View source for Talk:Leon Trotsky

This topic (1) needs to be expanded, (2) one obvious error omitted, and (3)the sole quote given a source.

(1) At a minimum, Trotsky's original differences with Lenin, and with the Mensheviks, on the nature of the coming Russian Revolution, should be discussed: the issue of "the Permanent Revolution" vs "the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry". 

This is important, because of the frequently-heard charge -- made on both the Left and the Right --  that today's neoconservatives, some of whom have their political origins in a variant of American Trotskyism, are simply carrying forward Trotsky's theory of Permanent Revolution, substituting "democracy" for "socialism".

More generally, it is interesting that modern-day conservatives are grappling with a problem -- roughly speaking, how, or should, we react to developments in the Third World; will backward countries follow the economic/social/political evolution of the advanced ones, or not?  -- which engaged the Marxist movement over a hundred years ago. We may be able to learn something from their debates.

(2) The assassin of Trotsky was not masquerading as a gardner, but as a political sympathyzer.

(3) I  know a bit about Trotsky, and have never heard of "the famous quote" "he who does not obey, does not eat", although it sounds like something that could easily have been said by any Bolshevik leader during the Civil War in Russia (or, for that matter, by any leader on the other side). There are far more famous quotes by Trotsky which should be included. In any case, all quotes should be given a source. It might also be useful to give a source for much of Trotsky's writings, which are now available online.

I agree that this item needs significant work.

It is largely decontextualised and has significant errors of fact. 

I will return when I can.