Ontology:Q43,02

pronounced [S2] East Germany was too small to be Trotskyism 1-1-1

Core characteristics[edit]

item type: S2 (pronounced C) 1-1-1
pronounced [P] label [string] (L): pronounced [S2] East Germany was too small to be Trotskyism 1-1-1; E:East Germany was too small to be Trotskyism
pronounced [P] alias (en) [string]: Because East Germany was smaller than a world workers' state, it was no ally of Trotskyism; When Trotskyists say there can't be socialism in one country, part of what they mean is that countries or blocs of countries need to be big in order to materially survive
QID references [Item] 1-1-1: --
field, scope, or group [Item]: pronounced Z–617 pronounced [MX] [Z] meta-Marxism 1-1-1; pronounced Z–617 pronounced [IV] [Z] Trotskyism (top-level category) 1-1-1
sub-case of [Item]: --
case of [Item]: derived Trotskyist proposition (proposed; IV) 1-1-1; thought experiment involving East Germany (proposed; MX) 1-1-1
super-case of [Item]: --

Components[edit]

model combines claims: --

Use in thesis portals[edit]

appears in work [Item]: MDem 4.3/444N "All Trotskyisms"

Wavebuilder combinations[edit]

pronounced [P] pronounced Wavebuilder: forms result [Item]

: --
along with [Item]: --
forming from [Item]: --; --; --

Wavebuilder characterizations[edit]

pronounced Wavebuilder: route [Item]

: pronounced [S2] East Germany was too small to be Trotskyism 1-1-1
along with [Item]: East Germany had the wrong internal structure to be Trotskyism (proposed; IV) 1-1-1
forming from [Item]: East Germany had the wrong internal structure to be Trotskyism (proposed; IV) 1-1-1; Trotskyism's internal structure is a world workers' state (proposed; IV) 1-1-1; pronounced [S2] East Germany was too small to be Trotskyism 1-1-1

Usage notes[edit]

This is the claim that Trotskyists turned against East Germany specifically because it had a border while being smaller than a world workers' state. This claim at least partially ignores the observation that East Germany was briefly occupied by the Soviet Union, considering this irrelevant to the actual material factors that motivate Trotskyists to end up at their final decisions. However, this claim is not mutually exclusive with others; it does not rule out the size of the workers' state not being the only reason.

Reasons to claim that Trotskyists believe this include statements by Trotskyists that "there can't be socialism in one country" or "the world revolution can't stop at one country". This claim interprets these remarks very literally in terms of the physical structure of countries, as having the implication that aside from the matter of succeeding in creating a proletarian world population Trotskyists also believe in a macroeconomic principle about the daily functioning of workers' states that workers' states will not last or survive if they are too small in area with too few people. If Trotskyists believed this, this would create a claim which is logically coherent on the surface. In a country like North Korea or East Germany, a lot of problems stem from the isolation of the country from other countries, or said another way, the isolation of a small population from larger areas of people. On the flip side, when other countries such as China and Vietnam have opened up to exports and imports, avoiding becoming totally isolated, it has led to more prosperous countries and resilient party-nations without entirely destroying Marxism. Thus, there is reason to believe that larger areas of people may genuinely have better economic outlooks than small, isolated areas of people, providing a strange new backdoor argument in favor of Trotskyism if Trotskyists would only become more accepting of socialism-in-one-country as it applies to supranational federations or blocs of workers' states that eventually form into one country. One possible objection to this particular model, of course, is that in focusing on economic links and productivity it may function better as a model of how to empower the bourgeoisie than how to empower a population of workers. Either way, the number of possible shapes of workers' states is vast and this is one of many possibilities beyond a simplistic early-Leninist model of "world revolution immediately".

Falsification criteria[edit]

This claim is largely a claim about Trotskyism. If it can be shown that Trotskyists generally reject fine-scale social-graph-based theories of the viability of big versus small workers' states and genuinely believe that that societies outlast Liberal-republicanism on the sheer quality of being "revolutionary", this claim can be marked false.

If some forms of Trotskyism are aligned with this claim and some forms reject it, then it should not be marked false, but should be clarified into new claims about each form of Trotskyism or each relevant Trotskyist group.