Seattle socialist city councilor Kshama Sawant has been subject to repeated corporate-backed attempts to remove her from office. Last night, she defeated yet another. Despite attacks from some of the world’s most powerful capitalists, Sawant isn’t going anywhere.
deleted by creator
I've never met anyone in a Trot org IRL that I disagreed with anything on. To be fair I may not have a disciplined ideology myself, but there's not a single thing I can point to and say "this is bad and should be critiqued." All power to the Trots I know IRL, probably the most disciplined and action-based Marxists I know.
Trots online is another thing, like the cranks at WSWS :fedposting:
I worked with my local IMT chapter for almost a year starting Nov 2020. Taking a break now since I don't have the energy to attend the meetings every week, but looking to get back into it in January. They're a brand new chapter, especially given that we're in a MAJOR city, with less than 10 people last time I counted. THey've all been great, especially for theory reading groups, and the meetings covered a lot of current events from a Marxist perspective. I don't like that the organization is explicitly all like "we reject Stalinist style communism," I'm not comfortable with that even though I don't know a ton about Stalin, but I have nothing but good things to say about our little local group here.
Yes I've been to IMT meetings myself! Lovely people. I was still 100% a lib last time I went, so a bunch of old communists coming up to talk to me was slightly terrifying. But in retrospect they were super cool and welcoming.
As for Stalin stuff, I'm not comfortable with that mindset either. As a lib--> commie convert you slowly start to realize everything you've learned is wrong, which makes me take any Stalin criticism with a pinch of salt. That said, I take Stalin worship with the same pinch of salt. I'm just not knowledgable enough to consider it a sticking point and appreciate both perspectives.
yah but you gotta admit the man was haaawt.
Dude could get it
People should remember that local groups can be good even if the national leadership is less good. My local CPUSA chapter is pretty good.
Agreed.
Did you try bringing up Stalin or modern AES states at any point?
let this be a lesson for all young leftists new to organizing: whenever you meet someone cool, just go probing for inconsequential opinions that you disagree with and then stop associating with them when you find one
only the One True Leftist can bring about the revolution.
Oh boy, whatever gave you that idea? Did someone suggest to you that young leftists should do that? Any lessons on how they shouldn't assume intentions which don't exist?
Um, I'm not sure if you're just playing along with it, but just in case you're not... u/myopic was being sarcastic. Same with /u/SoyfaceKillah.
I know. I was also being sarcastic. I was suggesting that they misinterpreted what I was saying.
Actually socialism can only be achieved if you agree with me about stalin
Why do you think that?
Why is it so important that they have perfect opinions on a country neither of you will ever go to/doesn't exist anymore?
Fuckin hell. The left has to stop jerking off to corpses and distant mirages. It's obscene
Agreed. Don't really see what the problem here is. Just saying that if you want to find disagreements, those are the topics to bring up.
I think you have a point. But speaking from inside the US, if someone thinks China or Cuba etc ought to be a target of US aggression then they are not my comrade. I might align with that person on particular tactical targets, but it'd be a serious error to think we really share bigger goals unless they come around to internationalism.
deleted by creator
I've met Trots okay on this. Won't call them "socialist" but are willing to rhetorically back China, Cuba etc vis a vis the US (and rhetorically back is all most of us practically do).
I've seen some too. I've also seen anarchists who are okay on this. Honestly, I don't really mind leftists not calling them socialist so long as they understand US imperialism as a more urgent problem. What I take issue with is people spreading imperialist atrocity propaganda because they justified to themselves that the PRC is capitalist and therefore is just as bad as other capitalist countries.
Unfortunately have met them IRL. Combative and strange is all I can say
Nah, online trots are also rught way more times than this site's main attendance would admit.
Just an example, i posted this spring an IWL (i think) analysis about Cuba which said that the government tampering with the currency in an economic crisis will lead to worsening shortages and an opportunity to imperialists to try to coup Cuba. Of course it was dismissed as deranged trot bs but then it was exactly what happened.
There was a post here a while ago that was leftist factions as spongebob scenes and since then I can only ever call Trots 'newspaper monsters' which is absolutely not a horrible thing to be.
Strongly recommend this essay on the flaws of sectarianism, dogmatism, and ultra-leftism that has a lot of valuable critique of Trotskist orgs who have this style of work, and praise of groups that do actual work.
The main issue I see with a lot of trotskyite groups is that many of them refuse to do mass work on the line that the conditions must be right first, and that the correct theory and strategy must be developed before mass work can start. However, were this the dominant trend no mass movement could ever form because everyone would be waiting until conditions being right which will only happen through mass organization and struggle. Similarly, useful and true theory is developed through reflection on practice. Without revolutionary practice, there is no revolutionary theory and so on.
That said, there are trot groups that do real mass organization like the SWP and Socialist Alternative who I do admire and who do real work. I think a lot of issues arise from the fact that the mentioned tendency of waiting for the perfect theory before organizing was typical of most trot groups for a long time hence that association being made. It is possible to have a trot line without being a trotskyist in this sense, but there is a lot of confusion and polemics that get in the way.
Anyways, sorry to lecture I hope that is clarifying!
EDIT: the relevant passages for people who don't want to read the whole essay
spoiler
"An idealist definition of a “trotskyist” would focus on whether or not an individual or group like Leon Trotsky, read his work with respect and sided with Trotsky over Stalin in the 1920’s and 1930’s. A materialist definition of a “trotkyist” on the other hand would ask rather whether or not a group acted essentially like Trotsky acted and if its strategy was essentially like that of Trotsky, i.e., was objectively “Trotskyite”. Taking a materialist approach one would be considered a trotskyist if one acting like Trotsky even if one liked Stalin and hated Trotsky, while conversely one would not be considered a trotskyist if one did not acted like Trotsky and have a strategy like that of Trotsky, even if one liked Trotsky, read his works, etc. In Examining various groups and currents we must be very careful to always use a materialist definition, and not be confused by verbal disclaimers, genealogies or posters on people’s walls. "
""The essence of what the Marxist-Leninist tradition including Stalin, Mao, Fidel and Ho Chi Minh have meant by “trotskyism” is a left-adventurist and dogmatic analysis which condemns all existing socialist countries and people’s democracies as not really socialist, being run by bureaucrats or perhaps state capitalists acting against the interests of the working people, and which likewise condemns all massive popular, progressive, or Communist led movements as being insufficiently revolutionary or in the process of selling out the masses in the interests of a bureaucracy, either local or located in the USSR, China, etc. Trotskyism differs from the anarchists who make similar claims about all progressive and socialist movements and regimes by claiming adherence to the principles of Leninism, endorsing the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and organizing themselves more or less according to Leninist principles. This is the essence of trotskyism and the sole criteria by which a group or current should be categorized as “trotskyist.”"