Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Russian revolutionary and intellectual Leon Trotsky along with some other members of the Left Opposition and the Fourth International. Trotsky described himself as an orthodox Marxist,a revolutionary Marxist,and a Bolshevik–Leninist as well as a follower of Karl Marx,Frederick Engels,Vladimir Lenin,Karl Liebknecht,and Rosa Luxemburg. Assessing Trotsky,Lenin wrote:"Trotsky long ago said that unification is impossible. Trotsky understood this and from that time on,there has been no better Bolshevik."
The Fourth International (FI) was a political international established in France in 1938 by Leon Trotsky and his supporters,having been expelled from the Soviet Union and the Communist International.
Shachtmanism is the form of Marxism associated with Max Shachtman (1904–1972). It has two major components:a bureaucratic collectivist analysis of the Soviet Union and a third camp approach to world politics. Shachtmanites believe that the Stalinist rulers of proclaimed socialist countries are a new ruling class distinct from the workers and reject Trotsky's description of Stalinist Russia as a "degenerated workers' state".
Max Shachtman was an American Marxist theorist. He went from being an associate of Leon Trotsky to a social democrat and mentor of senior assistants to AFL–CIO President George Meany.
Martin "Marty" Abern was a Marxist politician who was an important leader of the Communist youth movement of the 1920s as well as a founder of the American Trotskyist movement.
Farrell Dobbs was an American Trotskyist,trade unionist,politician,and historian.
James Robertson (1928–2019) was the long-time and founding National Chairman of the Spartacist League (US),the original national section of the International Communist League. In his later years,Robertson was consultative member of the ICL's international executive committee.
The Revolutionary Socialist League (RSL) was a Trotskyist group in the United States established in 1973 and disbanded in 1989.
The Socialist Union of America,also called American Socialist Union,Socialist Union or Cochranites were a Trotskyist group that split from the Socialist Workers Party in 1953 and disbanded in 1959. It included most of the SWPs trade union base,as well as others sympathetic to the "Pabloist" line of the International Secretariat of the Fourth International,though it was never recognized as a section of the ISFI.
The Spartacist League/U.S. is a Trotskyist political grouping which is the United States section of the International Communist League,formerly the International Spartacist Tendency. This Spartacist League named themselves after the original Spartacus League of Weimar Republic in Germany,but has no formal descent from it. The League self-identifies as a "revolutionary communist" organization.
The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) is a public faction of the Fourth International founded in 1953. Today two Trotskyist internationals claim to be the continuations of the ICFI;one with sections named Socialist Equality Party which publishes the World Socialist Web Site,and another linked to the Workers Revolutionary Party in the UK.
The Fourth International (FI),founded in 1938,is a Trotskyist international. In 1963,following a ten-year schism,the majorities of the two public factions of the Fourth International,the International Secretariat (ISFI) and the International Committee (ICFI),reunited,electing a United Secretariat of the Fourth International.
The International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist) abbreviated as ICL(FI),earlier known as the international Spartacist tendency (iSt) is a Trotskyist international. Its largest constituent party is the Spartacist League (US). There are smaller sections of the ICL (FI) in Mexico,Canada,France,Germany,Ireland,Italy,Japan,South Africa,Australia,Greece and the United Kingdom.
The International Socialist Organization (ISO) was a Trotskyist group active primarily on college campuses in the United States that was founded in 1976 and dissolved in 2019. The organization held Leninist positions on imperialism and the role of a vanguard party. However,it did not believe that necessary conditions for a revolutionary party in the United States were met;ISO believed that it was preparing the ground for such a party. The organization held a Trotskyist critique of nominally socialist states,which it considered class societies. In contrast,the organization advocated the tradition of "socialism from below." as articulated by Hal Draper. Initially founded as a section of the International Socialist Tendency (IST),it was strongly influenced by the perspectives of Draper and Tony Cliff of the British Socialist Workers Party. It broke from the IST in 2001,but continued to exist as an independent organization for the next eighteen years. The organization advocated independence from the U.S. two-party system and sometimes supported electoral strategies by outside parties,especially the Green Party of the United States.
The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) is a far-left political party in the United Kingdom. Founded as the Socialist Review Group by supporters of Tony Cliff in 1950,it became the International Socialists in 1962 and the SWP in 1977. The party considers itself to be Trotskyist. Cliff and his followers criticised the Soviet Union and its satellites,calling them state capitalist rather than socialist countries.
James Patrick Cannon was an American Trotskyist and a leader of the Socialist Workers Party.
Tony Cliff was a Trotskyist activist. Born to a Jewish family in Ottoman Palestine,he moved to Britain in 1947 and by the end of the 1950s had assumed the pen name of Tony Cliff. A founding member of the Socialist Review Group,which became the International Socialists and then the Socialist Workers Party,in 1977. Cliff was effectively the leader of all three.
The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) is a communist party in the United States. The SWP began as a group which,because it supported Leon Trotsky over Soviet leader Joseph Stalin,was expelled from the Communist Party USA. Since the 1930s,it has published The Militant as a weekly newspaper. It also maintains Pathfinder Press.
Far-left politics in the United Kingdom have existed since at least the 1840s,with the formation of various organisations following ideologies such as Marxism,revolutionary socialism,communism,anarchism and syndicalism.
George Lavan Weissman was an American Marxist activist,journalist,and Socialist Workers Party leader.
