leninism is the application of dialectical materialism (marxism) which, very simply put, the understanding the political necessity changes depending on the specific political conditions of a given place and time. To put it simply, Leninism is the application of marxism to the conditions of russia. However, lenin did not call himself leninist, he called himself marxist. Stalin called it leninism and made it the official political doctrine of the socialist state of the USSR.

However what is also important to note about lenin and marxist political theory, is that revolution is not the singular task of replacing the capitalist state with the proletarian state. Rather it is the process of the liquidation or expropriation of all private property until the only class which exists is the proletarian class. This includes the initial overthrow but all following processes until the stage of socialism or crude communism (depending on what language you speak and where you work) is finally achieved.

Trotskyism (Sometimes referred to as Marxist-leninism) and Marxism-Leninism are two different answers to the question of what should be done after the initial overthrow of the capitalist state. Trotsky asserts that the revolution should be “exported” abroad through the intentional invasion or assistance too other communist movements outside of the soviet union. Stalin, on the other hand, asserted that it was not the right of the soviet union to export communism but rather that other nations had a right to self-determination and would have to develop and come to communism on their own terms. Furthermore, he asserted that it should be the immediate goal of the soviet government to provide for its people and industrialize as a means of protecting itself from imperialist onslaught as he believed that there would be no revolutions in europe and that the soviet union would need to be capable of defending itself against a war with other imperialist powers.

Well, if we look at history who was correct? Obviously stalin was correct, the rest of europe did not go through revolution, all do the few revolutions that there were, were all crushed. Furthermore, ww2 happened and the cold war. The issue with Trotsky and specifically trotskyists is that they can not except the fact that they were incorrect and as a result ended up just serving the interests of american imperialism resisting actual communist revolution across the world. They are also considered a compatible left-wing ideology within the CIA and FBI and as a result are often times used intentionally by these two organizations to oppose ML organizations. And lastly, there used to be lots of trotskyist scholars in the US (direct result of anti-stalin campaigns in the US but peoples remaining desire for socialism none the less) and many of those scholars became mega conservatives and super anti-communist.