Why do people here really not like Trotskyists? Is it just because of his beef with Stalin and not an actual criticism of his views? Do people really not think a global movement would be superior for the betterment of all people?
Edit: Thank you to everyone who provided context and history, y’all are a wealth of knowledge.
What Trotsky believed and why he believed it is almost irrelevant compared to the rhetorical position that someone assumes by calling themself a Trotskyist. The basic vibe of it was, "The USSR could've been good, but it went wrong at such-and-such point, so as it is now it's bad." If you erased Trotsky and all of his ideas from history, there would still be plenty of people adopting that position while calling themselves something else. It's a way of tempering support and gaining protection from criticism of a state's actions. We see a similar phenomenon with ultraleft Maoists opposed to the modern PRC. By holding up an improbable ideal of "What could've been," they malign the real material improvements delivered by the actually existing socialist projects, and frequently they'll be some of the first to criticize such projects in order to distance themselves from them. The perfect is allowed to be the enemy of good, and so they become de facto supporters of the status quo because nothing is ever good or pure enough to challenge it. Criticism of AES states is fine, but if you completely write them off then you're throwing away your only proof of concept that your ideology - which seeks to overturn the world order and bring war and instability in the short term - can actually succeed at making things better.
I mean it's a little more than that. Like, anarchists also don't have a particular affinity for "actually existing socialism," but we get away with it because we typically don't claim to be marxists.
(also perhaps because we're funner to be around)
anarchists actually build projects though and haven't really been directly antagonistic to other socialist orgs in the west for at least the past 50 years. It's more been an unsteady alliance, or outright neutrality from what I know. Whereas Trot and ultra orgs have been antagonistic, or they've been splitters, or they've just collaborated with feds. One of the first street level things I did was anti-war protests during the Iraq War, and we had a rival Trotskyite group that surprisingly endorsed the war, so they'd talk shit about us in their publications. I can't imagine an anarchist group trying to do anything like that.
So I don't think anarchists really have that same streak of "what if" that @Zuzak@hexbear.net means. Anarchists actually mean it and do something about it.
(also perhaps because we're funner to be around)
Certainly this, but also the fact that anarchist critiques of AES states never loop around to "and this is why the U.S. embargo on Cuba is good."
anarchists can also build a fucking movement, holy shit y'all are good at getting people out on the streets
Anarchists tend to be better writers and artists, as well. The zines, the Wobbly tunes, the comics, and the SF stuff are all phenomenal.
@Rx_Hawk@hexbear.net this is p much it. Gonzalo CIA Maoists do not uphold Mao Zedong thought and currently define themselves by opposition to it, same thing
Taimur Rahman - Why I am not a Trotskyist.
TL:DR, it's eurocentric, rejected the revolutionary potential of the peasantry in a way that was proven 100% wrong by history, and rejection of socialism in one country expects every country to stay in a state of paralysis rather than build their own socialism. It's also nearly defined entirely by it's opposition to AES states, so it's had quite an overlap with the US imperial project in helping tank communist movements esp in latin america, and that rabbit hole goes really deep.
Show
Your meme makes a good point, but I like to think of it as using pieces from all the Lego sets you currently own to make a super cool one.
How does it oppose AES? In another thread someone said that is something self-proclaimed Trotskyists do, but is that really something Trotskyism advocates for?
Trotsky himself considered the USSR a "removedd workers state", and spent a good amount of his life advocating and working for itts overthrow, notably with the western powers. Trot groups followed this pattern.
They also hilariously think that lenin's testament meant that trotsky should've become king, not realizing that he lost that crucial vote to Stalin, and communists don't appoint successors like monarchs.
That's why nearly trot groups end up being leader/domination/sex cults.
You'll get good answers on the history of trotskyism over on lemmygrad.
Also watch that video. It's from a pakistani communist and former trot, who has extensive organizing history with trotskyist parties.
I think you're conflating Trotskyism, thought based on the works of Trotsky, with Trots. Regardless of what Trotsky wrote and believed, Trots generally oppose AES and are generally defined by that and bringing up Stalin and Stalinists to bash at every opportunity, even when it doesn't have anything to do with the topic at hand.
EDIT: Also I swear to god they fucking read What is to Be Done and come to the conclusion "We gotta start a newspaper in 2024!"
The printing press is a compelling new technology that will let us spread our ideas to the people!
That just sounds like being a lib with extra steps
But yeah they sound pretty bad from the general consensus.
idk, Trots seem to follow Trotsky's example pretty well from what I know of the former: https://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/trotsky.htm
But he's right? Communism isn't built by 2 guys building all the Legos it's everyone in the whole world building all the Legos at once, and building just 1 and getting destroyed by the capitalist hegemony didn't work??
If you have your legos and somebody hasn't gotten their legos yet, you can't wait until they get their legos to start yours. You could wait, if there wasn't the urgency presented by the global lego-stealing superpower, but since we have to run an extremely tight schedule here, the best move is to build your legos ASAP and then help others with theirs once you have the knowledge and resources provided by building your own. You can combine them into one big lego world later when the heat is off, and you can also combine them partially as is expedient.
There's a reason the West was scared of "Domino theory" and not simultaneous worldwide socialist revolution.
Building just one didn't work for the USSR, but with careful building practices, it has been going alright for China, Vietnam, and the DPRK, with varying degrees of alright
The USSR's overthrow is not evidence that proletarian states / fortresses aren't the best vehicle to proceed towards socialism. The fact that the west had to devote so many resources to defeat it and so many other socialist attempts, but are still failing at stopping it's growth in other states, and consider AES the greatest threat, is a testament to it's correctness.
Not to mention the fact that the USSR still uplifted hundreds of millions of people out of hunger and poverty, something that certainly wouldn't have been possible had they followed trotsky's advice of "acheving communism through external and constant warfare" rather than building up your industrial base.
Trotsky's alternative was essentially to make permanent war on Europe, since he was dogmatic about adhering to marx's wrong prediction that, capitalism can only break in it's birthplaces. Lenin corrected this by showing that capitalism breaks at the weakest links in the chain, and the feudal -> socialist transition was far more common than capitalist -> socialist in the 20th century.
I suggest watching the video I linked above.
My stance was more anti this reductive meme than anti what you're talking about here
The meme is even more charitable than the reality.
He genuinely thought that unless Europe specifically has a revolution, no other country's attempt will be successful, and will removed. He advocated for an expansionist invasion of Europe at a time after the Russian civil war when the USSR was at it's weakest and most devastated. Everybody thought this was incredibly stupid, and that it'd be better to rebuild it's industrial base instead of making war on europe.
If the Soviet Union had immediately fallen or been crushed by the Nazis (as Trotsky later seemingly wanted to happen????)
I'm familiar with a fair amount of Trotsky bullshit but I haven't seen this one. Can you share a source?
I agree, his position was proven wrong both by hindsight, and common-sense at the time.
I don't think many of us are engaging with Trotskyism in a shallow way in this post. We're critiquing his Eurocentrism, wrong view of the peasantry being a reactionary class, and opposition to AES.
I 100% agree that "dunk culture" and thought-terminating terms aren't helpful, and we should elaborate why we think something is wrong.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
It's a meme cuz in the cringe world
two or three whole generations turned out to be plants or genuine reactionary dipshits, and in the rest of the world they were innefective while always shitting on AESIn any case, as any other leftist they are always annoying and the True One Leftists
Okay but I kiiinda get the feeling y'all don't actually want socialism for the western world, you just want it to burn. Like if America became AES, people would still yell death to Amerikkka.
Edit: Sorry this was an incredibly idealist take by me.
if America became AES it would necessarily involve decolonization. What would remain would hopefully not resemble the current formation, culture, or arrangement of America. Hopefully it wouldn't even be called the same thing, or perhaps wouldn't be a single country but perhaps even a loose confederation of indigenous nations and whatever remains in-between
It would be like saying we would also hate Israel if it became socialist. Yeah no shit, because Israel shouldn't exist. So yea I'm always going to hate Amerikkka unless it's stripped bare and the racism purged through decolonization, no matter how nominally socialist it gets
Maybe you come from a place that isn't a settler colony so maybe that sort of perspective is lost on you?
Yeah, this was an extremely poor analogy, I have left it up as a testament to my stupidity
you're not stupid if you were able to listen to your comrades and learn from it
Okay but I kiiinda get the feeling y'all don't actually want socialism for the western world, you just want it to burn.
It depends. When you say "socialism in the Western world" do you mean redistribution of all of the West's plundered resources, land, and labor back to the Global South and indigenous peoples, or do you mean taking Elon's shit because some global northerners feel like they deserve a bigger share of the plundered superprofits?
Yes, I would love global communism.
Which is what, to my understanding, Trotskyism argued for. But yeah, plenty of people have pointed out even if his writings point to that, in practice that is not really how Trotskyists act.
Cool yeah then we're on the same page. I just personally think that when most Westerners talk about socialism they just want free heath care and longer holidays and who cares about where the resources that sustain that lifestyle come from?
Which is exactly why I think it's important for the proletariat to be connected across state boundaries. Allows people to better understand current issues outside their own experience and what would have to be done to correct them. If two neighboring countries with vastly different natural resource reserves are both socialist and both countries allow free flow of trade (which I think any two socialist states should), it helps everyone involved.
In theory I agree with you but in practice I think many Western leftists need to develop some humility and willingness to engage as equals rather than talking down to non-Westerners.
Sounds like you are whinning about an extremely far hypothetical to try to hide your desire of whining about people chanting death to amerikkka today.
Pathetic.
Lol, not at all. Who was chanting death to amerikkka today? Maybe read the rest of my comments to help you understand that's not what I am talking about.
To me either the US gets cool or we all die (because of the US), no in between
If America became AES, of course I'd support it wholeheartedly, though I have a hard time picturing what that would look like.
Yeah, I mean I understand that the only realistic way is revolution, which is kind of hard to advocate for in public spaces, which I understand.
i’m another commenter but to me it’s not that it’s hard to advocate revolution, it’s that i can’t picture realistically happening in any meaningful and lasting way here
I consistently see two big pitfalls for people who are sympathetic to leftist ideas but aren't quite leftists:
- They're soft on U.S. imperialism
- They're inadequately critical of U.S. propaganda about AES states
Trotskyism seems to lead people directly into both. It's built around a sort of leftist Lost Cause mythos, where all these revolutions were good at one point but betrayed by those dastardly MLs. This means criticism of MLs that goes far beyond reasonable (Parenti's line about utopian socialists never having to address the problems inherent in running a state come to mind), which leads into 2, then 1 seems more palatable because opposing these evil ML states is good, actually.
Trots and MLs want practically the same thing but Trots define themselves by their opposition to MLs. Depending on the circumstances they join the "tankies bad" crowd when it suits them, then drop out of it when it doesn't.
This splitting and wrecking is incredibly harmful to the left. There's absolutely no tolerance for Vaushites or nato-"anarchists" that form the core of that anti-tankie crowd, because it is anti-communism. Trots therefore represent a dangerous tendency within the left that might split and join in with anti-communism if they feel a particular way on a particular day.
With that said my experience with trots is that they have been very good at two particular things: Archiving and newspapers, which includes blogs and some sites that are blogs but manage to present as larger news orgs.
Oh and their entryist and reformist tactics have repeatedly failed.
It's mostly because of who the western left has been for the past 50 years. Like I don't mean to be critical of anyone here, but the strands of leftism that we represent are sort of new in the west. Or rather, haven't been around in great force in a long time. American leftism had been largely dead since maybe the Weather Underground. It wasn't until around Occupy Wallstreet (2012) and the revitalization of the DSA (~2016) did American leftism begin to grow again, and become more coherent rather than an ambient feeling in the air.
But when I say it was dead, I don't mean it was inanimate. From between around 1972 to 2012 there were communists in America but the dominant ideology was Trotskyism. They wiggled their way into being the only game in town for a long while. You wanted to join a student org? Ok, here's 6 students on campus who swear they're not Stalinists. You wanted to join a party? Ok, here's ISA. You were randomly handed a newspaper at a protest by some type of communist party? Probably Trotskyites (or the other pejorative, Marcyite, although Marcyism today is much more aligned with international Marxism-Leninism)
It can't be overstated how they much they dominated discourage and organization in North America for decades. They were the primary leftists around, and honestly I think they're where some of the American leftist stereotypes came from. "That's not real communism" or how we're all students or we're pushy with pamphlets.
So anyway, since people here by and large represent a break from that, there's going to be tension. I'm going to guess most people here have no association with American leftist organizing as far back as the 80s or 90s. I'm close, I remember going into leftist chat rooms and forums around 2003 and they were all largely Trotskyists. Even our beloved Marxists.org is ancient enough to have Trot founders.
So that's it really. Newer leftists are breaking away from the previous parties/orgs and trying to find new ground, since the perception is the past 4 decades of American leftism have been highly ineffective. Saying those decades have been ineffective is synonymous with criticizing Trotskyists, since they were the dominant voice for much of that.
from the 90s onward the most active radical left tendencies in the US were anarchists. for better and worse, the earth liberation front, the battle in seattle, the antiwar movement, and occupy all had overwhelming anarchist undercurrents.
yeah you're right. Throughout the 90s there was also the anti-globalist movement, there were the "post-leftists" on college campuses, various ecological movements too.
I realized I forgot to mention that. Younger people throughout the 90s and onwards had anarchist tendencies if they wanted to do something real. The Trotskyites I mentioned became increasingly older, more weird, secluded and bitter. Whereas the anarchist types were the ones continuing the work on the ground.
Same thing has fully destroyed leftism in countries like Finland that really would have needed consistent theory and understanding of socialism to prevent things developing to where they have developed. I see the propping up of the Troskyist left and pushing out of the ML theory to some fringe position of "Stalinists" as one of, if not the most harmful, in ridding the world from class awareness and an ability to see a way out.
The entire point of socdem governance is to exist with capitalism and the troskyist talking points that frame communism as utopistic and out of reach have aided in cultivating our current "End of History" mindset. The way trotskyims became the only viable left option to even be considered is a very bourge project imo. And has been sadly way too successful.
But this is just my personal take from the surroundings and history I live in.
although Marcyism today is much more aligned with international Marxism-Leninism
Can I just say, I kind of love the Marcyites? They're funky little freaks who logiced their way to ML positions, through Trot ideas.
A lot of trot orgs become weird culty sects, but the Marcyites accidentally reinvented ML somehow. It's kinda dumb, and I love it.
I was very confused when I learned the WWP had Trot roots. Like, these guys fucking love AES! Idk the history of it or how the party came around to this though. Any good reading on what happened?
Well Sam Marcy himself came from a Jewish Russian family that was a target of the pogroms during the Russian civil war. They ended up escaping Russia with the assistance of the communist forces. That probably colored his impression of the USSR for the rest of his life, since although he would criticize Stalin and Soviet bureaucracy, he always regarded the USSR as legitimately socialist and a defender of workers' rights. Also you're right, every WWP member I've met has been lovely. It's kind of surreal sometimes because a lot of them in my area are older white people, yet they're very rabidly pro-China, and that's just not normal at all to see in older Americans lol.
So from the outset the WWP was weirdly pro-Soviet while also being Trots. The Marcyite movements were like reverse splitters. Every time they split they became more ML. The WWP initially split from the Trotskyite Socialist Workers' Party over support for China. Marcy, Copeland, and the members they had cultivated all had a positive opinion Mao. PSL would eventually split from WWP and there's not a whole lot of literature on why. But I've asked around and it seems to have been a split in desired tactics among certain members of the leadership, and it wasn't a split over ideology. This is anecdotal, but I've been told by some older PSL members that the idea is WWP wanted to continue being more structured like a Trotskyite party. They wanted to continue the tactics of street protests, newspapers, etc. whereas some of the initial PSL members wanted to be more like a coherent electoral/political party that was directly structured after the Communist Party of Cuba.
It also bears to remember that Trotskyists served as a bulwark against “Stalinist” USSR during the Cold War in the West.
Michael Hudson talked about how he was approached by the State Department to work with them after Super-imperialism was published, and at first he was a bit worried because of his Marxist background. He said that once they learned about his actual family history (his father was a Trotskyist labor leader in Minneapolis and he himself is the godson of Trotsky) they were like, “ok, good, not a threat to us.”
It’s actually not a surprise that many Trotskyists ended up being neo-cons in the US, especially since they hated the USSR so much.
Michael Hudson is a based Trotskyist though, so he’s kinda like an outlier.
Michael Hudson talked about how he was approached by the State Department to work with them after Super-imperialism was published, and at first he was a bit worried because of his Marxist background. He said that once they learned about his actual family history (his father was a Trotskyist labor leader in Minneapolis and he himself is the godson of Trotsky) they were like, “ok, good, not a threat to us.”
No fucking way. That's incredible. Do you still have that interview lying around?
My recollection was a bit hazy but here is one I could find. He’s mentioned it a couple more times before but it’s probably buried somewhere.
KARL FITZGERALD: And distilling all of these stories of various revolutions and battles against the state, if you could distill the theory of change, how was change meant to occur, from the real life conversations you had?
MICHAEL HUDSON: You always had to be aware that most of your followers are going to be FBI plants pretending to be people who they weren’t and would be writing up reports that were not usually very accurate, as I later found from the FBI files on my father and my friends.
They wouldn’t talk so much about the future change. They talked about where things went wrong. Especially how Stalinism had really destroyed Russia and what Russia really would have done if it would have been a truly socialist country as it set out to be instead of the way that it actually went.
So it was really where things had gone wrong. It wasn’t how to do it right. It was an awareness of all the things that can go wrong and all of the dangers.
KARL FITZGERALD: Just on McCarthyism — what was it like living through that period?
MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, none of my friends or people we knew were attacked. That was basically against the Stalinists at that time and gradually, by the time I wrote Super Imperialism, as I mentioned before, I was amazed when I was given a top-secret security clearance, because the FBI said they’d gone over my report and they knew for sure that I wasn’t Stalinist and wasn’t pro-Russian.
So all of a sudden all the McCarthyism sort of knocked out the Stalinists, and many of the liberals I knew were all standing up to the Stalinists, imagining that they were wrongly prosecuted like the Rosenbergs, and yet it was the Rosenberg’s cousin that had introduced Trotsky’s assassin, Jackson, to Trotsky, as his girlfriend.
So I was not very sympathetic with the Stalinists who were being attacked at that time.
So it was really where things had gone wrong. It wasn’t how to do it right. It was an awareness of all the things that can go wrong and all of the dangers.
If I wanted to kill a movement, I would try to bury it underneath the weight of people believing there were ten thousand million zillion ways it can go wrong and then letting everyone bicker over how it's the wrong way to do things and therefore nothing should be done at all because it will be worse than doing something.
Once you have people believing that MLs are worse than doing nothing at all then you have half the movement fighting against MLs (or whatever faction actually poses a threat) and you kill it from the inside. You can do this with every movement ever.
The starting point for revolution is the belief that no matter what method we use what comes afterwards can and will be better than before. We need that at the very foundation of the left in order to prevent this from breaking it.
Thank you very much for taking the effort to link the source!
The US not viewing someone as a threat is a pretty clear indictment in my book
At least some of them were viewed as a threat. The Socialist Workers Party was relentlessly harassed and infiltrated by the FBI. At one point a third of their members were paid informants. Prominent members and leaders got yearly investigations where the FBI went to their bosses and landlords to question them about their "subversive activities". This is all despite their incredibly tame platform of entryism and rarely supporting AES countries.
It's all documented in a lawsuit they won against the US government: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/642/1357/2398821/
Being so heavily infiltrated that the organization is basically run by the feds doesn't indicate some kind of inherent danger posed towards the state. It suggests that the organic membership are fools.
UK SWP was used for 20 years by the cops as a base from which to attack left-types. https://www.spycops.co.uk https://www.ucpi.org.uk/ International Socialists/Socialist Workers Party Archives - Undercover Policing Inquiry
Why people don't like trots is because they are often associated with personal and organizational ruin due to being agents of capital.
Trots who have never been to AES countries like to tell me all about how China is such a capitalist imperialist nation, and how we must stand against China. Like, what the hell are you talking about? You’re an American, like me, living in get imperial core, benefiting from the exploitation of the working class, and you’re telling me to oppose a country that has done more for its people to lessen that in just the last year than my country has in the last 75? I think American leftists have much bigger priorities than trash talking AES and helping the empire by spreading Sinophobia and lies. Go to China, ask the working class how their lives have changed since they entered the work force. Ask the elderly how their lives have changed since they were kids. Talk to actual Chinese proletariat. Try to avoid using the C word, and focus on material ways their lives have been made better over time. Don’t ask any of them to overthrow their government, that would be stupid as fuck and you’d deserve it if they reported you and got you kicked the fuck out.
As a Trot who has been to China, maybe I can contribute here. Fortunately I've never heard a comrade say we must "stand against China", I don't think any serious Trot would say that, although there are some ignorant people out there. They would hopefully be more discerning and say something like "we of course stand with the Chinese proletariat, the people who have actually produced all the amazing developments in that country over the past several decades, while critiquing its bureaucracy". But above all we'd repeat Karl Liebknecht's slogan "the main enemy is at home". If you live in the US, your main enemy is the American ruling class. In the UK, the British ruling class, etc. If we live in the West, we do indeed have bigger priorities than critiquing the nomenklaturi of nominally socialist states, but we are internationalists and have to examine what is happening around the world. We definitely have to do it in a way that avoids the pitfalls of US State Department talking points, like the whole "debt trap" rubbish. I mean, all that was just regular capitalist business deals.
Having been to China myself, I can't help but agree with the characterisation of China as a capitalist restorationist country - wage labour is still the way things are done, the proletariat doesn't own the means of production, and minumum wages can be very low even in Shanghai (approx. $370 per month, which even considering the massive cost of living difference with the West is a tight budget). Wealth inequality is increasing. Certainly many workers have better conditions now than in 1949, or during the Great Leap Forward/Cultural Revolution, but economic well-being doesn't equal someone's relation to the means of production. And I'd never support "regime change" in China, actually there's potential for a move back towards socialism and workers' democratic planning, but also interests counteracting that. It's a fascinating place, I wish I had more time to properly study Mandarin. Can recommend the film "We The Workers" for a look into the present class struggle there.
I’m in the middle of something so I don’t have time for a longer more detailed response, but first thanks for your response.
That said, wealth inequality is not rising in China, the Gini coefficient is dropping, and rather rapidly at that.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI?locations=CN
40% of workers work in state owned industries last I checked, and even those in non-directly owned industries often have workers councils and profit sharing, such as Huawei where employees made on average more last year in profit sharing than I did in my US labor aristocrat job in the entire year.
They’ve clearly outlined their development as prioritizing development of productive forces to enable transition to socialist economics more broadly, and nearly every action they take, from the rooting out of corruption and party opulence, to the mass automation of industry, and the prevention of the rising of a landlord class, have been in service of that. Their goals are clearly stated in mandarin media, but you can also just look at Governance of China Vol 1-3(not a small ask, I know) and see their plans laid out plainly and openly, to transition to a fully socialist economy by 2049.
If I have time later I’ll add more sources and I hope you have a great day. You are much kinder than the average IMT member I’ve interacted with in the past.
Edit: real quick, making low wages isn’t that important when PPP is so amazing. My wife works at IKEA, and her ~¥30/hr wage is able to buy about the same quality of life as my $29USD/hr job, though it would not do so in Beijing, or other tier one cities.
such as Huawei where employees made on average more last year in profit sharing than I did in my US labor aristocrat job in the entire year.
Urge to learn Mandarin..... Rising.....
Bit idea: invitation to a reeducation camp where you just learn Mandarin, Chinese history, and get to hang out with leftists in a camp setting somewhere in a Chinese forest.
Even I don’t totally agree, these are all reasonable critiques that we shouldn’t be afraid to investigate further.
I mostly agree, except for the parts that aren’t true, like wealth inequality rising. It reflects a very principled person, at the least, so hopefully with more knowledge, they’d be willing to reexamine their belief.
The problem with your criticism of China is; no matter how mild, by merely having it you act as a fifth column for the left, even when what you say is true
Ah, because wasting time talking about something useless is something we should avoid, right?
sometimes you have to lie for the benefit of the left, we should not spread false information about working conditions in China, unless lying benefits the left.
God fucking damn it, were you the person who was on this last time too? If so, please just delete your account. No, lying is antithetical to democracy, the people are not being given a real choice if that choice is misrepresented to them. "Communists disdain to hide their aims," as Marx said.
Trotsky had to die because he was a wrecker who, having escaped the USSR, could hardly be subdued and kept alive.
Trying to come up with a word to describe what it's doing. Strawmanjacketing?
one time a nice seeming man at a bernie event convinced me to buy a newspaper and it was the worst piece of shit i've ever read
You would have wiped your ass with that paper if it was not already full of shit
There are Trots and then there are Trots. If someone wants to place the writing and ideas of Trotsky on a pedestal and feel he had particularly keen insights… ok, fine, whatever. I don’t particularly see it but if they’re otherwise just standard issue Marxists then I don’t really have a problem with that. I feel Trots like Kshama Sawant fall into this category.
The problem is that so many Trots have just unbelievably bad takes on not just AES states, but also on other pretty much all official enemies of the US State Dept. Laura Garza is a somewhat prominent Trot. While she probably represents the more extreme end of shitty Trot takes, read this verbal diarrhea and try not to get extremely angry:
How much assistance should the U.S. provide — military and/or financial — to foreign countries at war, like Israel or Ukraine? What, if any, should be the litmus test for American allies to receive assistance from the U.S.?
I defend Israel’s right to exist as a refuge for Jews and condemn the Jew-hating pogrom organized by Hamas with the backing of the Iranian regime. The capitalist regime in Tehran and the reactionary forces it backs in Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad are enemies not only of Jews but of working people of all nationalities. So long as capitalism exists, in times of crisis, the rulers will turn to scapegoating Jews to smash the working class as they did in Nazi Germany. The fight for workers’ power and socialism is the only solution to end the anti-working class poison of Jew-hatred.
I stand with the people of Ukraine in their battle for independence and sovereignty over all of Ukraine and against Moscow’s reactionary invasion.
I don’t support the policies of the U.S. capitalist class and their military, which is used worldwide to defend U.S. profits and imperialist domination, not the interests of working people here or elsewhere. I am for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Korea, the Middle East and Europe. I defend the Cuban Revolution and call for an end to the U.S. embargo on Cuba, which is used to suffocate the Cuban population for their decision to reject living under Washington’s boot.
While this might be extreme, it’s not too far off from bad foreign policy takes from Trots. Some support for Cuba sprinkled in there but to aggressively support Israel is inexcusable.
A Trot with not bad foreign policy takes in a good Trot, in my book. They’re just hard to find.
I have been looking forever for that one British Trot magazine that claimed South Vietnam had the right of self-determination
I was part of a huge palestine march last month and on the route we passed some sad old white people set up with a table saying things like "workers support Israel" or some such. Trots.
The capitalist regime in Tehran and the reactionary forces it backs
Lol, I had to stop here
This person disgusts me, as a trot I resent her calling herself one
Yeah I debated posting this or not, because it’s so extreme and I feel like posting the worst of some tendencies is uncomradely. But I think this particular quote is useful in showing how leftists (in this case Trots, but applies to everyone) can mix in good takes with bad, especially when it comes to global issues.
Laura Garza isn’t young. I have a strong suspicion that younger Trots (say under 40) as well as younger leftists of all tendencies probably have way better views. Because for older people, a lot of their ideology was developed before the internet took off, so their ideology developed in a silo, disconnected from other leftists who are more correct who can challenge their views.
Apart from what others have said, If you follow contemporary Russian politics, a Russian communist once described the parallels of the historical image between Trotsky and Prigozhin.
The reason I even brought this up is because it so accurately predicted the fate of Prigozhin, months before the mutiny when Prigozhin was just making noises criticizing the Russian government:
A bright, daring, well-spoken tongue, and with an unusual ability to whip aimless youth into fanatical shock troops, Trotsky forged himself the image of the creator of the Red Army during 1918-20. A brilliant military commander who does not care to show respect for and prone to launch into tirade against his political peers, except towards a certain leader (i.e., Lenin, but even that was not always the case either). Useful during war time, but a dangerous figure during peace time. Trotsky would reap a short-lived fame and gain a cult status in the country, but the System will eventually get rid of Trotsky because he proved too much of a threat and a liability to the post-civil war Soviet Union.
Leading a rebellion of Left Opposition against the government, Trotsky was eventually exiled to Kazakhstan and ultimately met his end in Mexico.
In contemporary Russia, Prigozhin in many respects reflected the same historical image and cult status of Trotsky. And the amazing part here is that even his exile (to Belarus) and his death (plane crash on the way to Moscow) could be predicted, as the System decided to get rid of him when he proved to be too much of a liability.
The only difference here is that both Stalin and Trotsky were true believers in their ideologies, while Putin and Prigozhin believe in nothing. Truly as Hegel once described: first as tragedy, then as farce.
And the amazing part here is that even his exile (to Belarus) and his death (plane crash on the way to Moscow) could be predicted, as the System decided to get rid of him when he proved to be too much of a liability.
Prigozhin exploded on his way out of Moscow. To me it really feels like Putin did everything possible to avoid killing his friend and only did the final hit once it was clear that Prigozhin hadn't learned his lesson and would continue to not follow orders.
As Samir Amin summarises in Revolution from North to South:
The central reality of the imperialist character of historical capitalism implies an inescapable correlate: the long transition to socialism occurs through unequal advances, mainly originating in the peripheries of the world system. There is no “world revolution” on the agenda whose center of gravity would be found in the advanced centers. Lenin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, and Castro understood that and accepted the challenge of “constructing socialism in one country.” Trotsky never understood that. The limits of what was achievable in these conditions, beginning with the heritage of the “backward” capitalism found in the peripheries, accounts for the later history of the twentieth century’s great revolutions, including their deviations and failures.
Quite simply, the Trotskyist hypothesis of permanent revolution is in opposition to the idea of socialism in one country, which Stalin, and most subsequent revolutions, have followed.
The socialist revolution begins on the national arena, it unfolds on the international arena, and is completed on the world arena. Thus, the socialist revolution becomes a permanent revolution in a newer and broader sense of the word; it attains completion, only in the final victory of the new society on our entire planet.
I’m sure I am just misunderstanding the broader definition of permanent revolution, but this seems to summarize the way I see it.
To me this doesn’t seem to oppose socialism in one country, but rather just make it the first step, which can be taken in tandem with an international movement.
How does one make socialism "in tandem" with countries where socialist movements (if there are any at all) don't hold state power? Trotsky's solution was to make war on them. And this was directly after the devastation of the Russian civil war.
History has shown that the PRC's model of non-interference is the correct one: build your own industrial base and material conditions, make friendly relations with all countries regardless of their leaders and their politics, build international socialisms by respecting other people's autonomy.
My few experiences with Trots:
-
I tried to talk to some SA people, all they wanted to do was sell a newspaper, even as I was asking about their platform and what joining might look like. Once I bought the paper they were a little bit friendlier but that was all I needed to experience to not want to be involved.
-
Two different Trotskyist groups injecting themselves into every vaguely left thing in town. One of the groups was straight up disruptive while the other one would just try to recruit people.
-
A Trot that somehow snuck into a union organizer position ghosting me and my coworkers when we tried to organize. I found out he quit from someone else in the labor movement a few months later.
-
Over the last year I've been introduced to a number of people who had interest in an ideology that is a weird blend of Trotskyism and anarchism and most of those people and their ideas are absolutely cursed.
an ideology that is a weird blend of Trotskyism and anarchism and most of those people and their ideas are absolutely cursed.
I can think of some very cursed ways to combine those, and the ones that are most likely seem quite bad. But if somebody combined the trot ability to show up everywhere with anarchist praxis, that'd be a heck of a movement.
Also if somebody combined Trotskyist splitting with anarchists never being quite the same kind of anarchist as the next anarchist, it'd probably be at least funny to watch from a distance.
The showing up everywhere thing really is the Trot special ability. I don't know if they have moles or Minority report precognition or what, but Trots have been at literally every left wing event I've ever been to, even ones that weren't announced to the general public.
The Trots are even better than the Avakians at being everywhere
The disruption thing I have some experience with. I worked a little with the ISO in college since they were the only game in town. I was at a meeting where they wanted to go disrupt a local Green party event. They didn't phrase it like that, they were saying we should go to their event and try to sway them into joining the ISO with pamphlets and papers.
I asked why we should do that instead of just joining them and the organizers seemed super confused. Like there was no possible way we could work together if they were still the Green Party and we weren't. One guy there called them Stalinists?
I should also mention everyone involved in this was like 21 years old at maximum and I was 18. So for years I just thought we were dumb kids until I learned that kinda thing is common
trot groups in england were very heavily infiltrated by cops for decades as were others in the west. Search "swp" in the Undercover Policing Inquiry published evidence
there was a zine I read years and years ago that explained how (and maybe why) trots love making front groups to ruin every little progressive project. It was before all this infiltration stuff came out but when it did, everything made sense. The title was "monopolize resistance" I can't find it online.
I tried to talk to some SA people, all they wanted to do was sell a newspaper, even as I was asking about their platform and what joining might look like. Once I bought the paper they were a little bit friendlier but that was all I needed to experience to not want to be involved.
This was basically my experience with a group that hangs out in my city, part of the IMT, "Socialist Revolution". They talk to people that walk by and say we need to make a communist political party and win elections. They have stickers for sale and pins, but not even a pamphlet or flyer for free which turned me off. I get needing to raise funds but they were clearly well outfitted with a massive high res banner, you'd think they'd want to get the word out better.
-
The local IMT adjacent org is running a defacto fraud scheme on easily impressionable young people where you have to give 60-120$ per month to be part of a 6 men local chapter of their party.
They ask specifically the new member to write them a void cheque so that the money can be transfered automatically monthly.
Also, they seem to believe that only imperial core countries can be the vanguard of world revolution. So i guess all i have to do is for these enlightened red mandarins and messiah to press the button any day now.
For me, it’s not rare for them to in effect, even if not intentionally (extreme benefit of the doubt) to prop up western narratives about AES.
I respect the hell out of certain things.
Trotsky as an individual played an important role in the Russian revolution. Respect for that. Also the armored propaganda train was badass, but nkt exactly relevant outside of being cool.
The larouchites probably play a role in forever tainting the term even though I wouldn’t exactly call them dedicated communists to phrase as diplomatically as possible.
They used to join and intentionally split parties.
They punch left and do the the capitalists work for them, historically speaking at least.
None of this is aimed at any actually existing comrades who think he had some good points (AET, actually existing trotskyites).
I may or may not have it as ringtone
but for 