Trotskyism

[Nanatsu Yoru]

A brief overview, please?

[Adil3tr]

Brief?

Well, hers the one from MIA, but remember, there are dozens of different sections of trotskism.

What is Trotskyism?

Here is a summary introduction to the basic concepts of what has been historically known as "orthodox" Trotskyism, but which its supporters would define as "mainstream" Trotskyism.
Individuals and organisations holding a wide range of political positions and theories identify themselves as Trotskyist. What follows is an outline of positions that derive directly from Trotsky's writings. There are Trotskyists who reject some or even most of the positions outlined below.
Fundamentally, Trotskyism is Marxist/revolutionary/working-class socialism in the imperialist era of wars, revolutions and the transition to socialism.
It fights for leadership of the working class against Stalinism and Social-Democracy, tendencies grounded in a program of accomodation to continued capitalist rule that seeks to preserve and enhance the privileged position of bureaucratic strata that came to dominate not only the mass labor movements of the imperialist countries but also all those states that emerged as direct and indirect successors of the workers' republic established by the proletarian revolution of November 1917 in the Russian Empire. Parties bound by and expressing these tendencies have dominated the leadership of the workers movement in most of the world since the mid-1920s.
In some countries, such as the USA (the Democratic Party) and Argentina (Peronism), this struggle is directed against openly bourgeois leaderships of the working class.
Trotskyism sees the best possibility of developing a revolutionary socialist leadership in turning to the struggles of the working masses and fusing theory and practice in the class struggle.
It criticizes the degeneration of the Stalinist regime in the USSR from a revolutionary Marxist perspective. It sees it as a counter-revolutionary regime that had nothing to do with socialism and foresaw that it would lead to the restoration of capitalism if not swept away by the working class.
The Nazi take-over in Germany could have been stopped and Nazism smashed if Trotsky's policies had been followed. The Left Opposition led by Trotsky urged both Social Democratic and Communist German workers to form a proletarian United Front for the express and limited purpose of defense of class interests (workers' organizations and democratic rights) against the Nazis and capitalist reaction. The approach to such a united front would be "March separately, strike together!" Instead the Stalinists aimed all their hostility at the Social Democrats as "Social Fascists," thus splitting the workers' movement and allowing the Nazis into power.
Trotskyism is also against class collaboration as manifested in the Popular Fronts of the late 1930s in France and Spain, where allegedly "progressive" bourgeois forces were unabashedly supported by Communist Party policies, de facto aiding in the disarming of the working class in the face of the fascist threat. Similar policies by Stalin towards the bourgeois nationalist leader Chiang Kai-Shek in China in the mid-twenties had led directly to the massacre of huge numbers of unprepared workers in Shanghai in 1927, setting the Chinese revolution back by decades.
The tragic defeats of these years showed the price paid by the working class for surrendering its class independence.
In the face of the distortions of Marxism and Bolshevism by the Stalinist bureaucracy, a small minority of revolutionaries upheld the red banner and formed the Fourth International in 1938 to carry on the traditions of October and the early years of the Comintern (up to the death of Lenin).
The writings, policies and actions of Trotsky and his comrades remain an inspiration today, as they represent the continuity from Marx through the October revolution (led by the Bolshevik party under the leadership of Lenin and Trotsky) and through the revolutionary resistance of the Stalinist era to the battles of the present in defense of Marxism and for a strong Fourth International.
The central features of Trotskyist politics are:
PERMANENT REVOLUTION

On the basis of Trotsky's analysis of the inability of the national bourgeoisie in the colonial and semi-colonial countries to carry forward the tasks of the bourgeois revolution (national liberation, democratic rights, women, health, education, etc), the fight against imperialism and colonialism requires a permanent revolution. This means the working class of those countries must win the leadership of the popular masses in the movement of national liberation and bring it to a Socialist revolution if there is to be any chance of getting a real solution to the oppression the people are rebelling against. This is opposed to the Stalinist theories of Socialism in One Country and Two-Stage Revolution (first bourgeois, then socialist).
POLITICAL REVOLUTION

On the basis of Trotsky's analysis of the Soviet Union as a degenerated workers state, the fight against Stalinism posed the need for a *political* revolution to overthrow the Stalinist bureaucracy and restore genuine soviet power, that is the power of councils of workers and peasants delegates in government. In imperialist countries *social* revolution against capitalism is necessary to expropriate the bourgeoisie, something that workers' states such as the ex-Soviet Union had already accomplished.
TRANSITIONAL DEMANDS

In order to seize power in the imperialist countries, the working class must fight for a program capable of bridging the gap between its daily struggles and the socialist revolution. The methodology expressed by Trotsky in the 1938 founding document of the Fourth International, best known as the Transitional Program, remains fundamental to this day, even though some of the tasks formulated in that document are no longer applicable. By fighting for transitional demands -- making immediately understandable demands that will have far-reaching effects if they are actually satisfied -- the workers are helped to see the link between getting real solutions to their everyday problems and getting rid of capitalism.
INTERNATIONAL PARTY

The workers of the world need their own political organization, a world-wide revolutionary party, whose national sections contribute to and are guided by an international leadership that is greater than the sum of its national parts. In the absence of an international organization, and one Trotsky insisted should be run on Bolshevik-Leninist lines, international solidarity and proletarian internationalism remain little more than empty phrases.