What does Trotskyism mean?

[Stranger Than Paradise]

I have a friend who is a Trotskyist yet I never quite know what this consists of. I have asked him how it differs from Leninism but he doesn't explain. Could someone please tell me the views of a Trotskyist?

[InTheMatterOfBoots]

Trotskyism is a form of Leninism.
Trotsky accepts the central tenets of Leninism, chiefly a vangaurd party operating under democratic centralist decision making and a socialist society with the means of production concentrated in the hands of a "workers" state. There are just some tactical considerations that Trotsky developed during his lifetime, mainly as applied to opponents of Stalinism in Western Europe, which you can identify as distinctly "trotskyist" as opposed to Leninist. Although Trotsky did consider himself the rightful heir to Lenin's legacy. These include entryism (entry into a wider socialist/left party in order to radicalise and capture members), the transtional programme and popular broad front movements (who articulate reformist demands that capitalism is unable to achieve, i.e. "free housing for all", this is meant to be a propganda tool to expose the weaknesses and contradictions inherent in capitalism).

He also developed an analysis of the Soviet Union that claims that it is a "degenerated workers state". In this Trotsky claims that the Soviet Union was a proletarian state but one on which the workers had become politically displaced by the bureaucracy. Although some Trotskyists, e.g. Tony Cliff, have parted from this for a state-capitalist analysis (that the Soviet Union was not a workers state because the means of production were not controlled by the workers).

[ZeroNowhere]

Although some Trotskyists, e.g. Tony Cliff, have parted from this for a state-capitalist analysis (that the Soviet Union was not a workers state because the means of production were not controlled by the workers).
Well, to be specific, it's mostly a 'state-capitalist-after-1928 (or so)' analysis.

[Holden Caulfield]

the transtional programme
so then is the 'programme free' SWP not Trotskyist?
Im not trying to start a sectarian slagging match i sincerely wonder what people think about this.

[Q]

so then is the 'programme free' SWP not Trotskyist?
No. Nor do they claim to be Trotskyist.