: ... Each demanding a different position on the 'unconditional defense of russia' policy...And therein lies a big difference between Trotsky and Lenin: one died in 1924, another lived until 1940.
Trotsky urged an 'unconditional defense' of the 'degenerated' worker's state (U.S.S.R.), claiming a workers state exploited by a bureaucratic 'excrescence' was better than a capitalist state.
This idea has been followed with dogmatic purity by the 4th International, who have applied Trotsky's thesis (which had merit in the 1930s) to many other countries, most recently Serbia(!).
Lenin, on the other hand, never saw a 'degenerated worker's state' that retained socialized property relations with an exploiting 'excrescence' of a bureaucracy (although one may credibly claim that he foresaw it).
Lenin would have had many criticisms of such states as modern China, North Korea, etc.---as have the 4th International (WHILE calling for their unconditional defense). But, in my humble opinion, Lenin was far too original, far too practical, and far too HONEST to ever end up in an ideological bind that called for the 'unconditional' defense of such a regime as Serbia.
It's not like Lenin AT ALL. (See '"Left-Wing" Communism---An Infantile Disorder' for starters.)
The 4th International, as I see it, is a hollow vehicle for Trotsky's pre-WW2 observations.
None.
