Skip to main content

Why can't I be a Trotskyist? My Disagreements with Trotsky

Even after Leon Trotsky and his theories passed away, a tiny minority still exists within the far-left society. These folks have been around since the beginning of the Russian Revolution and are referred to as "Trotskyists." 

Leon Trotsky at his desk, 1919

These Trotskyists are the misinterpretations of Marxism's devoted supporters. They make an effort to undermine Marxist-Leninism by presenting a defective theory of revolution. Even anti-Communists are spreading the notion that "The Soviet Union Would Have Survived If Trotsky Took Power." That is a wholly bogus narrative.

So let's talk about why the "Permanent Revolution" thesis is so incorrect. And what is said about Marxism by this theory?


TWO-STAGE THEORY OF REVOLUTION


A complex theory that cannot be succinctly articulated in a few phrases, Permanent Revolution can mislead people's perceptions of what Trotsky was actually supporting. The theory behind "Two-Stage Theory," or stagism, is the first component of the Permanent Revolution. According to stagism, there would be a lengthy period of capitalist development following feudalism, which would be ushered in by a liberal bourgeois revolution (historically referred to as the February Revolution) that would subsequently pave the way for a proletarian revolution.

Trotsky believed that this was unnecessary in the outcome of revolution and that the bourgeoisie was in no position to carry out a democratic revolution to pave the way forward towards a Socialist Revolution. Lenin rejected this belief.


THE PEASANTS AND PROLETARIAT


The Russian Empire was considered a third-world nation due to the low development of the Russian Empire. The Proletariat was less common compared to their colleagues, the Peasants, due to Russia being an agricultural state. This would lead to the birth of the idea of "Narodnism," a group of populists who believed that the Peasant class could skip over the stage of capitalism, to pave the way for a Proletariat revolution.

Georgi Plekhanov, a Russian philosopher and the leader of the Social Democrats, was opposed to this view. He thought that the industrial revolutionaries were superior, and the peasants were a "Reactionary class."

Aside from that, he thought it would be undialectic and unhistorical to pass through the capitalist stage.

Lenin disagreed with this idea and said there should be a union of workers and peasants (hence the symbolism of the hammer and sickle.)

A revolutionary in the sense of the bourgeois-democrats, he also thought the Peasants to be. The fact that Trotsky does not exclusively agree with the Bolsheviks or the Mensheviks is where he enters the picture in this debate.

On the subject of the peasants, Trotsky generally clashed with Lenin because he believed that they were still reactionary and conservative. This was the major justification for Trotsky's initial support of the Mensheviks.

Trotsky, however, was not in favour of a Bourgeoisie-Proletariat coalition and a fully social democratic strategy. He advanced the hypothesis that someday a socialist revolution in Europe would occur, aiding the Russian Revolution's proletariat in seizing power.

He thought that there would be hostile antagonism between the Peasants and the Proletariats if the proletariat started a revolution in Europe or Russia. Since the majority of people in Russia were peasants, the European Proletariat would have to conquer them in order to establish an international coalition of the proletariat (The 4th International.) The Peasant class, however, has historically demonstrated that it is not Reactionary and is capable of backing socialist movements.


However, Lenin and Trotsky did concur on a vital point, that it was unrealistic to wait for a "bourgeois revolution," and that the revolution must NOT be stopped. Although it could appear that Lenin is opposing stagism, this is not the case.

Lenin stated that Russia had already passed through a stage of capitalism and that the peasants were being "depeasantized" in his book, "The Development of Capitalism in Russia"

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Marx’s Theory of Alienation

Capitalist alienation is a Marxist notion that refers to individuals' estrangement or separation from their work, the output of their labour, and each other within the capitalist mode of production. This phenomena arises from capitalism's fundamental contradictions, which result in a system in which labour is commodified and employees are reduced to mere appendages of the means of production. Capitalist alienation happens when labour is converted into a commodity that can be bought and sold on the market just like any other commodity. As a result, the labour of the worker is separated from the product, and the worker is alienated from the outcome of their labour. Furthermore, workers are cut off from their own creative potential because their job is dictated by the necessities of the capitalist system rather than their own aspirations and interests. "The alienation of man thus appeared as the fundamental evil of capitalist society.”   ―   Karl Marx , Selected Writings in
Post a Comment
Read more

On The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

Since the end of World War II, the bourgeois historiography has made an effort to embellish a number of events in order to disparage Socialism and the USSR. One of these occurrences, known as the "Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact," was struck in 1939 and has served as a "banner" for supporters of imperialism and other anti-communists. The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact is portrayed by bourgeois propaganda as a tool of expansion policy by the USSR and Hitler's Germany in its illogical, unhistorical attempt to connect Communism with Nazism. By distorting historical facts and combining lies and half-truths, Imperialists and their allies hope to discredit the Soviet Union's significant contribution to the anti-fascist campaign during World War 2. The reality, however, is not the same as what the bourgeois historiography portrays. In order to disprove the anti-communist propaganda surrounding the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact, we will now look at the circumstances and e
Post a Comment
Read more

Analysis of Marx's "On the Jewish Question"

Marx's most explicit work on the subject of human rights is "On the Jewish Question" which appeared in 1844 in the "Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher". In this article, Marx takes a polemic against the ideas of his old friend and master Bruno Bauer, who had recently turned against the battle of German Jews for full citizenship rights, as has been the situation in France since Napoleon. Bauer's criticism of the Jewish citizen's rights campaign was based on the fact that as an emancipation movement it was not radical enough, in his opinion. According to Bauer... the people are guilty of a huge mistake in disconnecting the Jewish question from the general question of the time and [they] did not consider that not only the Jews, but also we want to be emancipated." According to Bauer, the Jewish question was not settled with the offering of citizens' rights to the Jewish population since the roots of this question were very deep, notably in the (Jewish
Post a Comment
Read more