What is trotskyism?

[VivaValiente]

What was Trotsky's political ideology? What were his ideas and why do they contrast with or break with Stalinism? How did Stalin end up influencing Mao?

I never really bothered learning anything about Trotsky or Stalin, so I thought I might just ask. I'm sure these questions have been asked on this forum already, so if you can just point me to those threads, that'd be cool too.

[promethean]

What was Trotsky's political ideology? What were his ideas and why do they contrast with or break with Stalinism? Trotsky's political ideology developed over time. He started out in his teens as a supporter of Narodnism and was initially opposed to Marxism. He later embraced Marxism after being convinced by other Russian Marxists, mainly his future wife, Alexandra Sokolovskaya.

After joining the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, he became aware of the developing split within this party into two camps: the economists and the Iskraists. The economists were more of reformists, while the Iskraists were more inclined towards Marxism. Trotsky sided with the Iskraists.

Later in 1903, the Iskraists were also about to split into two factions. Lenin and his supporters (known as Bolsheviks) argued for a smaller but highly organized party. Martov and his supporters (known as Mensheviks) argued for a larger and less disciplined mass party. Trostsky initially sided with the Mensheviks over this split, but later left them over their support for an alliance with liberals. He was independent from then on and tried to reconcile the two factions.

Trotsky, however differed from other Russian Marxists in one way. While the rest of them believed that Russia was not ripe for socialism and first needed a bourgeois revolution, he, in his theory of Permanent Revolution, argued that Russia was in fact ready for a proletarian revolution and the proletariat could carry out the tasks of the bourgeoisie.

Following the February revolution, he joined Lenin and the Bolsheviks. By then, even Lenin had accepted that proletarian revolution was on the cards.

Trotsky's ideas also developed over time. He wrote in 1904,
"the organisation of the party substitutes itself for the party as a whole; then the Central Committee substitutes itself for the organisation; and finally the ‘dictator’ substitutes himself for the Central Committe". He later recanted this statement of his.

Also, following the revolution, he called for harsh measures against striking workers and was in favour of "militarisation of labour", which meant the transformation of workers into soldiers and being subjected to harsh military discipline inside their factories.

In the transitional stage of development, in a society burdened by the heritage of a very difficult past, going over to planned and organised social labour is unthinkable without measures of compulsion directed both at the parasitic elements and at the backward elements of the peasantry and of the working class itself. The instrument of state compulsion is the state’s armed force. Consequently, an element of militarisation of labour, to some extent and in some form, is inevitably inherent in the transitional economy based on universal labour service
He also readily agreed to the Bolshevik party's dismembering of workers control as the party destroyed the power of the workers councils and the factory committees.

His break with Stalinism came later following the civil war.

See Isaac Deutscher's biography of Trotsky in three volumes, for more details: The Prophet Armed, The Prophet Unarmed and The Prophet Outcast.



How did Stalin end up influencing Mao?Not sure how this is related, but Stalin was as responsible as Mao for the failure of the Chinese workers in overthrowing the bourgeoisie. Stalin's influence on Mao was both ideological and political. Politically, Stalin converted the Chinese Communist Party into an arm of the Russian state, in his attempt to serve the interests of his own state. Mao had always resented the intrusion of the Russian state into the affairs of the Chinese state following the revolution. After Stalin died, Mao broke with the Russians in 1961 and attempted to become the leader of international communism, a mantle that was claimed by the Russians since 1917. However, he still claimed to uphold the theories of Stalin.