Is Trotskyism left wing or right wing?

On economic organisation Trotskyism scores −10 on a scale from −10 (common ownership) to +10 (private property and markets). On social and cultural order it scores −06. A single left–right figure combines these and four further measurements that move independently, which is why the atlas reports six.

Is Trotskyism authoritarian?

On the organisation of power, which measures whether authority is dispersed among institutions that can stop each other or concentrated in a single centre, Trotskyism scores +03. Soviet democracy, legal factions and multiple soviet parties inside a workers' state.

Atlas / Organisations / Trotskyism

Trotskyism

Left Opposition · 1923– · USSR, international · Communist · Movement · coding confidence medium

−10ECcollective

−06CUpluralist

+03AUmonist

+05SCcentral

−09IDuniversal

+09CHcoercive

Each axis runs from −10 to +10, with zero a genuine mixed or balanced position rather than an absence of opinion. A score describes a stated position and a governing record; it is not a judgement of merit. What each score means →

Core principles

Permanent revolution across borders; the Soviet state had degenerated into a bureaucratic caste that must be politically overthrown.

Economic model

Planned economy with restored workers' democracy in its management; industrialisation without forced collectivisation.

Organisation of powers

Soviet democracy, legal factions and multiple soviet parties inside a workers' state.

Reading note

Same economics as Stalinism, sharply different authority coding. Almost the entire leadership was executed.

Check a claim about Trotskyism. The interactive atlas measures the distance between any two organisations across all six axes and shows which ones carry the disagreement.

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The evidence for every score

All six cells are sourced. A rationale explains what the score is measuring and each artefact is something a third party can check without taking anyone's word for it.

EC · Economic organisation · scored −10

At the floor: planned economy with restored workers' democracy in its management.

Programme textThe Revolution Betrayed (1936) defends the planned economy and attacks the bureaucracy administering it.

CU · Social and cultural order · scored −06

Coded −6: opposed the Stalinist reversal on family and gender law.

Programme textThe Revolution Betrayed devotes a chapter to the recriminalisation of abortion and the cult of the family.

AU · Organisation of power · scored +03

Coded +3: soviet democracy with legal factions and multiple soviet parties.

Programme textThe Transitional Programme (1938) demands the legalisation of soviet parties.

SC · Scale of decision · scored +05

Coded +5: planning at union scale with international extension.

Programme textPermanent revolution requires the extension of the revolution beyond national borders.

ID · Rule of membership · scored −09

Coded −9: internationalist against socialism in one country.

Documented act or statuteThe Fourth International was founded in 1938 explicitly on this basis.

CH · Method and tempo · scored +09

Coded +9: revolution, including against the existing workers' state.

Programme textThe programme calls for political revolution in the USSR while defending its property forms.

Where it came from, and what came after

split fromBolsheviks
The Left Opposition was expelled in 1927 and its leader deported in 1929.

Nearest organisations by measured distance

Straight-line separation across all six axes, out of a maximum of 49.0. Proximity means similarity of stated position, not endorsement and not resemblance in outcome.

Countries

Russia · USSR

Cite this page

Scores are revised on evidence, so a citation should carry the version it refers to. Version 4.3.1 is current; the revision log records every change.

McGrath, K. (2026). Trotskyism. The Political Atlas, version 4.2. https://thepoliticalatlas.com/organisations/trotskyism/ (accessed 2026-08-01).

Free to quote and reproduce with attribution. This is a synthesis rather than a peer-reviewed dataset — where an authoritative figure is needed, cite the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, the Manifesto Project or V-Dem.