What is the difference between the Trotskyists and the Marxist/Leninists?

[Goathead]

And what is the Neocon relationship with the Trotskyists? I've heard that the foundations of the Neocon movement are with Jewish Trotskyists that used to to be ultra liberal until FDR started appeasing(in their minds) Stalin. Any truth in that?

[htuttle]

1. I think Trotskyism is characterized by wanting 'permanent revolution'

In other words, continuing to provoke change on an ongoing basis, instead of worrying about building alternative structures. I think there's a belief that things will just naturally work out if the rest of us 'get out of the way'.

I guess on a simplified basis, it would be more of a destructive/chaos-producing philosphy versus a constructive/order-producing philosophy.

Or something like that.

[Goathead]

2. That fits neoconservatism. n/t

[XemaSab]

3. The "Permanant Revolution"

is the precursor to the doctrine of pre-emptive war.

[whistle]

4. Trotskyites advocated a world wide uprising of the workers....

....you know, "...the only good capitalist is a dead capitalist". In fact, Leon Trotsky wanted a work run and ruled by the workers and a new type of unselfish altruistic intellectual. The thinkers would all think up new ideas and contribute by unselfishly making solutions to all of the worlds problems free to all, the workers would work to implement those solutions by producing for everyone's needs. Share and share alike, from each according to their menas, to each according to their needs. But, their could be no cheaters. To Trotsky even one cheater who selifishly hoarded more for their own benefit, needed to be punished and brought to total cooperation for the benefit of all.

Trotskyism (trot-skee-iz-uhm)

The doctrines of the twentieth-century Russian political leader Leon Trotsky, who believed that communism should depend on the cooperation of the proletariats of all nations rather than on domination by the Soviet Union. Trotsky's ideas were opposed by Joseph Stalin, the Soviet premier, who sent Trotsky into exile, made him a nonperson, and eventually had him assassinated.

<snip>

Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. The term is sometimes used more loosely to denote various political currents claiming a tradition of Marxist opposition to both Stalinism and capitalism. An adherent of Trotskyism is called a Trotskyist; the term Trotskyite is pejorative.

Trotsky advocated proletarian revolution as set out in his theory of "permanent revolution", and he argued that in countries where the bourgeois-democratic revolution had not triumphed already (in other words, in places that had not yet implemented a capitalist democracy, such as Russia before 1917), it was necessary that the proletariat carry out the tasks of that revolution and make it permanent by carrying out the tasks of the social revolution (the "socialist" or "communist" revolution) at the same time, in an uninterrupted process. Trotsky believed that a new socialist state would not be able to hold out against the pressures of a hostile capitalist world unless socialist revolutions quickly took hold in other countries as well. This theory was advanced in opposition to the position held by the Stalinist faction within the Bolshevik Party that "socialism in one country" could be built in the Soviet Union.

On the political spectrum of Marxism, Trotskyism is considered to be on the left. Expressed in derogatory language, they are described by their ideological opponents as "left deviationists" ("levye uklonisty", in Russian). Some Marxists who oppose Trotskyism regard it as being in the service of the right because, in their view, it is not an effective route to socialism.

Trotsky later developed the theory that the Russian workers' state had become a "bureaucratically degenerated workers' state". (The similar Eastern European communist governments which came into being after World War II without a revolution were later referred to as "deformed workers' states" by some Trotskyists.) Many of Trotsky's criticisms of Stalinism were described in his book, The Revolution Betrayed <1>
(http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1936-rev/index.htm).

http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/Trotskyism

[whistle]

9. Your asking about Trotskyists got me searching for more stuff....

...on this greatest of the Bolshevist revolutionaries after Vladimir Lenin, for what its worth here is what was concluded about the movement which evolved from Leon Trotsky:

<snip>

Conclusion

.....External pressures in the form of the Stalinists” campaign against the party strengthened this tendency. Despite Nin’s individual prestige, the party was too new and the ex-ICE members too few to shift the balance of forces inside the POUM in such a short time. Worse still, the most important groups of former ICE militants, apart from those in Madrid, were annihilated in the Fascist onslaught during the first days of the war. This was most notably the case in Estremadura, Seville, Salamanca and Galicia. Of those who survived the first days of the military uprising, the groups of former Trotskyists in the north of Spain – the Basque Country, Santander and Asturias – were isolated from the rest of the Republican zone, and they were destroyed in Franco’s victorious offensive in this area during the first half of 1937.

The most important group of former Trotskyists that still remained was in Madrid, but three-quarters of them died in the desperate defence of the capital in the autumn of 1936. This effectively left the small Catalan group, which was overwhelmingly outnumbered by the ex-BOC rank and file. The remnants of the ICE remained, with few exceptions, in silent opposition to the POUM leadership during the war. Only after the conflict did the latent conflicts inside the POUM come to the surface. Those former Trotskyist militants who survived the Civil War, the Stalinist terror and the Nazi terror in exile, were to be prominent in the left wing of the party during the 1940s. A few would later rejoin Trotskyist groups.

Of course, it was not just the ICE and an enlightened Maurín that gave rise to the belief that the POUM would become a full-blown revolutionary party. There were many BOC militants who were genuine revolutionaries, especially amongst the youth. It can be argued that neither the ICE nor the POUM were inevitably lost to revolutionary Marxism. Rous believed this in 1935, as did many foreign revolutionaries, most of whom were former or ‘dissident’ Trotskyists, during the Civil War. Even Trotsky himself did not rule out a reconciliation between the POUM and the Trotskyist movement during the summer of 1936. <136> But Nin’s entrance into the Catalan government that October put an end to such a possibility.

<more>
<link> http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/poum/

From this, it is not at all surprising to see why the Spanish government would blame Communist Basques for the terrorist attacks. It has been a decades long battle between them.

[papau]

5. both sides were into using force in defence of "ideals"

Stalin won when he saw that ideals just got in the way!

[EVDebs]

6. Their difference today is in degrees of irrelevence.

This site appears to try to answer the question

http://www.newyouth.com/archives/theory/faq/what_are_marxism_leninism_trotskyism.asp

but the current economic system is what is propping up the neocons ! It is highly contradictory that neocons would be "allied" in any sense of the word with Trotskyists, Marxist/Leninists.

Neocons depend upon the capitalist system. And Democrats and Republicans and Greens aren't out to destroy that system. In fact, Stalin had Kondratieff, an economist whose work allowed for the 'fine-tuning' of capitalism (by the smoothing out of the business cycle's waves), killed in the gulag for such radical thinking. See

"Nickolai Kondratieff was a Russian economist (1892-1938) in Stalin's Agricultural Academy and Business Research Institute ("Long Waves in Economic Life" - originally published in German in 1926). Kondratieff's major premise was that capitalist economies displayed long wave cycles of boom and bust ranging between 50-60 years in duration. Kondratieff's study covered the period 1789 to 1926 and was centered on prices and interest rates. Stalin, I guess wasn't impressed. Nickolai was sent to the Gulag where he purportedly died."
http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_02/chapmand062902.html

Where Democrats, Republicans, Greens, and even Neocons agree is that we will work politically within the framework of a capitalist system. You can disagree to the extent of 'how to perfect' the system...or the means to that end. If you disagree, you end up being fodder for investigation by the 'powers that be'.

A more reasonable investigation would be into the effects of concentration of wealth in the US. Kevin Phillip's book Wealth and Democracy shows that in all economic empires, their downfalls are caused by too high a concentration of wealth ! We are fortunate in that the top 1 and one half percent of taxpayers (those making more than $3 million annually) -- Bush's neocon 'base'-- can possibly be pursuaded to part with some of that wealth, for the greater good.

This is often called 'noblesse oblige' in past eras. That realization possibly can save the country. Without such a 'Damascus Road' moment by the neocons, the US will go the way of other past economic giants.

[Goathead]

11. Quote from Irving Kristol

The "Grandfather of Neoconservatism" and William Kristols father.

Ever since I can remember, I've been a neo-something: a neo-Marxist, a neo-Trotskyist, a neo-liberal, a neo-conservative; in religion a neo-orthodox even while I was a neo-Trotskyist and a neo-Marxist. I'm going to end up a neo- that's all, neo dash nothing.

[EVDebs]

12. LOL ! You may also want to see a related DU post

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3455513#3455640

I think the communist ideal of the "withering away of the state" melds completely with Grover Norquist's "starve the beast" mentality. The Reagan 'government is the problem' quote also jives right in there with the neocons. The whole Hobbesian world they strive for

"solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short"

is where they want us to go ! I am thoroughly repulsed by their lack of concern for their fellow man. And then they have the nerve to claim they're followers of Christ.

Let's hope they all have that Damascus Road moment. I don't know how we're going to get through four more years if they don't !

The US still has some hope. The socialists under Eugene V. Debs in 1912 and in 1920 had very progressive platforms. With the '30s depression and the chaos that ensued, the Democratic party eventually enacted the socialist's platform of 1912...and we ended up with Social Security and the New Deal. Afterward, in the postwar era we got the GI Bill-- a direct descendent of the Bonus Army of 1932's efforts that got FDR elected in the first place !

Ye Underdogs, Unite ! Just have patience ! The business cycle will do your work for you. Kondratieff was on to something there in that gulag.

[hector459]

7. Read "Animal Farm"

It explains it all in terms that even I can understand.

Lev Davidovich Bronstein (Leon Trotsky) was born on October 26, 1879, son of a hard-working, thrifty, and well-to-do jewish farmer, in the southern part of Ukraine.

Stalin and Trotsky represented opposite directions for Communism. But while Trotsky used the mighty pen, Stalin implemented communist policies that were exceedingly costly both in lives, and in depriving the Soviet people from freedom.


LENIN became an active revolutionist through the spiritual motives that have moved all great reformers — not because he himself was hungry and an outcast, but because he could not stand by unmoved in a world where other men were hungry and outcast. Such characters are predestined internationalists; the very quality that lifts them above materialism places them above borders and points of geography; they strive for the universal good. Lenin believes that the only thing worth living for is the next generation. Communism is his formula for saving the next generation from the injustices and inequalities of the present.

http://search.netscape.com/ns/boomframe.jsp?query=lenin+bio&page=1&offset=0&result_url=redir%3Fsrc%3Dwebsearch%26requestId%3Dc2a13835998aac54%26clickedItemRank%3D1%26userQuery%3Dlenin%2Bbio%26clickedItemURN%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.marxists.org%252Farchive%252Flenin%252Fbio%252F%26invocationType%3D-%26fromPage%3DNSCPResults%26amp%3BampTest%3D1&remove_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.marxists.org%2Farchive%2Flenin%2Fbio%2F

[enki23]

10. the animal farm situation is what trotsky and his ideological sucessors...

were hoping to avoid. it was precisely what they were expecting to see in the soviet system, and exactly what we found. that they were right in one respect, of course, doesn't mean they were necessarily right in others.

[pnorman]

8. Briefly, Trotskyists are also avowedly "Marx-Leninists"

Their theoretical break with Stalin in the mid-twenties, was over Trotsky's "Permanent Revolution" (also Leninist) and Stalin's "Revolution in one country".

Certain Neo-Cons bear the same relationship to Trotskyism, as David Horowitz does to Marxism in general.

pnorman

[EVDebs]

13. So is Mao doing cartwheels in his grave ? Just wondering.... n/t

[Telly Savalas]

14. Trotskyists have better weed.

[JVS]

15. Marxist Leninists decided to take the situation they had and run with it

Trotskyists sat around pissing and moaning about the lack of world revolution and were consequently killed off by the Marxist-Leninists, who had better things to do.

[leftofthedial]

16. one thing they all have in common

is that they are all dead

[trebizond]

17. How many trotskyists does it take to change a lightbulb?

One- but he'll swear it shines brighter than if a Stalinist had changed it.

I know, i know. That was an astonishingly poor joke. But seriously, if you're interested in current Trotskyist thinking, check out www.wsws.org