Why do people here hate trotskyism here...

You cannot change the course of history though. Trotskyists aren't marxists.

If one goes back to Trotsky's quarrel with Lenin in 1903-4 and in the following years, in the "Menshevik" period of his life, one must admit that he rightly saw the flaw in the Kautsky-Lenin view that "class consciousness" arises outside the workers' movement, and is then introduced into it by the "party." This is explained in Our Political Tasks, although it is considerably blurred by many other ideas. Trotsky refutes Lenin's conception from a democratic point of view: he does not see communism as the abolition of the commodity economy and the creation of a new world, but as the rule of the workers over society. Therefore he attacks Lenin for substituting the party for the proletariat. But Lenin's theory must be refuted from another angle: Lenin fails to grasp what Marx had tried to show. Transformed into a commodity, having all aspects of its life turned into commodities, the proletariat, when capital forces it to revolt (for instance, after a crisis), cannot avoid destroying the market economy and all its consequences on labour, personal relations, affective life, use of space and nature, representation, etc. Lenin, like all the militants of the Second International, failed to see that the communist program was within the proletariat. More generally, these people ignored the dynamics of capital, and what communism really is. All the contributions to the breakdown controversy (Luxemburg, Hilferding, etc.), most of which had a purely economic conception, saw the problem from the point of view of capital: why it could not work, and not from the point of view of the proletariat: how the revolt of the workers led to new social relations. This is not to say that communism only emerges out of the action of the workers. On the contrary, the workers only attack capital if it attacks them because of its inner problems (fall of the rate of profit, etc.). But it is not enough to understand economic crises; one also has to understand what they imply for the proletariat.

This was not understood at that time, owing to the overall stability and prosperity. But it led revolutionaries to make a series of mistakes. One of them was to misunderstand the workers' movement, which at that time could only be reformist, and also the social-democratic movement, which could only be evolutionary (with few exceptions). Only the collapse of the International in 1914 really taught them what social-democratic parties really stood for.

Trotsky's conception of the permanent revolution in Russia can only be studied in this context. He thought that, after the democratic revolution (which could only be made by the workers and peasants, as the bourgeoisie was too weak: Lenin agreed about that), the workers could not avoid going further, and would quickly take power for themselves - with the support of the small peasants - to introduce socialism. This is where Lenin did not agree. Now it is obvious that communism - as Marx and communist theory define it - was impossible at that stage in Russia, because of the huge pre-capitalist sector. Trotsky did not care about that, because to him socialism was equivalent to workers' power. This is what I mean about his democratic conception of the revolution. However, communism is a transformation of social life, not just its management by the masses.

Despite, or rather because of this conception, Trotsky was able to play a much larger role in the 1905 revolution (because he was much closer to the workers) than Lenin, whose centralist and rigid position in the 1903 split had alienated him from many active workers. Lenin also did not trust spontaneous movements. It is even possible that the 1905 events helped him modify his own position and become more efficient in the period from 1906 to 1914.

During the war, Trotsky's internationalism, like Luxemburg's, was not as radical, as the position Lenin expressed with his slogan: transform the imperialist war into a civil war.

After he joined the Bolsheviks, Trotsky clearly showed that he hardly understood what was going on. He had formerly identified socialism with workers' power; he now identified workers' power with party power. From this he concluded that Russia was building socialism. In Communism and Terrorism he stated that the duty of the worker was to obey the (workers') State and that socialism meant discipline and high productivity of labour. Lenin acted the same way, but he was at least aware of the notion of communism. He more or less realised that Russia was not socialist and could only be socialist with the help of Europe.

One must be very accurate on this question. Trotsky actually believed that capitalism could be avoided in Russia, even with no revolution in Europe. It is true that he did not go so far as to believe that Russia was completely socialist. This is why he had to invent the notion of an intermediate stage, neither capitalist nor socialist, and a fantastic theory of Bonapartism.

Trotsky took a very active part in the suppression of all opposition which had some communist content. His own opposition was opportunistic (alliance with Zinoviev in 1926) and he was afraid of becoming a threat to the State. He organised his own defeat. How many people know that in 1925-6 he refrained from all political activity for about a year and a half? There is no need to insist on this.

On the international level, he proved unable to understand the real efforts of communist minorities and he supported the Communist International in all its mistakes (activity within unions and parliament, "mass" parties, slogan of workers' government, etc.). After he was expelled from Russia, he was totally unable to establish any sort of useful contact with revolutionary groups. He refused to question the validity of the notorious "first four congresses of the Communist International." He was both a sectarian and an opportunist. He had an altogether administrative view of revolution. In France, for instance, he supported people who had neither proletarian ties nor revolutionary abilities, but were left-wing intellectuals. A list of all his political blunders would be amazing. Looking for a mass following, he urged his supporters to join socialist parties. He founded an International which had a program but no proletariat. He was always looking for a new magic device with which to go to the masses, and always failed.

In fact he had no program. He must be regarded as an active militant, full of activity and ability, lacking a communist theoretical background. He was excellent in the midst of a rising movement, as in 1905, but he went completely wrong in a declining movement. Then he could become the worst bureaucrat if he was in power, or a troublemaker if he had no power. It is doubtful that he ever had a theory of his own, except for the theory of permanent revolution - and we do not know exactly what role Parvus played in the creation of this theory.

Trotsky only became an important figure as a symbol of the Russian revolution. After the defeat of the revolutionary movement, he remained important only because of the weakness of the communist minority.

Intresting

Op here I'm not a trot but how is he a succdem?

How so?

see

Trotsky didn't understand communism, thought a party for the proletariat = socialism and supported all kinds of avenues that would fall under social democracy nowadays.

This image tells me nothing tho

Nvm you meant what the leftcom said

Because Trotsky is responsible for the existence of trotskyists.

We hate Trotskyism because it isn't anything

He wouldn't have made the USSR good at all

Only tankies and people who bought into a Stalinist propaganda hate Trotsky.His ideas, especially in the late period, were not that different from ideas of Lenin after all.
Most of the left either like him in some way or just don't care about him.
I may not agree on stuff with him, especially in a historical context, but I still respect him for his revolutionary passion and consider "Revolution Betrayed" on of the most important works on understanding what went wrong with USSR.

Everyone hates Trotsky. Hell, a few posts up we saw a Leftcom effortlessly dismantling Trotsky.

That's exactly what they associate communism with now anyway

Shouldn't that image be marked "Trotskyism"? Not all "Leninists" accept Hotsky as their spiritual liege.

I'm no fan of Stalin, but if Trotsky had taken power instead of him we'd probably just have a world thats exactly the same but with the roles switched.

Trotsky seemed cool, but Trot's are fucking awful

They are just spooked by the USSR propaganda.
He haven't even done anything or had some specific ideas that were so much different from the rest of the communists back then.
He just ended up a huge pain in the ass for Stalin and so the Trotsky hate wagon started.

Who knows, Trotsky might have been even more retarded and antagonized the Western powers sufficiently to make them willing to throw Poland under the bus if that's what it took to get the Germans to take out the USSR.

Trotsky had more talent as a military general than Stalin. Barbarossa could've been avoided.

trotsky had some good ideas. trotskyists are 9/10 times annoying useless newpaper selling retards who enter than break up parties because muh purity.

It's an edit of this, which is the original. The implication is that Leninism was never a term Lenin himself used, and that it's used a lot as a mouthpiece for other ideologues (usually MLs) to justify their beliefs through Lenin. Trotskyists also believe that Trotsky had the right interpretation of Lenin and is the true heir to Lenin, so that's why.

The problem with trots is typified by SAlt's about page
socialistalternative.org/about/
I'm mean, look at this shit, it's just a fucking social democracy.

I think the whole concept of "troskysm" was first invented by Stalin as an umbrella term of all the communists who were critiquing him.

much like shia islam, trotskyism is the light and the true successor to the red prophet

Behead all Stalinist heretics

Oh I know that. Stalinists love painting anyone they don't like as trots, anarchists or fascists. Look that them calling social democracy social fascism or puping anyone they didn't like because they are trots somehow.

*purging.

At least provide the source for your copy-pasta.
theoryandpractice.org.uk/library/notes-trotsky-pannekoek-bordiga-gilles-dauvé-jean-barrot-1972

Holy shit you weren't kidding.
>Socialism and Internationalism: Take into public ownership the top 500 corporations and banks that dominate the U.S. economy. Run them under the democratic management of elected representatives of the workers and the broader public. Compensation to be paid on the basis of proven need to small investors, not millionaires.

Hitler came up with the idea for Barbarossa before Stalin even rose to power. He would have launched his quest for Lebensraum no matter who was in charge. Trotsky may have been more adept at countering the operation though. Not killing all officers would be a good start…

I like Trotsky's analysis of Not Socialism and fascism, and his criticism to the failures of Stalin and the Comintern to stand up to that danger, but that's about it. Many Trotskyists are pure cancer, especially those who hate the USSR for the sole purpose of hating the USSR and without making anything constructive.

In my country, the local Trotskyist parties are the most powerful socialist parties and they may even be able to take over the government in less than a decade. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

For a guy who looked like and was a massive nerd, Trotsky was actually pretty good at war. He pretty much built the Red Army from scratch in the civil war.

Bizarre, where do you live?

in the uk whenever you learn about the soviet union in school, you're always taught about how great trotsky was

our shadow chancellor is probably a trot

i don't get why he's so popular here

Trots have never accomplished anything, so I wouldn't be too excited.

...

Argentina

The party in question is a coalition of Trotskyist parties, called the "Workers' Left Front". The parties are the Socialist Workers' Party, the Labour Party, and the Socialist Left.

They promote mostly evolutionary measures to socialism, but given the state of the far-left in Argentina, they are our only hope of abandoning this circle of corrupt succdems/corrupt neolibs we have gotten ourselves into.

Pretty impressive in this day and age.

Indeed. They changed my opinion on Trotkyists, and are a permanent sight in my university. Went from 0,3% to 5% in a decade, so they must be doing something right.

Literally anything could've done better that Stalin.

Trots are generally liberals who have just realized capitalism is bad

Honestly the worst thing Stalin did was botching the 41/42 winter counter offensive. Instead of concentrating on destroying army group center he ordered the Red Army to attack everywhere wasting men and equipment. Army group center had almost all of Germany's usuable tanks and trucks which they really couldn't replace. Destroying army group center in 41/42 would have ended the war atleast a year earlier.

Only if you're a spooked burger older than 40.

he was ugly as fuck

nice try. oh shit, they actually bit.

9/10's of Stalins fuckups trotsky 100% agreed with. Probably would've kicked nazi ass even harder because the military would be completely unpurged because it was his whole base of support though.

Trotsky was nothing close to a social democrat

lolno

Fucking retards. I don't like SAlt, but those are just immediate demands. That's not as far as they want to go.

his followers are

Kautsky is fucking laughing in the red netherworld

It's only by combining the best aspects of Trotskyism and NazBol that the Left can move forward.

Trotsky was about as economically illiterate as Pol Pot and advocated the gold standard.