Extremely Brief Trotsky Post

I took part in another political spectrum survey (just for the hell of it) which labelled me a Trotskyist. I'm not very familiar with his life - but I just want to briefly cover some of his beliefs.

Trotsky was an advocate of Marxism and his socialist perspective differed greatly from those of Mao and Stalin in that he was against the idea of 'Socialism in One Country'. He fervently believed that socialism needed to be an international movement and purported the idea of the 'Permanent Revolution'.

The Permanent revolution seems to be meaningless without the context of Russian History.  It is essentially an explanation of how socialist revolutions can occur in societies that have not achieved advanced capitalism. He argues that the bourgeoisie in an undeveloped capitalist country is incapable of developing its productive forces in such a manner as to achieve the sort of advanced capitalism which will fully develop an industrialized proletariat working class. Further to this, He argues that the proletariat can and must, therefore, seize social, economic and political power, through an alliance with the peasantry.


It seems like an outdated theory especially in context of advanced Industrialized Western Societies. It would be interesting to look at Trotsky's theories in a contemporary context and see how they apply. Further to this, I'm interested in this idea of 'Permanence' and what Trotsky whether there is a self perpetuating system or methodology behind the 'Permanent Revolution'.