A Trotskyite is a person who follows the political ideas of Leon Trotsky, one of the leaders of the Russian Revolution who later quarrelled with Stalin, was driven out of the Soviet Union, and was killed in Mexico in 1940. His followers believe the working class itself should hold power in the state, and that a revolution cannot survive shut inside one country — it has to spread. The word is also an adjective: a Trotskyite group, Trotskyite politics. Here is the part students never guess. There are two words for this, and they are not neutral twins. Trotskyist is what these people call themselves. Trotskyite is largely what their enemies called them — Stalin's side used it as an insult, and it still carries that edge. So if you read "Trotskyite" in a text, look at who is speaking; often the writer disapproves. If you want to be simply factual, "Trotskyist" is the safer choice. That -ite ending does this fairly often in English. It can be plain (as in Israelite), but attached to a modern political name it frequently sounds dismissive — as if the person is a mere follower rather than a thinker. This is a formal, historical, political word. You will see it in history books and in newspapers writing about the left, and almost never in conversation.

托派、托洛斯基主義者（注意：這個字帶貶義，是對手的用法；中性說法是 Trotskyist 托洛斯基主義者。中文裡「托派」也常帶著這種批評的味道）