Marxism-Leninism vs Trotskyism

[etiennel]

Could I please have someone give me simple, easy to understand definitions of both ideologies? Please lay your answer out in a way thats easy to read and understand as opposed to one massive block of text, as I find in other answers to this question. Thank you in advance.

[Guardia Rossa]

Trotskysm (Marxism-Bolchevism) relies more on socialist democracy and people's power and Stalinism (Marxism-Leninism) is more elitist and relies on a totally closed vanguard.

Pretty much, that's it. The other differences (Like stalinists allying with the nazbols and becoming increasingly post-modern, conservative, nationalist and religious or trotskysts allying with minoritists and some reformists, becoming also increasingly post-modern, nationalist, minoritist and liberal) came with time. Usually one calls the other fascist and stuff, but while that conflict exist the rest of their ideology is more or less the same.

[lutraphile]

Trotskyism less authoritarian, less bureaucratic, more internationalist.
M-L parties have also had a tendency to be more socially conservative, though this isn't necessarily the case.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Trotskyism is a now-defunct set of 20th Century ideas based on building a vanguard party of the working class.

Marxism-Leninism is a now-defunct set of 20th Century ideas based on building a vanguard party of the working class.

[JayBro47]

Actual Anti-Revisionists are strongly opposed to Russian Social-Imperialism and Russian Nationalism.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

Trotskyism is a now-defunct set of 20th Century ideas based on building a vanguard party of the working class.

Marxism-Leninism is a now-defunct set of 20th Century ideas based on building a vanguard party of the working class.

What he said. Both are dead ideologies that have no relevance to modern workers and the modern socialist movement outside of historical interest.

[Atsumari]

To be honest, the more and more literature I read from Trotskyist and Marxist-Leninist organizations, the more and more difficulty I have of differentiating the two ideologies. When you get down to it, Trots and tankies have a lot more in common than they care to admit.

[Asero]

To be honest, the more and more literature I read from Trotskyist and Marxist-Leninist organizations, the more and more difficulty I have of differentiating the two ideologies. When you get down to it, Trots and tankies have a lot more in common than they care to admit.

http://www.indymedia.ie/cache/imagecache/local/attachments/migration/img_up/up_3/460_0___30_0_0_0_0_0_37123_1.jpg

Trots can be tanks too you know.

[G4b3n]

A few notable differences in theory, which mostly pertain to 20th century capitalist development and building socialism in semi-feudal nations that is now almost totally irrelevant. If you are into history, read The Revolution Betrayed. In practice, the Leninist principles of democratic centralism that both ideologies hold to be a mode of organization in which workers' actually control state power would make them very similar in practice.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I'm impressed, RevLeft, eight replies and only one of them was an attempt to answer the question. And of course it was completely uninformed. But sure, let's talk about how Marxism-Leninism and Trotskyism are completely irrelevant to the modern situation, unlike whatever reenactment of Noske-Scheidemann social-democracy is popular on RevLeft today. :rolleyes:

Marxism-Leninism purports that the revolution will happen in two stages, a bourgeois-democratic one and a socialist one, that socialism can be built in one country, and that socialists can make permanent political coalitions with liberals (popular fronts). Trotskyism or Bolshevism-Leninism holds that in those regions of the world where there has not been a clear-cut bourgeois-democratic revolution, the "national" bourgeoisie is so weak and tied to the imperialist order that only a proletarian revolution can carry out the tasks of the democratic revolution, completely bypassing the bourgeois-democratic "stage", that socialism can not be built in one country but depends on the global victory of the revolution, and that socialists can only make temporary agreements for common action, while retaining political independence, with other political forces (the united front in the Trotskyist sense). M-Ls generally consider the Soviet Union to have been socialist up to at least 1954, Trotsky considered it a degenerated workers' state where a bureaucratic caste had politically expropriated the proletariat.

[Guardia Rossa]

I just revised my answer and I must add another phrase:

They are socialist ideologies, they need to be studied, they are part of our history and they helped craft what we now understand as socialism, leftism, revolutionary left, etc...

[Hit The North]

Trotskyism is a now-defunct set of 20th Century ideas based on building a vanguard party of the working class.

Marxism-Leninism is a now-defunct set of 20th Century ideas based on building a vanguard party of the working class.

Why defunct and what's replaced them?

[Comrade Jacob]

Most Trotskyists I have met in real life are just Marxist-Leninist that are scared to like Stalin.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Why defunct and what's replaced them?

Defunct because they are not fit for purpose - the purpose being organising workers in the 21st century to foment the conditions for a social revolution.

I don't really see how a theory - or set of theories - that originated 100 years ago for a very specific purpose in Russia, should be used as some sort of generalised, guiding principle for socialists worldwide. It is stupidity taken to extremes.

[Crabbensmasher]

Defunct because they are not fit for purpose - the purpose being organising workers in the 21st century to foment the conditions for a social revolution.

I don't really see how a theory - or set of theories - that originated 100 years ago for a very specific purpose in Russia, should be used as some sort of generalised, guiding principle for socialists worldwide. It is stupidity taken to extremes.

Serious question - why do you think people still use these categories to define their interpretation of marxism? Why haven't we adapted in the 100 years since then?

[ñángara]

Serious question - why do you think people still use these categories to define their interpretation of marxism? Why haven't we adapted in the 100 years since then?
Marxism-Leninism is proven in practice as a road to power. What have we to adapt to? ¿Adapt to the actual reflux of masses thanks to the USSR failure?

Another thing: Marxism-Leninism also applies to Trotskyists. How can Stalinist use this term to differentiate themselves from other Marxist-Leninist too?
In any case, they should add the 3rd term "anti-revisionist" in order to get really differentiated from Trotskyists :rolleyes:

[mushroompizza]

Marxist Lenists/ Stalinists, basically are Socialists and Vangaurdists but want a rigged democracy.
Trotskyists are that but thought Stalin was mean, they also want a permanent revolution.