Editing Trotskyism (section)

=== Socialist democracy and Workers' Control===
{{Main|Socialist democracy|Union democracy|Workers Control|Our Political Tasks|New Course (Trotsky book)|Soviet democracy}}
[[File:Lev Trotsky 1906-3.3 V1.jpg|250x250px|thumb|The [[Saint Petersburg Soviet|Soviet of Workers' Deputies of St. Petersburg]] in 1905, Trotsky in the center. The [[soviet (council)|soviets]] were an early example of a [[workers council]].]]

Prior to the October Revolution, Trotsky had been part of a tendency toward [[radical democracy]] which included both Left [[Mensheviks]] and Left [[Bolsheviks]].{{sfn|Daniels|2008|p=181}} His work, ''[[Our Political Tasks]]'', published in 1904 reviewed issues related to party organisation, [[public participation|mass participation]] and the potential dangers of [[substitutionism]] which he foresaw in a Leninist party model.{{sfn|Knei-Paz|1978|pp=176–199}} Trotsky would also assume a central role in the [[1905 revolution]]<ref>{{cite book |last1=Patenaude |first1=Betrand |chapter=Trotsky and Trotskyism |title=The Cambridge History of Communism |volume=1, World Revolution and Socialism in One Country 1917–1941 |date=21 September 2017 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=978-1-108-21041-6 |page=189 |language=en |quote="A prolific writer and a spellbinding orator, he was a central figure in the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the October Revolution of 1917, the organizer and leader of the Red Army in the Russian Civil War, the heir apparent to Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin, and the arch enemy and then vanquished foe of Joseph Stalin in the succession struggle after Lenin's death"}}</ref><ref>"He emerged from the revolution having acquired an enormous degree of popularity, whereas neither Lenin nor Martov had effectively gained any at all"{{cite web |title=Anatoly Lunacharsky: Revolutionary Silhouettes (1923) |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/lunachar/works/silhouet/trotsky.htm |website=www.marxists.org}}</ref> and serve as the Chairman of the Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Delegates in which he wrote several proclamations urging for improved [[labour rights|economic conditions]], [[political rights]] and the use of [[strike action]] against the [[Russian Empire|Tsarist regime]] on behalf of workers.{{sfn|Thatcher|2005|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=cU3yFMLm1voC&dq=trotsky+1905+st+petersburg+soviet&pg=PT39 38–40]}}

In 1917, he had proposed the election of a new Soviet [[presidium]] with other [[socialist]] parties on the basis of [[proportional representation]].{{sfn|Deutscher|2015|p=293}} On the other hand, he had accepted the ban on rival parties in Moscow during the Russian Civil War due to their opposition to the [[October Revolution]]. Yet, he also opposed the extension of the ban to the Mensheviks in [[Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic|Soviet Georgia]].{{sfn|Deutscher|2015|p=595}}

In 1922, Lenin allied with [[Leon Trotsky]] against the party's growing [[Nomenklatura|bureaucratisation]] and the influence of [[Joseph Stalin]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mccauley |first1=Martin |title=The Soviet Union 1917-1991 |date=4 February 2014 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-1-317-90179-2 |page=59 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7cbKAgAAQBAJ&dq=the+soviet+union+1917+1991+lenin+trotsky+bloc+1922&pg=PA59 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Deutscher |first1=Isaac |title=The Prophet Unarmed: Trotsky 1921-1929 |date=2003 |publisher=Verso |isbn=978-1-85984-446-5 |page=63 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mgubj5z1XUcC&dq=lenin+trotsky+bloc+1922+stalin&pg=PA63 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Kort |first1=Michael G. |title=The Soviet Colossus: History and Aftermath |date=18 May 2015 |publisher=M.E. Sharpe |isbn=978-0-7656-2845-9 |page=166 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BHaWGEZA5zMC |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Volkogonov |first1=Dmitriĭ Antonovich |title=Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary |date=1996 |publisher=HarperCollins |isbn=978-0-00-255272-1 |page=242 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FdqOQgAACAAJ |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=V.L.Lenin |title="To L. D. Trotsky", 13 December 1922 |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/21.htm}}</ref> In 1923, Trotsky and a number of [[Old Bolsheviks]] who signed [[The Declaration of 46]] raised concerns to the Poliburo concerning intra-party democracy which shared similarities with Lenin's [[Vladimir Lenin#Declining health and conflict with Stalin: 1920–1923|proposed party reforms]] before his death. The signatories of the 46 letter expressed grievances related to the provincial conferences, party congresses and the election of committees. Separately, Trotsky would develop his views further with the publication of the ''[[New Course (Trotsky book)|New Course]]'' in 1924.{{sfn|Rogovin|2021|pp=155–182}}

In 1927, Trotsky and the [[United Opposition (Soviet Union)|United Opposition]] had argued for the expansion of [[economic democracy|industrial democracy]] with their joint platform which demanded majority representation of workers in trade union congresses including the [[All-Russian Congress of Soviets|All-Union Congress]] and an increase of non-party workers to one-third of representation in these elected organs.{{sfn|Rogovin|2021|pp=418–419}} They also supported legal protection for worker's right to criticise such as the right to make independent proposals. According to historian [[Vadim Rogovin]], these proposals would have developed democracy in the sphere of [[means of production|production]] and facilitated the establishment of worker's control over economic management.{{sfn|Rogovin|2021|pp=418–419}}

Following Stalin's consolidation of power in the [[Soviet Union]] and static centralization of political power, Trotsky condemned the Soviet government's policies for lacking widespread democratic participation on the part of the population and for suppressing [[workers' self-management]] and democratic participation in the management of the economy. Because these authoritarian political measures were inconsistent with the organizational precepts of socialism, Trotsky characterized the Soviet Union as a deformed workers' state that would not be able to effectively transition to socialism. Ostensibly socialist states where democracy is lacking, yet the economy is largely in the hands of the state, are termed by [[Orthodox Trotskyism|orthodox Trotskyist]] theories as [[Degenerated workers' state|degenerated]] or [[Deformed workers' state|deformed]] workers' states and not socialist states.<ref>Trotsky, Leon (1935). [http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1935/02/ws-therm-bon.htm "The Workers' State, Thermidor and Bonapartism"]. ''New International''. '''2''' (4): 116–122. "Trotsky argues that the Soviet Union was, at that time, a "deformed workers' state" or degenerated workers' state, and not a socialist republic or state, because the "bureaucracy wrested the power from the hands of mass organizations," thereby necessitating only political revolution rather than a completely new social revolution, for workers' political control (i.e. state democracy) to be reclaimed. He argued that it remained, at base, a workers' state because the capitalists and landlords had been expropriated". Retrieved 27 December 2019.</ref>

{{Quote box|width=25em|align=left|bgcolor=|quote=Bureaucratic autocracy must give place to Soviet democracy. A restoration of the right of criticism, and a genuine freedom of elections, are necessary conditions for the further development of the country. This assumes a revival of freedom of Soviet parties, beginning with the party of Bolsheviks, and a resurrection of the trade unions. The bringing of democracy into industry means a radical revision of plans in the interests of toilers.|source=Trotsky, ''The Revolution Betrayed'', 1936<ref>{{cite book |last1=Trotsky |first1=Leon |title=The Revolution Betrayed |date=15 March 2012 |publisher=Courier Corporation |isbn=978-0-486-11983-0 |page=218 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uTrCAgAAQBAJ&dq=this+assumes+a+revival+of+freedom+of+soviet+parties+trotsky+revolution+betrayed&pg=PT209 |language=en}}</ref>}}

In 1931, Trotsky [[The Spanish Revolution, 1931–1939 (Trotsky book)|wrote]] a pamphlet on the [[Spanish Revolution of 1936|Spanish Revolution]] and called for the creation of worker’s juntas in emulation of [[soviet (council)|elected soviets]] as an expression of [[working class]] organisation.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Trotsky |first1=Leon |title=The Spanish Revolution, 1931–39 |date=1973 |publisher=Pathfinder Press |isbn=978-0-87348-273-8 |pages=97–98|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BocizgEACAAJ |language=en}}</ref> Trotsky stipulated the need for shared participation of the communist factions, [[anarcho-syndicalists]] and [[socialists]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Trotsky |first1=Leon |title=The Spanish Revolution, 1931–39 |date=1973 |publisher=Pathfinder Press |isbn=978-0-87348-273-8 |pages=97–98, 122–123|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BocizgEACAAJ |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Leon Trotsky: Ten Commandments of the Spanish Communist (April 1931) |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1931/04/spain.htm |website=www.marxists.org}}</ref>

In 1936, Trotsky argued in his work, ''[[The Revolution Betrayed]]'', for the restoration of the right of criticism in areas such as [[economic policy|economic matters]], the revitalization of [[trade unions]] and free elections of the [[List of political parties in the Soviet Union|Soviet parties]].{{sfn|Trotsky|1991|p=218}} Trotsky also argued that the excessive [[authoritarianism]] under Stalin had undermined the implementation of the [[First five-year plan (Soviet Union)|First five-year plan]]. He noted that several engineers and economists who had created the plan were themselves later put on trial as "[[Great Purge|conscious wreckers]] who had acted on the instructions of a foreign power".{{sfn|Trotsky|1991|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=hiCYS9Z3lDoC&q=trotsky+the+engineers+and+economists+who+created+this+plan+were+a+few+years+later+sternly+punished 28]}}
 
Polish historian and biographer, [[Isaac Deutscher]], viewed his inner-party reforms in 1923–24 as arguably the first act in the restoration of free Soviet institutions which the party had sought to establish in 1917 and the return of [[Soviet (council)|worker's democracy]] which would correspond with a gradual dismantlement of the [[one-party system|single-party system]].{{sfn|Deutscher|2015|pp=674–676}}
At the same time, Deutscher noted that Trotsky's attitude towards democracy could be characterised as inconsistent and hesitant by opponents but this stemmed from a range of reasons such as the [[Revolutions of 1917–1923|ill timing after the failed revolutions in the West]] and controversies around party schisms.{{sfn|Deutscher|2015|pp=674–676}}

In the ''[[The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International|Transitional Program]]'', which was drafted in 1938 during the founding congress of the [[Fourth International]], Trotsky reiterated the need for the legalization of the [[Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies|Soviet parties]] and [[workers control|worker's control of production]].<ref name="books.google.com"/>