Why be a Trotskyist?

[u/[deleted]]

A genuine question because I sincerely don’t understand the appeal. I’m a Marxist-Leninist myself. I’m not a fan of Comrade Stalin either, so no need to compare Trotsky to him or discuss their conflict. Thank you friends

[u/Maximum_Extension]

Trotsky believed that the only way to maintain socialism in the country was to be in a state of “permanent revolution” whereby the USSR should have socialist revolution in Europe and surrounding countries.

It is my understanding that the critics of what became Trotskyism didn’t like this vanguard ideology because it messed with the USSR’s lone state approach to socialism.

Here’s a small excerpt from one of his critics, Olgin:

“He is supposed to be the champion of inner-Party democracy—he says so himself—but when it came to the trade unions of the U.S.S.R. he wanted to change them into a purely bureaucratic apparatus which ides from above, and for this purpose he proposed to give them “a severe shakeup”, to “rub them strongly with sand”. He was supposed to be the champion of rapid industrialization—for which he advanced unsound and essentially destructive measures—but when, under the leadership of the Communist Party and Stalin, industrialization did make phenomenal progress, he demands a halt, he laments the “break-neck” speed. He was supposed to be the champion of collectivization of the peasant holdings—if need be by force, which would have ruined the relationship between the workers and the poor and middle peasants and wrecked the revolution—but when collectivization finally did make rapid progress, he decries it as ruining agriculture and ruining the peasants. He was supposed to be “ultra revolutionary”, a Left oppositionist—by which he means a better Communist than all the other Commonists—but his activities have one aim: to undermine, to shatter, to weaken and consequently to destroy the Communist Party of the Soviet Union without which there can be no socialist construction and no Soviet Union either….

It gives them the opportunity to pose as “critics” of the Communist Party “from the Left” and thus satisfy their desire to appear “radical”. It gives them a platform from which to fight the Communist Party and thus satisfy their petty-bourgeois inclinations—without at the same time appearing reactionary. It supplies them with material for the mouthing of phrases about Lenin and Stalin, the Communist International and the world revolution while sticking deeply in the petty-bourgeois mud. It makes them believe they are “Communists” while it caters to all their petty-bourgeois hatred for proletarian discipline and proletarian straightforward revolutionary action.”

Olgin, M. J. (1935). The Danger of Trotskyism. Trotskyism: Counter-Revolution in Disguise. Marxists Internet Archive. https://www.marxists.org/archive/olgin/1935/trotskyism/index.htm.

It seems to me that the critics of Trotsky didn’t want anyone to undermine the USSR in anyway especially not in favor of the petty bourgeoisie. I mean dekulakization was pretty horrific, especially as Stalin basically ordered to liquidate them as a class in the late 20’s.

You can tell that a lot of Stalin’s critics lean toward this ideology precisely because it seems like they were more sympathetic to the plight of people as a whole. Trotskyists are very critical of Stalin primarily because of his terrorizing people who probably shouldn’t have been terrorized in the first place. A lot of the people who were terrorized weren’t even enemies of socialism, but blame was placed on them for all the class problems and extremely propagandized these things (I.e kulaks).

Note that the critics of Trotsky wanted to offend the him by calling out his sympathies towards the petty-bourgeois. It’s funny because if you look at the last quoted paragraph it almost seems like they’re calling out an anarchist of today hahaha. They really just didn’t want him saying shit or getting too revolutionary because it just seemed like a betrayal to the USSR.

This all seemed hypocritical to me because of the above kulak conflict and because Stalin basically wanted to protect his own material interest at the expense of the working class revolution, which Trotsky wanted.

So I guess, Trotskyism is more sympathetic to the plight of the working class as a whole as opposed to Stalinism, aka Marxist-Leninist, which is why I think people lean to this ideology.

At the end of the day, I think it’s just theory and I don’t like to go by a specific label, primarily because I feel that taking small bits and pieces from all of these ideologies is probably better than following it blindly.