In his short biography of Leon Trotsky, Paul Le Blanc, a longtime scholar and Trotskyist activist, emphasizes “the aspects of unoriginality in Trotsky’s thought,” notably, but not exclusively, his “vaunted theory of permanent revolution, his analysis of Stalinism, [and] his prescriptions for defeating Hitler.”

Trotsky, Le Blanc avers, drew these aspects from Marx and the Marxists of his own time, including the best of pre-1914 Second International Marxism, as well as from the “collective project of the early Third International.” More often than not, Trotsky was merely “applying old principles to new realities.” It is in this broad sense, he argues, that Trotsky remains relevant today.

This is an unconventional stance. As a rule, followers of Trotsky stress his original contributions to the classical Marxist tradition; and they have traditionally understood these to be precisely, as Le Blanc says, Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution, his analysis of Stalinism, and writings on how to fight Nazism.