Ontology:Q41,04

1. Z–41,04 (pronounced 41,04. (Z))[IV] [Z] (pronounced (Fourth) (Z):) IV (pronounced Fourth)  /  (4104)Trotskyism (top-level category)() (pronounced Fourth)1:-1:-1

Core characteristics

item type

Z (wiki feature; C (pronounced Category)) 1:-1:-1

[P] (pronounced P:) label (en) [string] (L)

Z–41,04 (pronounced 41,04. (Z))[IV] [Z] (pronounced (Fourth) (Z):) IV (pronounced Fourth)  /  (4104)Trotskyism (top-level category)() (pronounced Fourth)1:-1:-1

Z–41,04 (pronounced 41,04. (Z))[IV] [Z] (pronounced (Fourth) (Z):) IV (pronounced Fourth)  /  (4104)IV (pronounced Fourth) / Trotskyism() (pronounced Fourth)1:-1:-1

E:Trotskyism

[P] (pronounced P:) alias (en) [string]

Leninism (Trotskyist theory or movement)

revolutionary socialism (Trotskyist movement)

QID (pronounced Q.I.D.) references [Item]1:-1:-1

4 as Trotskyist number

color swatch references [Item]

new field-specific color swatch

Z–41,04 (pronounced 41,04. (Z))[IV] [Z] (pronounced (Fourth) (Z):) IV (pronounced Fourth)  /  (4104)Trotskyism (top-level category)() (pronounced Fourth)1:-1:-1

Item philosophy tag

IV (pronounced IV, meaning four)

Item color coding [classname]

field_trotsky

   #FD9920 (pronounced sunset orange, hex #FD9920)

   #B71A0A (pronounced red, hex #B71A0A)

[P] (pronounced P:) Entity hex color [color]

   #FD9920 (pronounced sunset orange, hex #FD9920)

CSS property [identifier]

background

[P] (pronounced P:) Entity hex color [color]

   #B71A0A (pronounced red, hex #B71A0A)

CSS property [identifier]

border-color

sub-case of [Item]

Leninism

case of [Item]

specific variation of Marxism / Marxist sect (generic)

Item usable as Hue list classname (MediaWiki feature)1:-1:-1

super-case of [Item]

Z–617 (pronounced 617. (Z))[Zv] [Z] (pronounced (Ziv) (Z):) Zv (pronounced Ziv) ⧼hue-ins-domain-spacer/⧽contentless Trotskyite-conspirator ideology1:-1:-1

consists of components [Item]

--

Wavebuilder combinations

[P] (pronounced P:) Wavebuilder (pronounced Wave-builder): forms result [Item]

Z–617 (pronounced 617. (Z))[Zv] [Z] (pronounced (Ziv) (Z):) Zv (pronounced Ziv) ⧼hue-ins-domain-spacer/⧽contentless Trotskyite-conspirator ideology1:-1:-1

along with [Item]

Z–41,04 (pronounced 41,04. (Z))[IV] [Z] (pronounced (Fourth) (Z):) IV (pronounced Fourth)  /  (4104)Trotskyism (top-level category)() (pronounced Fourth)1:-1:-1

forming from [Item]

Z–41,04 (pronounced 41,04. (Z))[IV] [Z] (pronounced (Fourth) (Z):) IV (pronounced Fourth)  /  (4104)Trotskyism (top-level category)() (pronounced Fourth)1:-1:-1

S–618 (pronounced 618. (S))[IV] [S] (pronounced (Fourth) (S):) IV (pronounced Fourth)  / 1930s Trotskyite conspiracy (📥 (pronounced proposed) / IV)1:-1:-1

Z–617 (pronounced 617. (Z))[Zv] [Z] (pronounced (Ziv) (Z):) Zv (pronounced Ziv) ⧼hue-ins-domain-spacer/⧽contentless Trotskyite-conspirator ideology1:-1:-1

Wavebuilder characterizations

[P] (pronounced P:) Wavebuilder (pronounced Wave-builder): forms result [Item]

Z–41,04 (pronounced 41,04. (Z))[IV] [Z] (pronounced (Fourth) (Z):) IV (pronounced Fourth)  /  (4104)Trotskyism (top-level category)() (pronounced Fourth)1:-1:-1

along with [Item]

--

forming from [Item]

--

--

Z–41,04 (pronounced 41,04. (Z))[IV] [Z] (pronounced (Fourth) (Z):) IV (pronounced Fourth)  /  (4104)Trotskyism (top-level category)() (pronounced Fourth)1:-1:-1

Background

Trotskyism is a formulation of Marxism that first appeared in the early days of the Bolshevik movement, circa 1906. It bases itself heavily in Lenin's understanding of Marxism (now known as "Marxism-Leninism"), and within that, generally the earliest bodies of statements made by Lenin prior to about 1920. Around 1920, multiple disputes came up between Lenin and Trotsky that each hinted at an incomplete understanding of Marxism-Leninism, including the trade unions incident of 1920 and Trotsky's letter against party bureaucracy in 1923, as well as the larger conflicts that would occur between Trotsky's faction and the main party in 1928 and 1936. In any case, each of these incidents showed a distinctly different theoretical content within Trotsky's faction than in mainstream Marxism-Leninism. By 1936 and the completion of The Revolution Betrayed, Trotskyism had more or less established its main set of talking points as a separate body of Marxist theory, and Trotskyism and the central party of the Soviet Union had fully divided into separate countable instances of Marxism. The conflict these two separate Marxisms would have for control of the central government of the Soviet Union would lead to much confusion in Marxist organizations around the world over the next half-century, although this confusion would be less prevalent in Third World countries and most common in First World countries. In many First World countries it is common to hear the narrative that early Trotskyism was persecuted and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union cannot be a legitimate entity because it did not allow Trotskyist theorists to coexist with Stalin's Marxism and realize Trotskyism; in Third World countries, Trotsky is more likely to be used either as a counterexample for what a Marxist party is or to make arguments that every form of Marxism including Trotskyism is a bad idea.

In its outward presentation, Trotskyism mostly manifests as a form of Leninism. It will typically talk about concepts such as vanguard parties for particular nations, crises of capitalism, and revolution against capitalists to create a proletarian civilization. Trotskyists support a single Leninist party-nation where a central Marxist party is the only party and all the tasks and policies of civilization become cumulative until the state functionally does nothing. Trotskyists do not outwardly support anarchism. Trotskyists claim that Deng Xiaoping states are abandoning socialist transition by restoring patches of capitalism, and their slow reversion to capitalism will ultimately explode them. The majority of all talking points typically seen from Trotskyist organizations, at least over half, simply amount to Leninist theory.

One of the most notable distinctive characteristics of Trotskyism is that it is highly insistent on the notion of workers' states only being legitimate if they form across a great number of countries at once. Trotskyists appear to conceptualize Communist revolution as a matter of separating the geographical region of a nation-state from its central government such that each "country" is defined by affiliation with a central party rather than with a geographical region, and for instance, "Germany" would cease to exist as a population, geographical region, and central government all tied together but in its place the German population would exist and the central Trotskyist party of Germany would exist as an anchor inside that population to tie it to the central parties of other countries in Europe. Commonly, Trotskyist organizations will speak of the central parties of various countries forming together into a Fourth International. In this model, the Fourth International is the central government of the era of socialism. The world as a whole experiences a state of all industrial countries being in an era of capitalism, and then all industrial countries somehow overthrow capitalists but also end up joining together with the aid of central Trotskyist parties into one very large world government. In one sense, the Fourth International can be thought of as a complete replacement for the United Nations; if the United Nations is the capitalist international, it would be replaced by a conference of representatives from each region's Communist party, which would be the Fourth International.

Aside from the parts of Trotskyist theory that simply follow early models in Marx or Lenin, there is another distinct sub-section of Trotskyist rhetoric which might be best described as "anti-Stalinism". Many early Trotskyist works before 1940 were mostly focused on making claims that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union or other similar parties were "filled with bureaucracy" or were in some way building the country wrong or failing to get the country through socialist transition. This had particular historical reasons behind it. In the early 1900s, it was particularly difficult for Third World countries and even some European countries to find good-quality Marxist theorists; this tended to lead to an outcome of either having a small number of high-quality theorists who came to define a country or a large number of low-quality theorists who tended to misinterpret Marxism or retain parts of anarchism or classical Menshevism. This is the context in which Leon Trotsky (Soviet Union), Rosa Luxemburg (Germany), and James P. Cannon (United States) appeared. Each of these theorists had their own particular errors, and as they made errors and ran into problems with their national-scale party, they would notice other people who made errors getting expelled from parties or sidelined from discussions. This would then lead to various groups of theorists in various countries complaining about what were effectively problems with the implementation of democratic centralism, and those groups of theorists clumping together at times into contrarian factions that believed they were being unjustly ignored or expelled. In a sense, a lot of early Trotskyism up to about 1953 revolved around the concept of would-be Marxist theorists having a right to be in movements regardless of how competent they were, specifically because the living conditions within Third World countries for anyone who was not a paid Communist party member were difficult to tolerate. More people were eager to be Marxist theorists or organizers than were actually needed for particular tasks, leading to a strange contradiction between Marxism's promise to eventually abolish central governments and the cascade of people attempting to be theorists to hopefully serve their country but also themselves. Trotskyists in particular were especially adamant that party "bureaucrats" were to be abolished as soon as possible, but at the same time they also loved to put in their opinions on party discussions well after they were actually needed. What early Trotskyism has ultimately revealed about Marxist movements is that a great many people may join a movement who believe they are useful just because they have decided to be allies and who may be greatly upset and begin to consider it some kind of violation of human rights if a movement tries to push them to the edge of a population. These people will generally have trouble with the concept that a Marxist party has particular problems to solve that may not require them or make use of them at all. However, this is not necessarily a matter of people being self-absorbed or narcissistic. Instead, it can be a matter of people coming to an uncomfortable realization that if they simply lived their lives contributing to their country population with their basic ability to work and did not try to get involved in the Marxist party the existence of the Marxist party might not change much of anything for them or a significant chunk of other people. The kind of Trotskyist rants found in texts like The Revolution Betrayed can trace back to a misplaced desire to make sure Marxist movements are functional and that socialist transition actually means something, rather than allowing the same problems seen in capitalism or feudal orders to more or less continue on and on and on. The problem is that without proper education in the actual way party processes and socialist transition are carried out, people looking in on the party from the outside will not know how to interact with it except through simple loyalty or disloyalty.

Along with complaints that take place inside countries, Trotskyist organizations also tend to have a lot of complaints about entire countries outside their own country that they believe are not following any correct Trotskyist line. Whenever a particular geographical region is controlled by a mainstream Marxist-Leninist party instead of a Trotskyist party, it is highly likely if not certain that Trotskyists will call for that party to be removed so they can replace it with one of theirs. As might be expected, this has made Trotskyism highly controversial in almost any other version of Marxism that is not Trotskyism. Most countries that have become workers' states and ended up with non-Trotskyist parties have not ended up with a very large number of people who support Trotskyism, which in turn means that the people who want to override the sovereign government of their Third World country and create a Trotskyist party in it essentially all reside in First World countries. In a Third World country, the central party takes up an important role of securing the country from physical invasions and incursions by foreign capital to take over significant areas of the country and elevate itself into becoming the rightful majority to be represented in government. If, for instance, South Africa had first become a mainstream Marxist-Leninist state and then capitulated to Trotskyism, it would open the country up to the possibility for every White person in the Netherlands to join up with every White person in South Africa to all talk about their own preferred vision of Trotskyism unanimously and then proceed to marginalize all the Black South Africans; it would hardly matter if the Netherlands was governed by a Trotskyist party if the divisions between Trotskyists and non-Trotskyists led to accidentally retracing the same alliances and hostilities that created apartheid. Trotskyists have historically objected to the Soviet Union, East Germany, China, Cuba, Vietnam, and North Korea, often for the wrong reasons. In the time of East Germany, they claimed that because the Soviet Union was helping to defend the revolution it was not progress. In the Cuban revolution, they have claimed that Che Guevara was an ally of Trotskyism and putting Fidel Castro in power prevented the country from properly forming a Trotskyist party. In Vietnam and Korea, they do not typically acknowledge the great violence and trauma brought down on these countries simply to try to make them give up on alliances with other Third World countries and resistance against aiding the United States and integrating into global capitalism. In a few cases, Trotskyist complaints about the structure of countries can actually make some amount of sense, like when Trotskyists tried to advocate for keeping the nations of Yugoslavia from completely breaking away from each other and trying to keep them in a federation similar to the Soviet Union. In other cases, Trotskyists fail to realize that removing the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in a world surrounded by capitalists directly fed into the creation of a highly reactionary, fascist-leaning Russia, and like many other patterns in history, this transition is probably repeatable on other countries with other characteristics.

Compared with other variants of Marxism, Trotskyism has been plagued with a lot of issues in forming functional parties. Speaking in terms of historical workers' states from 1900 to the present, there has not been a single country, geographical region, or actively-governing party constructed in the real world that can be termed "Trotskyist". This alone is not to say that the world will never see a Trotskyist government in the future. However, it currently seems unlikely to happen unless the theoretical models of various Trotskyist organizations greatly improve.

Pabloism

There appears to be a variant of Trotskyism first appearing around 1953 in which a tendency called the Pabloites proposed that non-Trotskyist workers' states could transition to Trotskyism and join the Fourth International without Trotskyists having to remove their governments. This was not well received by the rest of Trotskyism, as the ICFI for instance considered it equivalent to either giving up on creating workers' states or promoting Stalin's Marxism. There is an argument to be made that this was not a sensible decision. The nature of history and of time itself is that every object develops independently before interacting, so it is only to be expected that if a country creates a Marxist party without the input of Trotskyists from another country that it will be shaped around the conditions of that country more than around what Trotskyists expect.

Usage notes

This is the top level category for all things which meet the criteria for being Trotskyism or have close links to things that do, not the signifier for what specific Trotskyist subsets say Leninism is.

"Trotskyist countries"

Whenever any page in this Ontology project refers to a "Trotskyist country" or talks about "countries" in the context of transition into some form of Trotskyism, the word "country" should always be assumed to refer to a well-known geographical region as opposed to a self-contained nation-state — for example, the geographical region of Germany that may contain a central Communist party, but not necessarily the self-contained republic of Germany. Likewise, a word like "nation" or "nationality" should always be assumed to refer to an internally-coherent population — the currently-coherent population of Germans who are connected by such things as two or three major languages, a shared cluster of workplaces and retailers, and shared transit networks, but not necessarily the self-contained republic of Germans.

In contexts such as real or hypothetical variants of Trotskyism that happen to specify that self-contained republics exist for some likely short period of time before joining into larger structures, this stipulation will not be necessary.

Color swatch

The orange color swatch (field_trotsky / IV (pronounced tag I.V. or Fourth)) was chosen to be "like the red swatch, but more intense". Trotskyists tend to heavily lean into historical imagery surrounding Lenin and the Russian revolution such as "The Spark" (Iskra) and slogans seen in Lenin's works. Thus, the orange swatch is meant to reference the "fiery" passion with which Trotskyist speakers relate history, class struggles, certain fire-named newspapers, and the supposed injustices of Stalin.

The orange swatch may be used for anything that either relates to Trotskyism or is a sub-case of something that references one of the entries about Trotskyism. The usage of this color may turn very metaphorical at times, referencing something that references something that references something. In these cases, look at the entries listed in an Item's "color swatch references" Property to see what it actually means in context.

The text tag "IV (pronounced Fourth)" may be used to represent a Trotskyism or "Zinovievism" color swatch in plain text. It should not be used for other more-figurative meanings of the same color swatch. (The exception is when the IV (pronounced Fourth) philosophy tag is purely used to display the orange color in Templates. In that case, use a different template for the Item icon versus the Item background color.)