It can be overblown too, depending on how the speaker defines leftism. Often “infighting” is just plain ol’ fighting, and the perception of it being fight internal to a coherent and organized party is an oversimplification, if not outright misunderstanding, of varying politics or methodology.
For example, in the failed German revolution of 1918, I wouldn’t necessarily characterize disputes between the communists and the socdems and the Spartacus League as infighting. They are/were always a coalition of distinct interests.
Part of the problem is the very concept of a political spectrum and the implicit grouping that entails. I’m not a big fan of Trotsky, but it reminds me of something he wrote in Their Morals and Ours:
To Hitler, liberalism and Marxism are twins because they ignore 'blood and honour'. To a democrat, fascism and Bolshevism are twins because they do not bow before universal suffrage ... Different classes in the name of different aims may in certain instances utilise similar means. Essentially it cannot be otherwise. Armies in combat are always more or less symmetrical; were there nothing in common in their methods of struggle they could not inflict blows upon each other.
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As if the right never infight. US vs Isis comes to mind.
Hell, modern capitalist Russia vs Azov nazi Ukraine also comes to mind.
That's in-fighting talk!
It can be overblown too, depending on how the speaker defines leftism. Often “infighting” is just plain ol’ fighting, and the perception of it being fight internal to a coherent and organized party is an oversimplification, if not outright misunderstanding, of varying politics or methodology.
For example, in the failed German revolution of 1918, I wouldn’t necessarily characterize disputes between the communists and the socdems and the Spartacus League as infighting. They are/were always a coalition of distinct interests.
Part of the problem is the very concept of a political spectrum and the implicit grouping that entails. I’m not a big fan of Trotsky, but it reminds me of something he wrote in Their Morals and Ours: