What were Leon Trotsky's beliefs?

Answer 1

Leon Trotsky was a believer in Marxism, which was created by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels shortly before the 1848 revolution. Marxism is the basic philosophy that history is a series of struggles between competing social classes in a given society. The classes are determined by the nature of mode of production in each society. Capitalism would evolve into socialism which would ultimately evolve into communism. Communism would be a classless society with no need for formal government. It was not a utopia. Marx had no use for the utopian dreamers.

Karl Marx describes this in the Communist Manifesto, published in Germany in 1844, that the proletariat, or the working class, will over take the bourgeoisie, or the upper class owners and controllers of the means of production in mass rebellion as the proletarians would be the majority in societies. The proletarians would rebuild the nation and have a government that would be what Marx called a "Dictatorship of the proletariat." This would actually be a democratic government, but it would be limited to the proletariat until all traces of capitalism were stamped out.

At first, under socialism, the government would control everything and no entrepreneurs would exist. Over time, socialism would turn into communism, the need for government would disappear and every person would be working for the good of the society as a whole rather than for individual profit.

Marx finishes his masterpiece, which is arguably the most important piece of political Propaganda, with the famous lines "The proletarians have nothing to loose but their chains. WORKING MEN OF THE WORLD, UNITE!"