“What the Heck is Trotskyism, Anyway?”

My thoughts on the relevance of Trotskyist ideas to DSA

By Sean Case

A specter is haunting the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) — the specter of Trotskyism. Accusations of entryism and sectarianism are simmering. Talk of a dreaded split in the organization is on the rise. Given all the fervor, it’s worth asking: just what do these damn trots want, anyway? Such a question was asked on DSA’s National Discussion Board on March 1: “Question: What the heck is Trotskyism, anyway? Answer: Trotskyism is a vibe” (tinyurl.com/dsa-trotskyism — you have to login as a DSA member to read it.)

Many who wring their hands about Trotskyists being in DSA point to decades of sectarian feuds between Trotskyist groups and others in the socialist movement, and often between different groups of Trotskyists. There’s a lot of truth to that history. Many Trotskyist groups will maintain that theirs is the one true Trotskyism — even the one true Marxism; all the others are pretenders to the throne. 

As someone relatively new to the socialist movement — and even newer to the theories of Marxism and Trotskyism — I do not seek to arrive at a definitive declaration of what Trotskyism is and isn’t. In my view, that’s a fool’s errand.  

What I will do is briefly highlight three key aspects of the Trotskyist tradition that have convinced me of its continued value to the socialist movement.

For a Rupture with Capitalism

Like all good Marxists, Trotskyists are revolutionaries. They stand unequivocally for an end to capitalism and for building a socialist society through socialist revolution. This means arguing strongly against reformism within the socialist movement.

I came into DSA as a liberal Bernie bro. I knew next to nothing about Marx or Lenin, let alone Leon Trotsky, one of the leaders of the 1917 Russian Revolution and a fierce opponent of the Stalinist counter-revolution in Russia. I liked Bernie and I heard him call himself a democratic socialist, so I joined up. I felt hopeful about Bernie’s prospects. In the wake of AOC and the rest of the Squad’s wins in 2018, it seemed to me we were on the cusp of a huge paradigm shift that would usher in my then-vague ideas of what a socialist society was. Bernie and AOC would fix the Democratic Party and we would ride that train to true equality.

Bernie’s crushing defeat by the Democratic establishment in 2020, the conservatisation of the Squad over the past few years, the utter failure of the Democratic Party to respond humanely to the Covid-19 pandemic, the blaze and fizzle of the 2020 Black Lives Matter uprisings — all these things convinced me my outlook was simplistic and naive. 

The Democratic Party is an enemy of progress for working class people. Attempts to capture and realign it are a dead end. Much like the state itself, the Democratic Party is not a machine socialists can simply take hold of to enact change from above. We must instead encourage DSA to work toward a break with the Democratic Party and form a new party of the working-class — one that will push for a rupture with capitalism, not tweak it into a friendlier capitalism.

Central to achieving such a rupture — and central to Trotskyist theory — is advocating a transitional program. In fighting for a socialist future we should link our immediate demands — such as Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, or social housing — to the need to abolish capitalism entirely. Demands put forth by DSA, or any socialist organization, should call for a mass struggle for reforms that would strengthen the working class while weakening the capitalist class. If enacted, such demands create a better playing field on which the working class can struggle for further victories, and the experience in struggle will build the working class’s ability to fight back.

Demands like taking the fossil fuel industry into public ownership, or a free, publicly owned and run healthcare system via Medicare for All are good examples. These demands take aim at the profits of the capitalist class and, if won, would be concrete gains for the working class. Rather than simply calling for marginally beneficial tweaks within the framework of capitalism, transitional demands point toward the need to challenge the power of the capitalist class over our economy and our lives in general.

Demands in and of themselves are not enough to achieve a workers’ democracy. What matters most is how we fight for them. Independent political action by socialist and other organizations based in the working class is necessary. That action must spring from robust internal democracy.

For a Democratic Socialist Society

Trotskyists defend the Marxist understanding of socialist revolution: that it can only be achieved by a united multi-racial working class breaking the power of the capitalist corporations to reorganize society and the economy on a democratic basis.

Working class democracy today in our organizations — from labor unions to political working class organizations — and in a future socialist state is key. 

This core Trotskyist approach was first developed in a conflict within the socialist movement more than 100 years ago, when the appeasement to pro-capitalist ideas of social democratic and labor leaders went hand in hand with the bureaucratization of working class organizations. Socialist and social democratic parties and unions turned from tools for the self-liberation of working people into top-down, undemocratic organizations run by politically and financially corrupt bureaucrats.

Trotsky and the Trotskyist movement also fought the Stalinization of the Soviet Union and the Communist Movement internationally in the late 1920s and 1930s. As the first workers’ state remained isolated in an economically backward country, Stalinism was an expression of a counter-revolution. The burgeoning workers’ state was not run by democratic workers councils anymore, but by an unaccountable bureaucracy, which enriched itself and played a more and more anti-revolutionary role internationally, for example in the Spanish Revolution 1936-39. 

Stalin, perhaps more than any other figure, did immeasurable damage to the ideas of socialism and communism. Rehabilitating those ideas means learning the lessons of the failures of the Stalinist states.

In the long wake of the Soviet Union’s fall, the national and global left has suffered from lowered horizons, which are only now being cautiously raised. The popular takeaway from the collapse of Soviet power was that capitalism had won, that a planned economy cannot work, that the best we can hope for is a friendlier, more democratic capitalism won through tweaks to the market. 

A clear example of this defeatism can be seen in the progression of the politics of Bernie Sanders. In the 1970s, Bernie routinely called for the public ownership of major industries, from energy to pharmaceuticals to the major banks. He even called for an income tax of 100% on anyone with an income over $1 million. On the one hand, Bernie helps today to raise the expectations of the working class. On the other hand, this is also an expression of how low working class expectations have been. Unfortunately, Bernie and the Squad often provide left cover for the Biden administration.

While the growth of DSA and the resurgence of the socialist left in the US has been majorly spurred by Bernie and his 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns, we should not limit our aspirations, demands and targets to a reformed capitalist society. A democratically planned economy can work and would be the backbone of a democratic socialist society. 

In a Marxist analysis, a major task of a working class revolution would be to build such an economy using democratic means — such as elected workers’ councils in which representatives are recallable at any time and are not to be paid more than the average worker’s wage.

For International Socialism

Another important Trotskyist critique of Stalinism is the rejection of the concept of “socialism in one country.” The belief that socialism can exist sustainably in a world dominated by global capitalism is central to the failure of the Soviet states and their allies. 

Modern capitalism — in Trotsky’s time and even more so in our own — is imperialism. The liberation of the working class cannot be truly achieved in one country or region until it is achieved globally. It’s crucial that we bring a stronger sense of internationalism into DSA and establish solidaristic bonds with workers around the world. The only way to defeat international capitalism is with international socialism.

In my view, Trotskyism is an organic development of Marxist theory through the experience of capitalism’s evolution into capitalist imperialism. In its constant seeking of new markets, capitalism developed into a global system, with wealthy capitalist countries subjugating the peoples and resources of poorer countries. World Wars I and II were in part symptoms of that development, and reinforced it. In our current era, the roots of imperialism are deep and wide. Massive, globally-acting corporations dominate the world markets while using their nation states to enforce their profit interests. Powerful capitalist institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund act as boots on the necks of workers everywhere, forcing near-global austerity and intentionally strangling development in Global South countries.

Many countries have been prevented from even achieving bourgeois capitalist democracy by the very forces of global capitalism. Because of this dynamic, it is insufficient for one or a few countries to achieve a workers’ democracy within their borders. Though such a development would be positive and an inspiration to workers all around the globe — just as the Russian Revolution was in 1917 — it would not in and of itself bring down world capitalist hegemony. Rather, it is incumbent upon socialists everywhere to keep global socialist revolution as their lodestar. 

A successful socialist revolution in the US would be a world-shaking event. But even a successful revolution in the heart of global capitalism would necessarily need to expand outward, not only to assist the forces of working class revolution around the world, but for its own survival.

It is in my view particularly important for socialists to keep this framework in mind when it comes to standing in solidarity with the most oppressed peoples of the world — working and poor people in the Global South who bear the brunt of capitalist brutality. Capitalism, despite its promise of individual freedom, has captured the vast wealth of poor peoples and nations for the benefit of the global capitalist class — not because of an inherent immorality, but because of an economic imperative. Socialists in wealthy countries like the US must support the struggles of oppressed peoples around the world. The best way to do that is to win socialist revolutions in our own countries and offer solidarity and collaboration to working class and oppressed people everywhere  to work toward that liberation globally.

Trotskyism and DSA

I can’t speak for all DSA members who call themselves Trotskyists. But I can speak to what I want for DSA’s future. I want a bigger, stronger, and more democratic organization. I want a DSA that breaks from the Democratic Party and works to form a new party of the working class. I want a DSA that seeks candidates from within its own ranks and holds those candidates accountable to the organization’s democratically decided platform. I want a DSA that organizes bold campaigns nationally and locally that directly confront the capitalist class and its profits. I want a DSA that encourages and reinforces rank and file labor militancy to rebuild the labor movement and combat the prevailing business unionism of major labor institutions.

I believe the Trotskyist tradition has much to contribute to the realization of such a vision. Some in DSA may agree with this vision, others may not. That’s fine; I consider them all comrades. Let’s democratically discuss the way forward.