Trotsky’s take on the peasantry was wrong af though
Trotsky was both wrong and an asshole. Trotsky’s plan of Permanent Revolution rested on the idea that the peasantry would erode socialism, because he thought they could not be truly aligned with the proletariat. That’s why he wanted to kick off revolution in the west, hoping that would save Russian socialism. This was, of course, proven false, as socialism survived and trying to build up socialism together with the peasantry worked out.
Trotsky then spent much of his time attacking the soviet union, essentially whining due to his loss.
Why does everyone here hate Trotsky/Trotskyism?
Tony Blair was a trot, Keir Starmer was a trot. I feel like this says a lot lol
Trotsky had some good points, and some terrible points, both theoretically and personally.
Trotksyism has essentially been a western-friendly form of Marxism-Leninism that tries to be what Marxism-Leninism is, but with no party discipline and no support for Actually Existing Socialism. Trotskyist orgs relentlessly bash socialist countries, and split over and over again. They haven’t really done much of anything.
Trotskyist orgs relentlessly bash socialist countries.
I have seen this a lot. Like there are no currently succesful socialist countries. Are they just waiting for world revoluton?
But I also don’t want to be yet another leftist that believes there theory is the best and everyone could just end leftist fighting if they became a [insert my prefered leftist theory]
You can’t end leftist infighting by hoping for everyone to become the same kind of leftist, especially because different tendencies are often influenced by the given class character of a country. It’s why agrarian communists are more likely to be Maoists, like what’s found in the Naxalites, whereas western communists tend to be Trots. Marxism-Leninism is found everywhere, because it’s the tendency that has most been tested in real life.
I agree.
They are often incredibly stubborn and unwillingly to adapt socialist strategy to their different material conditions
I actually don’t know. I’m not that well-versed in communism, but I’ll try to make a suggestion:
Marx never said to force communism, an envisioned futuristic system, to happen, the same way that one shouldn’t force capitalism in the year 900, during the time of fuedalism if some visionary would predict such of type of governance to happen in the year 800. Even if you think capitalism is better than fuedalism, trying to implement it by introducing ballot boxes, constitutions, parliaments and such, likely would get you killed by the nobility and/or clergy, because you forgot to increase the increase the power of the merchants first, so that they could revolt, with lawyers by their side, or better said in front of them, against the old powers.
Trotsky wanted to implement a world government or capilalists will do everything in their power to try to destroy it.
Stalin wanted to develop socialism further in the Soviet Union into a better working model for other countries to emulate.Furious debates ensued on who was on the right track.
Kinda.
Marx’s point wasn’t that you shouldn’t try to advance modes of production, just that the ideas prevalent among the dominant classes at the time are shaped by their material conditions. Trotsky thought this meant socialism in Russia was impossible due to having a high number of the peasantry, thinking them incapable of allying with the proletariat. He was wrong. Stalin’s decision to not attack the peasantry, and instead focus on developing socialism within the USSR, led to the firm establishment of the first socialist state.
Annoying and sex pests
Well I’m an anarchist, so a Trotskyist state is still a monopoly of violence
It’s lemmy. It’s full of Stalinist Tankies.
I’ve mostly seen non-ml socialists and anarchists. I don’t know what you’ve heard, but Trotsky was also ML.
Trotskyists reject the term ML, instead preferring “Marxist and Leninist” over “Marxist-Leninist” to distance themselves from the soviet union, Trotsky himself rejected the ML label as well.
As far as not seeing many Marxist-Leninists, lemmy.blahaj.zone blocks Hexbear.net and Lemmygrad.ml, which have the bulk of the Marxist-Leninists on Lemmy.
He just said it to the wrong guy.
He did not, in fact he talked even worse about Stalin. Lenin and Trotsky were pretty much friends. This is some tankie bullshit
“Friends” is overselling it, and Stalin was the one that was elected because he was a more capable leader with a better understanding of Marxist theory. With Sverdlov and Lenin dead, the choice was fairly obvious.
Trotsky’s plan of Permanent Revolution rested on the idea that the peasantry would erode socialism, because he thought they could not be truly aligned with the proletariat. That’s why he wanted to kick off revolution in the west, hoping that would save Russian socialism. This was, of course, proven false, as socialism survived and trying to build up socialism together with the peasantry worked out.
Trotsky then spent much of his time attacking the soviet union, essentially whining due to his loss. I don’t think using a pejorative meant for those who defend socialist countries and oppose imperialism helps your argument here.
Trotsky’s plan of Permanent Revolution rested on the idea that the peasantry would erode socialism, because he thought they could not be truly aligned with the proletariat.
Isn’t that just in the case of later developing capitalist countries? My understanding was that he believed later developed capitalist countries would be unable to build the industrialized economy that creates a large proletariat class. So in these countries the existing proletariat would have to seize control and then later form an alliance with the peasantry down the road.
However, I don’t think that means he only wanted to develop socialism with western nations. I mean Stalin and him had a major rift develop over Trotsky wanting to support the Chinese communist and Stalin siding with the kmt. One of the things I kinda agree with when it comes to Trotsky was his opposition to the socialism in one country policy.
This is kinda dependent on what year it is of course, Trotsky was kinda all over the place once he fell from grace.
When the Russian revolution failed to inspire successful revolution in the west, they reached a dillema. Trotsky feared the Russian peasantry would attack, and so wanted to go on the offensive first, forcing collectivization early, hoping that would inspire the western proletariat. Stalin wanted to build up socialism domestically, rather than attack the peasantry. The peasantry turned out to be capable allies, and thus Stalin was correct.
Stalin’s insistence on supporting the KMT even later as a bullwark against Japan ended up being wrong, but it’s also worth noting that the Chinese Trotskyists were wrong, wanting to attack both the KMT and Japan before kicking out Japan. Mao and the CPC formed a temporary alliance against Japan, then kicked out the KMT, which ended up being correct.
