Anti-Stalinist left

The anti-Stalinist left is an element of left-wing politics that is critical of Joseph Stalin's policies and the political system that developed in the Soviet Union under his rule. More broadly, it also refers to those on the left who are opposed to dictatorship, a cult of personality and a police state that is used against workers and working class organizations (i.e. not only Stalinism, but also Maoism and other similar regimes, such as the one in North Korea). There are several currents in the anti-Stalinist left.

Trotskyism

Associates and followers of Leon Trotsky were organised in the Left Opposition within the Communist parties before they were purged in the Moscow Trials in the 1930s. Subsequently, his followers formed the Fourth International in opposition to the Stalinist Third International. Trotsky saw the Stalinist states as deformed workers states, where a political structure gave most workers very little power in decision making. Resolution Adopted by the Third Congress of the Fourth International—Paris, April 1951

Trotsky and his followers were very critical of the lack of internal debate among Stalinist organizations and societies and political repression enacted by Stalinist governments (i.e. The Great Purge); nationalist elements of Stalinist theory (the Socialism in One Country thesis, for example, adopted by Stalin as state policy), that led to a very poor revolutionary strategy in an international contest (and breaking with the......
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