Trotskyism (Russian: Троцкизм, Trotskizm) is the political ideology and branch of Marxism and Leninism 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, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Karl Liebknecht, and Rosa Luxemburg. His relations with Lenin have been a source of intense historical debate. However, on balance, scholarly opinion among a range of prominent historians and political scientists such as E. H. Carr, Isaac Deutscher, Moshe Lewin, Ronald Suny, Richard B. Day and W. Bruce Lincoln was that Lenin's desired "heir" would have been a collective responsibility in which Trotsky was placed in "an important role and within which Stalin would be dramatically demoted (if not removed)".
Trotsky advocated for a decentralized form of economic planning, workers' control of production, elected representation of Soviet socialist parties, mass soviet democratization,the tactic of a united front against far-right parties,cultural autonomy for artistic movements, voluntary collectivisation, a transitional program, and socialist internationalism. He supported founding a vanguard party of the proletariat, and a dictatorship of the proletariat (as opposed to the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie", which Marxists argue is a major component of capitalism) based on working-class self-emancipation and council democracy. Trotsky also adhered to scientific socialism and viewed this as a conscious expression of historical processes. Trotskyists are critical of Stalinism as they oppose Stalin's theory of socialism in one country in favour of Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution. Trotskyists criticize the bureaucracy and anti-democratic current developed in the Soviet Union under Stalin.
