Trotskyism

Trotskyism The adaptation of Communism by Trotsky, which he formulated mostly during his years in exile, notably in his Transitional Programme (The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International) of 1938. He was a fierce critic of the Soviet Union under Stalin's leadership, where power had gone not to the proletariat, but to the bureaucracy. Thus, he demanded a return to the original ideals of Communism which had since been perverted by Stalin, e.g. he criticized the latter's confinement of the Communist revolution to the Soviet Union, against which Trotsky insisted that there be ‘permanent revolution’ sweeping from country to country which would establish Marxism on a global scale. Disregarding Trotsky's original ideals, however, the term has been most commonly used in a derogatory manner by Communists in the Soviet Union and former Eastern Bloc countries to describe any Communist ideals or practices which deviated from current official orthodoxy.

Stalinism