stalin said so', or admissions under torture that people plotted with Trotsky to do this or that terrorist act.
The fourth international was a brave but hopeless act, as non stalinist style socialism was dead and would be dead for at least a century. This lead to the splitting and failures, since the ideas of Trotsky have really only been able to focus on capitalism rather than anti stalinism since the breakup of the USSR, and even then it seems like it's a daily struggle with people supporting Stalin popping up here and there.
But I'm only a trot because I'm not a Stalinist. Really I just call myself a communist.
Xavier Kelly
Trots are just tanks with a different figurehead
Nathaniel Bennett
Why do stalinists use this particular word with Trotsky so much? Is it because Stalin said it and now you all have to repeat it forever?
Isaiah Phillips
it's the serious Trots who will actually know what to do as socialism grows in the US
Michael Jenkins
No Trotskyists are unprincipled wreckers and saboteurs they only wreck things rather then building them up. Its worth noticing that Trotskyists have never built anything anywhere. The only system of socialism that has ever achieved any noticeable success in the world is Marxism-Leninism. Stalin at least built up the Soviet Union, and defended it from the greatest attack in human history by the fascists even staying in Moscow to do so well Trotsky only focused on negativity and built up nothing. People want to see a movement actually build up something like socialism.
So if ultralefts (trots, anarchists, etc) want people to support them at all they need to actually building something up to demonstrate their success. I'd actually be interested in seeing that. But at the moment basically either you are a Marxist-Leninist or you don't really support anyone.
Gavin Cook
Lol.
Liam Watson
When has socialism ever achieved any noticeable success without using Marxism-Leninism?
Josiah Lopez
But what about the seizure of power on behalf of the soviets? These were democratically elected councils that represented the masses of Russian workers and large numbers of peasants.
The Kronstadters that provided invaluable aid during the revolution and the Civil War were not the same Kronstadters of the rebellion. The Kronstadt rebellion was an attack on the workers state by armed peasants in pursuit of petty bourgeois interests. It's an old anarchist slander.
Trotsky and Stalin represented opposed conceptions socialism. Stalin represented the most conservative layers of the bureaucracy that were more concerned with national intersts and advanced the theory of socialism in one country in line with those interests. Trotsky was the genuine revolutionary–co-leader of the Bolshevik revolution with Lenin–and he never gave up on the perspective of internationalism and world socialist revolution.
Give me muh Leninism!
Nathaniel Hernandez
by that argument we would stay in capitalism without complaining because at least they built something succesful, and it lasted more years than ML
Brody Flores
Ancient Stalinist falsifications with no basis in fact. Before Hitler came to power Trotsky was raising the alarm against fascism, while the Stalinists took up the criminal slogan "After Hitler, us."
Hunter Hernandez
Actually, Lenin, Stalin, and Sverdlov all agreed on the important points of supporting the October revolution and then passing the treaty of brest litovsk to make peace with Germany. Trotsky was closer to the left communists in that he opposed Lenin and the decision to make peace during the revolution. Sverdlov, who unfortunately died young due to the Spanish flu, was especially important in the early stages of the revolution. He was basically responsible for organizing the revolution into a disciplined, organized force.
Zachary Diaz
How is that a measure of what is a correct theory to follow?
Why would you follow an idea even after it failed to build socialism? Why not learn from your mistakes.
Why are you not in support of social democracy for the same reasons, since it has quite a bit of success?
Stalin was just a wrecker and a fascist and a cuck and Islamic.
Michael Adams
Here's a new thought though, how about some discussion on the topic in the OP rather than the usual arguments about how Stalin actually planned everything to win WWII?
Anthony Nelson
You think that makes Trotsky special? The German socialist Zetkin wrote about the dangers of German fascism in 1923. Trotsky supported continuing the war during world war one against Germany just like Mussolini.
Previously successes give us an idea as to what might work.
Why can't Marxist-Leninists learn from their mistakes as well?
Social democracy might have some advantages in normal conditions if society is productive then its good to build things up rather then tearing them down with senseless rioting. But during a major crisis (like world war one) where the wealth of society is massively being destroyed then a revolution to end the war can be productive.
Justin Morris
Trotsky fought tirelessly for a program that could have prevented the Nazis from coming to power in Germany. Trotsky called for a united front of Communist workers and Social Democratic workers against fascism. The SPD was a much larger and older party which many class conscious German workers held allegience to. In a fit of ultra-left sectarianism, the Stalinists refused to form a defensive alliance between Communist workers and Social Democratic workers on the basis that the Social Democrats were "social fascists" no better than the Nazis. Later the Stalinists would go on to form opportunistic "popular front" alliances with so-called "democratic" bourgeois parties in the imperialist countries.
Tyler James
No, it was not, near the end of his life Trotsky even said it was on of the biggest mistakes he ever made, not on any moral grounds though, just that the continuous backlash from it beat him down.
Trotsky was basically the light beer version of Stalin and should be remembered as such, as a murderer and a politician.
Benjamin Diaz
The SPD basically was social fascist. Mussolini used to be a well renowned member of the Italian socialist party until he took a chauvinistic pro-war stance. Likewise, the SPD took a pro-war stance when the war starting going. The SPD also played a key role in crushing the Spartacist uprising so there was mutual hostility there from the start. No alliance really was possible and the communists in Germany even tried this but it didn't work. Nothing could be done to stop the rise of fascism in Germany.
Likewise, there was basically nothing that could be done to stop the rise of fascism in Spain. Spain was geographically closer to Italy and Germany then it was to the Soviet Union making it hard for them to really get aid to them due to geography alone. Especially as the western colonial empires like the British and the French appeased the fascists as the war was going on. There was essentially nothing that could have been done. It seems to me that the Trotskyists are the ones that really believe in the great man theory as they believe that everything was Stalin's fault and if Trotsky was around somehow everything could have turned out differently.
At least, with Stalin they did achieve victory in WW2 against the fascists by 1945 which is about as good of a result as anyone could have asked for.
Sebastian Myers
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Alexander Cox
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He hardly even trots! Not someone who I would necessarily take as a "serious" Trotskyist ;)
Jonathan Walker
Granted, Kronstadt was Trotsky's fuck-up - he put his incompetent and corrupt flunky in charge, which led to the uprising - but only AnCap would consider suppressing Kronstadt a bad thing.
He was incompetent Marxist. A good journalist, but he proved to be lacking in both theory and practice. That's all there is to it.
Mind you, I don't even consider most "Trotskyist" actually Trotskyist. They are predominantly post-Trotskyist and no longer Marxist.
That would be Bukharin. Stalin represented orthodox layers of the Party.
