Like many splits, the theoretical justifications came after the interpersonal ones. Trotsky lost out on the top job, and fled to the west. He and his tendency were broadly allowed to exist by the west, as they aligned with the US foreign policy line on everything.

Their tactics of selling newspapers is partly a survival mechanism. It doesn’t really threaten the bourgeoisie, it’s good for recruiting, and it gets them funds. They’re basically tiny NGOs with consistently bad takes on AES.

That said, their analysis of things that aren't AES isn’t bad. Trotsky’s work on fascism is considered pretty stellar.

So, in my personal experience, a lot of it comes down to IRL Trotskyist orgs having a bizarrely cultist mindset. I have a friend who’s in the org that runs the world socialist website, and she is completely doctrinaire , she won’t deviate from the party line on anything.

This includes a lot of weird beliefs like “Stalin was poisoned by the CIA” even though he was a decrepit aging alcoholic by the time he finally but the dust.

That’s in addition to the other (largely valid) criticisms of Trotsky that come from tankies that point out that he ultimately functioned as a tool of western capital for the rest of his life after leaving the USSR.

With all that being said, “The Revolution Betrayed” is still a great read, and honestly I suspect things would have gone better for the USSR if he had been running the show, but with these historical hypotheticals it’s hard to know :back-to-me-shining:

I'm not a Trotskyist, or really any -ist beyond a Marxist, but I do know people who were in ISO before it dissolved.

Part of it is that the online left has tendency to overrepresent ML lines that are either from

1. A former Trotskyist group that turned on all the other Trotskyists and so is fervently anti-Trotskyist now (WWP, and it's slightly better split PSL)

2. Remnants of old communist parties (that split just as badly as the Trotskyist parties did, and have the same problematic views of older Trotskyist groups like the people who run WSWS) which have historical baggage against Trotskyists (see Grover Furr twisting over every single thing published that somehow Trotsky was a Nazi collaborator which is in sync with some of the old british communist parties and the old CPUSA). This also gets discovered organically by people self radicalizing, because that literature and older Stalinist era anti-Trotskyist stuff will come up if you start googling and how are you a fledging leftist supposed to figure out if its accurate or not. For example I've seen people cite Trotsky the Traitor by Bittleman, which is a very old CPUSA publication written at the height of Stalinist influence and paranoia, and the author later repudiated all of it and was expelled from CPUSA for advocating reform.

3. Other non aligned left groups that mock Trotskyists for some of the more culty aspects of some of the sects (and this includes both ML and non ML groups), and turning the general anti Trotskyist rhetoric into speech where anything a group doesn't like immediately gets derided as Trotskyist (or Trotskyite as -ite just cuts deeper I guess. This also happens with things getting called Stalinist willy nilly), no matter the relation what was done had anything derivable from Trotsky or Trotskyist writers. That or they will take real issues with a group that identified as Trotskyist and then changed, see Max Shachtman or the Marcyites, and then apply that to all Trotskyists from all time when in reality Trotskyism has a lot of different positions from different groups, including ones that broke with Trotsky and a lot of other Trotskyists. The Marxist Humanists for example, who I think have a lot of good insights and are more of a position to take in another group than form a group around, are a split from Trotskyism and calling it Trotskyist doesn't make sense, and lumping it in with the cults makes even less.

Also, the Trotskyist tradition was always marginalized because of the conditions created by Stalinism, and so now it has a reputation of being marginal / sectarian / prone to splits etc. which is fair in some ways but it has nothing to do with anything inherent in the theoretical orientation itself and is entirely a product of the historical trajectory of socialist movements in the 20th century. and also overlooks some of the really important historical accomplishments of Trotskyists in the US like 1) the Minneapolis General Strike and 2) keeping the Marxist tradition alive in some sense at a time when it was all but dead in the U.S (International Socialist Review and later Haymarket books for example have proved indispensable for keeping socialist publishing going) . Abroad, Trotskyists due to opposition to the USSR found it very difficult to organize and were actively purged in certain countries but even then there were some large successes like in Bolivia in the 1950s or the Sri Lankan Lanka Sama Samaja Party which was instrumental in Sri Lanka getting its independence from Britain (though the party is today marginal, holding only 1 governorship).

Today, I don't think it makes much sense to identify as a Trotskyist in a super formal way, as it's a legacy of the USSR's birth and 20th century communist movement, and also steeped in a bunch of cold war rationality. This does not mean that Trotskyist authors or Trotsky himself do not have important insights, but as a political movement it does not make much sense to me to harp on it in any way. That's one reason why a lot of the remaining orgs seem culty, how else do you keep existing when there's no clear reason to, that's one reason ISO as one of the better orgs rightfully dissolved as it recognized its form of organization was not expedient anymore.

I also maintain that the 4th international logo looks like it's from an anime.

The Trot to neoCon pipeline is real.

An org I'm a part of is currently dealing with a group of trots attempting to turn our organization into a newspaper publishing house. Never mind we're a federally recognized organization and our turning into a newspaper publishing house would be in violation of our mission as an organization and would also violate a lot of laws.

So uh, did Enver make yet another alt?

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Trotskyites have extremely low tolerance for splitting and at the same time try to maintain demcent, which results in splintering like a tree struck by lightning. Because his positions oscillated wildly through 1900s, 1910s, 1920-1925, 1925-1935, you can find any reading of him you like which results in incoherency of ‘his’ groups.

Extremely broadly speaking his initial (circa 1923-26) critique was correct, but like, Stalin adopted similarly left positions later, in 1929(?), after nep sunset.

I honestly think there is also value in his later systematic critique, because it came largely true, but like 30-50 years later.

as someone in a trot org wandering into this thread

The trots here in Argentina aren't leftists at all. In Congress, they voted against the law unbanning abortions and they are gonna abstain from voting on the new tax on the rich. Oh, and also they said people should abstain from voting back in the 2015 elections, which facilitated the election of the Neoliberal Mauricio Macri as President. They are either very stupid or reactionaries. Which is stupid. So if trots outside here are like that, they should be dunked on thrice as much as it is done currently.

Trotsky invented horseshoe theory

Too long didn't read?

It's frankly a counter-revolutionary ideology with the distinguishing feature that it is LEFT IN FORM BUT RIGHT IN ESSENCE and since even Trotskys day has been a useful ideology by the intelligence services to turn revolutionaries against Actually Existing Socialism (and by this I mean the socialism built my men and women on this planet in this lifetime not in the perfect, unblemished realm of our beautiful dreams)

I spent a bit of time answering the question "What would happen if Trotsky came to power" cos it was fun which you can find here https://hexbear.net/post/44077/comment/391013

TROTSKY WAS A TROTSKYIST UNTIL LENINISM HAD PROVEN ITSELF SCIENTIFICALLY CORRECT AT WHICH POINT HE WAS A BOLSHEVIK-LENINIST

In 1913 Trotsky called for destruction of Leninism. We see here how pathetic it is later for the Trotskyites to refer to themselves as "Bolshevik-Leninists" only when it became clear after the revolution that Lenin was held in such high esteem of the Communist movement

In a word, at this moment, all that Leninism consists of is based on lies and falsifications, and bears in itself the seeds of its own decay.

Two policies may now be applied: to destroy ideologically and organically the fractional walls which still exist, and thus destroy the very foundations of Leninism, which is incompatible with the organisation of workers into a political party, but which can perfectly grow on the manure of splits; or, on the contrary, to conduct a fractional selection of anti- Leninists (Mensheviks or liquidators) by a complete liquidation of the divergences on tactics.

Trotsky, 1913, Letter to Chkeidze

Lenin was to characterise Trotsky in 1914 as the following (please note his assessment of PERMANENT REVOLUTION):

Trotsky, however, possesses no ideological and political definiteness, for his patent for “non-factionalism”, as we shall soon see in greater detail, is merely a patent to flit freely to and fro, from one group to another.

1. Trotsky does not explain, nor does he understand, the historical significance of the ideological disagreements among the various Marxist trends and groups, although these disagreements run through the twenty years’ history of Social Democracy and concern the fundamental questions of the present day (as we shall show later on);

2. Trotsky fails to understand that the main specific features of group-division are nominal recognition of unity and actual disunity;

3. Under cover of “non-factionalism” Trotsky is championing the interests of a group abroad which particularly lacks definite principles, and has no basis in the working-class movement in Russia.

All that glitters is not gold. There is much glitter and sound in Trotsky’s phrases, but they are meaningless.

Lenin, Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity

Further

Trotsky was an ardent Iskrist in 1901—03, and Ryazanov described his role at the Congress of 1903 as “Lenin’s cudgel”. At the end of 1903, Trotsky was an ardent Menshevik, i. e., he deserted from the Iskrists to the Economists. He said that “between the old Iskra and the new lies a gulf”. In 1904—05, he deserted the Mensheviks and occupied a vacillating position, now co-operating with Martynov (the Economist), now proclaiming his absurdly Left “permanent revolution” theory. In 1906—07, he approached the Bolsheviks, and in the spring of 1907 he declared that he was in agreement with Rosa Luxemburg.

In the period of disintegration, after long “non-factional” vacillation, he again went to the right, and in August 1912, he entered into a bloc with the liquidators. He has now deserted them again, although in substance he reiterates their shoddy ideas.

Such types are characteristic of the flotsam of past historical formations, of the time when the mass, working-class movement in Russia was still dormant, and when every group had “ample room” in which to pose as a trend, group or faction, in short, as a “power”, negotiating amalgamation with others.

The younger generation of workers should know exactly whom they are dealing with, when individuals come before them with incredibly pretentious claims, unwilling absolutely to reckon with either the Party decisions, which since 1908 have defined and established our attitude towards liquidationism, or with the experience of the present-day working-class movement in Russia, which has actually brought about the unity of the majority on the basis of full recognition of the aforesaid decisions.

(Ibid)

In May 1917 Trotsky was to declare, only a few months away from the Russian Revolution

I cannot be called a Bolshevik... We must not be demanded to recognise Bolshevism

-Trotsky, May 1917

Wasn’t Trotsky’s left opposition and criticism of Stalin correct?

I'm not sure why the Left Opposition would be correct. They put their platform to the Bolshevik party in 1927 and it was re-soundly rejected.

In 1927 the bloc of Trotskyites and Zinovievites were to put their platform of the opposition to the Bolshevik party at the 15th party congress. 724,000 members voted for the Central Committee and 4000 voted for Trotskys Opposition. I'm not sure how correct this can be if you can put your platform to the most well read and battle hardened communists and have them reject it?

Further this congress was the ruination of Trotskys political career as a bolshevik

At the Fifteenth Party Conference, Trotsky and Zinoviev finally destroyed themselves politically. Trotsky made a lengthy speech and had to ask repeatedly for more time. He was interrupted con­stantly by ridicule and laughter. Zinoviev grovelled and begged for­giveness for his errors. He, too, was heckled and ridiculed. Both had been arrogant in power and now they were humiliated and defeated. It was left to Bukharin to make the final savage attack on them; the delegates, thirsting for blood, applauded loudly.

The main discussion at the conference was not on the opposi­tion, but on Stalin’s new theory of “socialism in one country.” It bore the stamp of his mind and outlook, and it marked the begin­ning of the Stalinist era. The Russian revolutionary drive had been losing momentum since the end of the Civil War and the process had accelerated after Lenin’s death. A new policy was needed that would inspire the Russian people to undertake the superhuman task of carrying their country on from the October Revolution towards socialism and communism. That policy was “socialism in one country.” Its emotional appeal was overwhelm­ing. It aroused a new fervor in the party, and pride in the revolu­ tion spread beyond the party ranks. It was a declaration of inde­pendence from the West and of faith in the capacity of their country to forge ahead, creating its own future alone and unsup­ported. Backward Russia, for so long treated as lagging on the outskirts of Western civilization, would show herself to be ad­vanced and at the center of civilization in the coming millennium.

-Ian Grey, Stalin p.215

PERMANENT REVOLUTION IS GARBAGE AND WOULD HAVE LED TO THE IMMEDIATE COLLAPSE OF THE REVOLUTION

Please see here https://hexbear.net/post/44077/comment/391412

Socialism In One Country was a masterpiece of foreign policy. Don't believe me though watch this short video of anticommunist conservative historian Stephen Kotkin explain how Trotsky lied about Socialism In One Country

DEFEATISM IN WORLD WAR 2

In Revolution Betrayed he tells the world there's no difference between Stalin and Hitler and that the Soviet Union won't last a day if the Nazis invaded - giving a huge morale boost to the Nazi army and demoralising Communists inside the Soviet Union

In 1939 when Nazi Germany was carving up Europe left right and centre he calls for the Independence of Ukraine. This is despite knowing the following facts: Hitler had called for taking Ukraine in MeinKampf for the oil fields and that the only people wanting independence were Ukrainian Nazis whilst the Communists were pro-Stalin.

The Ukrainian Nazis would go on to collaborate with Nazis, setup their own SS divisions and murder jews, socialists and communists as well as fight alongside Nazi Germany

https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1939/07/ukraine.htm

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Fightback is more big tent though. At least in my experience with Fightback, the group has members of various branches of communism, and doesn't like... vibe check you at the door to make sure you're a Trot or whatever. That was my experience anyway.

Also they ran some dope lecture and Q&A sessions which for a babby Marxist is good. It's better to have a group - any group, really - of mostly like-minded people politically to springboard ideas off of, and to interpret theory with. Cause reading it is one thing, discussing it is another.

Now if you'll excuse me I've gotta read the rest of this struggle session, let's goooooo

This thread needs @JoeySteel