I live in the UK and nearly every older Communist you meet is a Trot and all the protests that I've been to that have had communists at them were mostly Trot orgs but online everyone just seems to shit on them for no clear reason. Am I missing something? Or is it just regular leftist infighting
Trotskyists have a long history of basically destroying left wing momentum. In the beginning, they would undermine international Solidarity with the USSR. They have historically had several harmful tendencies like constant splitting, repeatedly trying failed strategies (entryism), contrarianism and cultlike behavior. Look at the political landscape on the left in places where Trotskyism is dominant vs places where Marxism-Leninism is dominant. You will find in the US and UK that there are like 100 different microscopic trot groups, while in countries like Greece there is one dominant ML Communist party and maybe a couple irrelevant groups that literally nobody cares about.
The constant insistence on entryism has been huge too and it literally always fails. In the UK, the Corbynistas were the latest example, but they also had Militant Tendency in the 80s. It's like they just can't learn that you will never be allowed to win as a socialist. It's called a Bourgeois democracy for a reason.
The Militant tendency did win elections to parliament and did win control of the city government of Liverpool on a working class program, before being purged from the party. The elected members of the Militant Tendency had no illusions in winning class struggle in bourgeois government, and instead used their positions to advance a clear class perspective and to recruit members to their ranks, which is a strategy Lenin himself advocated for.
Ultimately, yea, mistakes were made and the strategy was not a linear success, but like, I really don’t see the issue with entering the youth wing or community branches of the Labour Party for the purpose of spreading and winning support for Marxist ideas. You have to work with the working class as it actually exists, and in the spaces and organizations where it actually moves.
As for the Corbynites, while some of them had experiences with the Militant back in the day, that shift in the Labour Party was not a deliberate entryist strategy by Trotskyists. Trotskyists are for sure intervening in the Labour Party, but focusing on recruiting from the youth wing of the party, local branches, and specific projects like the campaign for the reinstatement of Clause IV.
And like, your counter example is the communist party of Greece? Wholly irrelevant in the Greek working class movement and a husk of its former self by virtue of decades of stagnation, collaborationism, and failure to put forward any sort of socialist program, while notably failing to defend LGBT rights under bourgeois law. There was something approaching a revolutionary situation in Greece in 2015, and they played basically no role.
I'll never understand why people defend Militant Tendency as some sort of pyrrhic victory, they didn't do anything. Like you say that they wanted to use their position to recruit but what happened after they all got fucked? You had Blairism for decades. They were a resounding failure. Most people today don't even know they ever existed.
And yeah, the KKE is not nearly as relevant as they once we're, but they are definitely still more relevant than any Communist party in the west, let alone a NATO country. 850,000 people are in a KKE-affiliated labor union federation. I will admit though that the left has been subsumed by anarchists, which is a very common occurrence in NATO countries for some reason. They have plenty of folks lobbing molotovs but not really much else.
very common occurrence in NATO countries for some reason
I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I see a lot of online leftists say stuff like “tankies aren’t real leftists” or “authoritarians deserve the wall” and it makes me feel like they they just want to kill a bunch of non-white third-worlders
Online anarchists are heavily misguided in their hatred for "tankies" and "authoritarians" but I promise you with all my heart that none of them think of "non-white third-worlders" when they are saying that shit. They're thinking of also very-online MLs they interact with on twitter, who are at the very least first worlders and likely white. Anarchists that say this shit mostly are just too uninformed to know that most third world leftists are MLs or MLMs.
This is true. There are definitely issues with irl Anarchist movements, and I think you can probably draw a line from the CIA funding philosophers like Foucault to their preeminence in the first world but online leftists of all stripes are cringe.
And anti-CPC plots
China’s Trotskyists even defected to KMT to participate in anti-communists activities.
yeah it's a good overview of the historical inception of the ML and Trotskyist divide which can help illuminate why there is still a rift despite being almost a century apart
Yeah, the later parts (in which there aren't quotations from self reports and such) aren't bad and even have some theoretical accessible insights.
There is the great problem though to act as if trotskism is the same today as it was then and that the label means the same thing. Both which isn't quite true.
The experience of trotskist groups (with that I don't mean following trotskism, but self identifying and sometimes being identified by other leftists as trot) - or rather with those groups - in the last 70+ years is relevant.
I don't know however one of my favourite history moments is Lenin saying "P.S. Trotsky has sent in a silly letter. We shall neither print it nor reply to him."
First letter of Terf is the same as the first letter of Trot....
Coincidence? You decide!
Almost all of the M-L’s you see on the internet are radicalized online and not part of any sort of IRL group or politics. The knee-jerk reaction against trots is basically in-group/out-group identity signaling based on, at best, a meme-level understanding of theoretical differences.
Basically none of the criticism online, as you can see in this thread, is based on anything resembling Marxist analysis. Take, for example, the point below blaming trotskyists for failing to support “AES.” Like we would raise the point that like Cuba as it exists now is in a transitional state, which means the possibility of sliding back into capitalism, especially without a large workers’ state like the USSR to fill in the gaps of its economy. The other way forward, under this analysis, is to spread and deepen the revolution, reinvolving the working masses in an active role, deepening workers control of the economy and democratic planning, etc.
This is a dialectical and materialist analysis of the situation, but internet stalinists would characterize this perspective, in itself, as a failure to support actually existing socialism.
How do you feel about Trotskyist organizations aligning themselves with US foreign policy, both historically and recently?
I feel like you probably have some gotcha quote pulled up from like Tony Cliff or someone, but fundamentally we oppose capitalism and US imperialism on a working class basis.
Almost all of the M-L’s you see on the internet are radicalized online and not part of any sort of IRL group or politics
The long storied history of Trotskyists making shit up is alive and well.
We would raise the point that like Cuba as it exists now is in a transitional state, which means the possibility of sliding back into capitalism, especially without a large workers’ state like the USSR to fill in the gaps of its economy. The other way forward, under this analysis, is to spread and deepen the revolution, reinvolving the working masses in an active role, deepening workers control of the economy and democratic planning, etc.
No ML opposes this statement. The type of shit MLs oppose is:
From a general historical point of view, developing nuclear weapons is an absolute waste of human and material resources. But as long as society is dominated by privileged national ruling classes - in the case of North Korea, a privileged Stalinist bureaucracy - these will arm to the teeth to defend their privileges[1]
Also, I don't love Trotskyists taking US-aligned intelligence reports as fact:
Despite the indoctrination, it still remains to be seen how the North Korean masses will respond to Kim Jong-il’s death, and above all to the transition. Reports have emerged that indicate that their instinct to struggle has not been completely snuffed out. Here is what AsiaNews reported in February of this year:
“The wave of protests that began in the Mideast appears to have reached even North Korea. For the first time in the history of the Stalinist regime, groups of ordinary citizens have protested in three cities demanding food and electricity, sources say. The event is exceptional and confirms the economic difficulties, especially concerning food supplies, people have to face under the Communist government.
“According to South Korea’s Chosun-Ilbo newspaper, citing a North Korean source, demonstrations broke out on 14 February, two days before Kim Jong-il’s birthday, in the cities of Jongju, Yongchon and Sonchon, not far from the border of China.
“The State Security Department (the all-powerful agency under Kim Jong-il’s direct control) investigated the incident but failed to identify the people who started the commotion when they met with a wall of silence.
“‘When such an incident took place in the past, people used to report their neighbours to the security forces, but now they're covering for each other,’ the source said.
“Korean sources told AsiaNews that this represents a crack in the prevailing mindset. ‘Different factors are at play. On the one hand, the country’s worsening economic situation is certainly one reason. The regime is in fact unable to feed most of its people. On the other, changes at the top are another as Kim Jong-un gets ready to succeed his father on the throne in Pyongyang.’
“The younger Kim is ‘feared by the population,’ the source said. ‘He is viewed as bloodthirsty and mad. Almost everyone thinks he was behind the military attacks against ROKS Cheonan and an island under South Korean control, which led to restrictions on humanitarian aid from the South. This has further worsened standards of living in the North. North Koreans are ready to do just about anything to stop the succession.’” [2]
I think that the working class of Korea should have full control of their economy and society and I do think the leadership in the DPRK as it stands has an interest in repressing this process. You can “defend” the state against imperialism by signaling your support online or whatever, but the health of the workers’ state, the involvement of the masses in the revolutionary tasks, is going to be the outcome determinative factor whether or not you want to acknowledge it.
I said nothing about "defending" the DPRK lol
Trotskyists routinely and uncritically push far-right and imperialist lines on US-enemy states because they are desperate for their own political line to be validated.
In the case of IMT's articles on the DPRK, they quote at-length unnamed sources from a far-right news publication with known connections to the US. The same news publication which has published hits such as "Kim Jong-Un Executes Wife for Doing Porn" and "North Korean Diplomat Executed on a Whim by Kim Jong-Un", both obviously false.
The history of Trotskyism is a history of taking L's because they refuse to study and learn from revolutionary struggle. They just want to rehash 1924 until we all burn to death.
Edit: Also, claiming the DPRK developed nukes to protect itself from their workers is deranged. The US military is stationed on their southern border. There is a better explanation lmao
And the DPRK is such a transparent, shining beacon of light for the workers of the world that there is no shortage of reliable information on the conditions and consciousness of the working class there.
You distilled Trotskyism perfectly right here: "we only trust the far-right and imperialists when it comes to the DPRK."
I actually said that “ the DPRK is such a transparent, shining beacon of light for the workers of the world that there is no shortage of reliable information on the conditions and consciousness of the working class there.”
By that I meant, sarcastically, that the DPRK has conditions for its workers that are less-than-exemplary and therefore it can’t hold itself out as an alternative to the status quo for the workers of the region. Same reason why China can’t hold itself out as an alternative to the workers of Hong Kong.
It doesn’t mean I support US imperialism in Hong Kong, or in Korea, but it’s not me who is failing the working class there, and the quality of that working class leadership, whose deficiencies you defend, will be what makes or breaks the struggle against capitalism and imperialism.
You are talking around the fact that every single Trotskyist publication relies heavily on myth-making from the far-right and imperialists. There are definitely valid criticisms of the DPRK. They are just never provided by Trotskyists because their understanding of the country comes from South Korean tabloids.
And I have not said one word defending the DPRK thus far. What would I be defending them from?
If you want to claim that Kim Jong-Un sent secret service members to crush a popular uprising in 2017, and use that Chosun Ilbo article as proof (as IMT did), I would defend the DPRK from that obvious imperialist lie.
Since you really want to see a defense of the DPRK, here's one: the Workers Party of Korea and the Chinese Communist Party have done more for their working people than any Trotskyist party in history. No Trotskyist is interested in learning from that history.
Here's a good sample of the content PSL puts out [1] [2] which is the American political party my politics best align with.
The first is an analysis covering the context for the Trump-DPRK negotiations.
The second is a member's first-hand accounts from their visit to the DPRK.
The concern about DPRK state media is valid. If we are skeptical of all the coverage surrounding the DPRK, we should not be speculating on their day-to-day internal politics. I haven't listened to the first-hand account yet, but the analysis only references the indisputable facts - the state of negotiations and major historical events. So, I don't think it will be particularly controversial.
I would much rather take this approach to relationships with decolonized nations. There is no clear opposition in the DPRK that better represents the Korean people, so I should not impose my will on them. Western chauvinism needs to die.
There is this myth that socialist countries are extraordinarily repressive & no opposition exists. That is simply not true. In the 1980's, when there was mass discontent with the Soviet government, the existence of an opposition was incredibly obvious and well known to the USA. We heard about it all the time. If there was a mass popular movement against the DPRK, we would likely see more indisputable proof of it.
I’m also not going to watch that video, given the group is not yours and you’ve also not watched the video, but the article you posted lays out a position based on the “right” to “normalized relations” with the imperialist powers, which 1) is laughable and 2) is not a Marxist perspective.
I particularly enjoyed this very serious take: “Cuba’s strength and its steadfastness, coupled with a supple but firm diplomatic perspective (lol), changed the relationship of forces and succeeded in forcing the United States to begin the process of diplomatic and economic normalization.” Again an example of just wholesale abandoning anything resembling a Marxist analysis through some handwaving about “changing the relationship of forces” that is never actually explained because it cannot be explained.
And finally, you embody my OP: radicalized on the internet without real life political activity. You’re like the 8th M-L on this website who has given me some variation of “the PSL sounds good” while having zero actual connection to the organization.
I'd like to frame this response in the context of our conversation. My problem with Trots is that they uncritically push far-right and imperialist lies. Anyone serious about dialectical & historical materialism would not do that. MLs do not have this problem.
the article you posted lays out a position based on the “right” to “normalized relations” with the imperialist powers, which 1) is laughable and 2) is not a Marxist perspective.
The right to self-determination of nations is not Marxist? Ending the economic blockade on the DPRK requires normalized relations with the US. If the DPRK chooses to go down that path, I support them. It's not my position to say their people should suffer from the blockade.
Cuba’s strength and its steadfastness, coupled with a supple but firm diplomatic perspective, changed the relationship of forces and succeeded in forcing the United States to begin the process of diplomatic and economic normalization.
None of this is wrong. If the Cuban state was weak, the US would not bother negotiating with it. One of their countless coup attempts would have worked. Speaking kindly of a government is not anti-Marxist lmao
“changing the relationship of forces” that is never actually explained because it cannot
What are the forces which impact the US-Cuban relationship? There have been attempted military coups, economic blockades, etc. And there has been a change in these forces:
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The US has given up on brazen regime change.
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Cuba has become more economically independent that the blockade is less impactful.
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Cuba is widely recognized by the international community, and has strong relationships with US allies.
The relationship of forces changed. That is why the US began talking about normalized relationships.
Maybe that could have been wording better. I thought it was pretty clear, but I understand the confusion. Your criticism is with wording. My criticism is with Trots publishing far-right propaganda.
I've talked pretty openly about my political work here. I never said I wasn't a member, I said I agree with their political lines. You have not said you are a member of IMT. All I know is that you are defensive of their far-right myths about socialist countries.
You can't respond to the merits of what I'm saying, so you need to make up shit about me.
The National Question is a question taken up by Marxists. It also is not a question that applies to "normalizing relations" with imperial powers, which is just a conception of politics lifted directly from bourgeois political science. Obviously there is no peaceful coexistence between imperialist powers and workers states or between imperialist powers and the periphery they exploit.
The "opening up" to Cuba under the Obama administration had literally nothing to do with Cuba changing the balance of forces. If anything Cuba has already begun the slide back into capitalism, the US identified sympathetic forces and processes within Cuba, and "normalization" in this context just means opening up for US capital investment.
widely recognized by the international community
A "Marxist" - "Leninist" talking about the "international community" of bourgeois nations, jesus christ.
My criticism is with Trots publishing far-right propaganda. you are defensive of their far-right myths about socialist countries.
And I'm making the baseless claims here? I laid out above our basic position on the workers' states, which all exist in transitional forms today, meaning they will either move backwards into capitalism or forwards to socialism via a deepening of the revolutionary involvement of the masses. This is not a "far-right" position. It would be one thing to disagree and present a counterargument, but all you're doing is willfully mischaracterizing.
Believe it or not, I don't know who you are or pay attention to what you say about your political work, but from what I can gather from this conversation you definitely fit the model of internet Stalinist.
It also is not a question that applies to “normalizing relations” with imperial powers, which is just a conception of politics lifted directly from bourgeois political science
Lenin's essay analyzes the creation of an independent bourgeois state in Poland. That did include the state's right to pursue "normalized relations", e.g. trade and diplomatic relations, with any country they see fit. That is not "bourgeois political science." It is an objective summary of the powers that an independent state has.
Here is a good summary of my approach to self-determination:
The question of the “right to self-determination” is of course not so important to the Polish Social-Democrats as it is to the Russian. It is quite understandable that in their zeal (sometimes a little excessive, perhaps) to combat the nationalistically blinded petty bourgeoisie of Poland the Polish Social-Democrats should overdo things. No Russian Marxist has ever thought of blaming the Polish Social-Democrats for being opposed to the secession of Poland. These Social-Democrats err only when, like Rosa Luxemburg, they try to deny the necessity of including the recognition of the right to self-determination in the Programme of the Russian Marxists.
My country has established a colony of their southern border, and turned the peninsula into the most militarized place in the world. The situation rhymes with the Russian Empire's control of Poland.
Communists in the DPRK can chart whatever path they see fit. American communists must recognize the right of the DPRK to manage this contradiction as they see fit, and agitate for the complete withdrawal of the US occupation from the peninsula.
Obviously there is no peaceful coexistence between imperialist powers and workers states or between imperialist powers and the periphery they exploit
I agree. Normalized relationships are not peaceful. But it is one of the two options available. Their other option is to endure the economic blockade, which is also not peaceful. There is no peaceful option for the Korean peninsula until the US occupation is ended.
A “Marxist” - “Leninist” talking about the “international community” of bourgeois nations, jesus christ.
There is an international community of states. There are bourgeois states and worker states. They interact with each other on the global stage. I don't understand what you are even criticizing here.
This is not a “far-right” position.
I am specifically talking about the reliance on far-right propaganda to craft the Trotskyist understanding of socialist states. I have cited examples of this.
I have said nothing about your abstract understanding of a workers state. I generally agree with that. My problem with Trotskyists is not their ability to recite Marxist definitions.
You keep changing the subject to avoid valid criticism.
Believe it or not, I don’t know who you are or pay attention to what you say about your political work
You have seemed particularly obsessed with that so far.
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there is certainly a not-insignificant population who cross the border into China.
Let's be specific, 300,000 people have emigrated from the DPRK since 1953 [1]. For context, 300,000 Germans left Germany last year [2]
Emigration from the DPRK is not some mass political project.
they feel poorly represented, and, indeed, that they feel the Chinese government better represents them than that of the DPRK
Again, let's be specific. The largest incident of emigration from the DPRK happened in 1998, during the Arduous March. Northern Korea is mountainous, has little irrigable land, and is prone to drought. This produces the conditions for crop-failure. When this happened before the fall of the USSR, the DPRK bought their excess grain. After the fall of the USSR, the DPRK was sanctioned by the UN and no country would trade with them.
The Arduous March was the first crop-failure under these circumstances. It led to mass famine and death. The two options for the DPRK were:
- Agree to US regime change and allow the US army to march north - the same army which wiped out a generation of Koreans in living memory.
- Endure the famine.
Neither option was particularly good. Saying that Koreans felt "poorly represented" in response to this is insane. The Korean people were under military siege, and a few fled.
Also, neoclassical economics is completely divorced from reality. The fact that "people respond to bad things by criticizing or leaving" is taken as a serious innovation is an embarrassment for bourgeois social sciences.
The fact you responded in one minute makes me think you did not put much effort into thinking here.
Dude, the border between the DPRK and China is porous as fuck
Do you have a better source for emigration numbers from the DPRK? I cited a very anti-DPRK source. If you don't know how many people are leaving the DPRK, then your "voice and exit" theory isn't useful.
the idea that there has been no emigration since 1998 is batshit insane.
I did not say that. I said the largest incident of emigrations was in 1998. You don't need to lie to me about what I'm saying.
So maybe Trots and other left anticommunists should shut the fuck up when they dont have reliable information instead of following the imperialist line and therefore earning the title of left anticommunist?
So maybe M-L’s and other vulgar Marxists should shut the fuck up when they dont have reliable information instead of constantly staking out positions on the right of the working class movement and abandoning proletarian internationalism in favor of one-dimensional “anti-imperialist” positions.
love to be internationalist and fighting for the proletariat by not taking anti-imperialist positions.
Proletarian internationalism is when you conceive of yourself as a member of an international working class (“the workingmen have no nation”), and “in the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries” “point[ing] out and bring[ing] to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality.” Internationalism on a proletarian basis is how imperialism is actually opposed in substance and not just aesthetic.
I think there's a real split (heh) amongst trotskyist positions here. Many Trotskyists would reject eh "Deformed Workers State" analysis, and take the Cliffite view that China/Cuba/USSR were "State Capitalist" and should not be critically supported at all, and the dominance of that view in the UK/Aus has coloured the Trotskyist position as a whole.
You’re not wrong about the Cliffite deviation, but you literally contradict yourself within your own two-sentence comment with the lazy addendum that “the dominance of that view in the UK/Aus has coloured the Trotskyist position as a whole.”
Perhaps I should clarify, I mean the "public" (here meaning "weird politics nerds") perception of the Trotskyist position is widely seen as a State Capitalist one. So when someone says they're a Trotskyist they assume the next words are basically "China/USSR/Vietnam/Cuba/Laos Bad and not Socialist" rather than "Maybe the Nomenklatura wasn't a super great move"
Funny enough, I tend to associate the "X country is good/bad" categorical thinking with the M-L's online who are Marxist in aesthetic, but don't possess the ability conceive of anything dialectically.
So, it's partially just a bit. Many Trotskyists are true comrades in day to day action, Online ones like Steven Brust are super cool, and I'm friends with many of them. Don't let the online shit break left unity.
Also many Trot orgs do practice demcent. And many kept the left alive when there was nothing else extant as a revolutionary party. Those "Old Trots" were all alone in the early 90s as ML and Maoist parties were in chaos, save the few Anarchists that avoided the weird centrist insurrectionism that developed.
That Said...
Basically, in the Anglosphere just pre and post-WW2 the ML parties and Anarchists were smacked down pretty hard, while the Trots were seen as a safety valve for leftist agitation by the authorities and a way to prevent Soviet influence.
This allowed them to become the centre of the "New Left" in many ways. Unfortunately a combination of Trotsky being butthurt and actual semi-valid criticism of Soviet Bureaucracy coupled with the fact many of them were taking spook dollars from the start (which many rationalised as being sold the rope to hang the capitalists) meant that splits, weird political positions like supporting Fascists and Absolute Monarchs against AES, and general uselessness were rife.
This was especially pronounced in the UK where most major left orgs were Trotskyist and there was a major attempt at Labour Party entryism. It failed spectacularly for a variety of reasons including huge infighting, distracted from building a revolutionary workers movement at a time when labour militancy was at its peak, and was widely regarded as a bad idea that let Thatcher and Blair in.
A combination of these is why the stereotype of a Trot party is 30 people at a climate protest with a newspaper denouncing the 30 people they just split from, and supporting "Anti-Imperialist" Turkish Militia against the "Bourgeois Social Reactionaries" of Rojava.
Trots get a bad name, particularly UK Trots, on the basis of they tend to get weird as they age. Like, Spike magazine taking money from the Koch brothers weird. Or in general when some conservative ghoul claims to be a former Marxist, they were a Trot.
Or in general when some conservative ghoul claims to be a former Marxist, they were a Trot
Is it like a statistical thing because most anglo marxists were trots at some point?
Trots have never had a successful revolution. They have only attacked actually existing socialism, given fuel to imperialist narratives and eventually become neocons. That’s why everyone hates them, they are traitors.
They reject democratic centralism, and thus their organizations tend to split or turn into weird cults.
Every Trotskyist organization supports democratic centralism until their very niche political views are crossed.
It is hard to look at the complex web of Trotskyist parties in the US and think, "these are some true believers of democratic centralism."
Right, trot orgs are the only left groups with a splitting problem lol
There's a reason ML parties are known by Trots as a "dictatorship" and "bureaucracy", precisely because they do not split.
What? They absolutely do lol, why do you think we have so many? Also, many of those parties used to be trot parties and then split off from other trot parties soo idk what you're on about
There are three ML parties in the US: CPUSA, WWP, and PSL. WWP and PSL come from a lineage of Trotskyist splinter groups.
That's the point I'm making, Trotskyism is prone to undermining Democratic Centralism. The history of splinter groups is the history of Trotskyism in the US, even if some parties end up back at ML.
There has not been a serious ML splinter from CPUSA, in spite of their rampant revisionism. That is a testament, for better or worse, to their commitment to democratic centralism and unity in action.
I see what you're saying. My response would be that splits happening don't necessarily mean a rejection of demcent. If you're in a demcent org that somehow got coopted by revisionists, is it not your duty to combat that liberalism and raise hell or leave the now neutered liberal or even reactionary org?
Idk, splits as a metric for that sort of thing make about as much sense to me as GDP measuring the health of a nations economy in terms of the average person
Splits are necessarily a rejection of Democratic Centralism.
The method of DemCen is:
- A period of free and open debate, where all perspectives are given the opportunity to be presented.
- A binding vote, where all members are expected to carry out the political line voted on.
- A time period in the future, where the political line can be re-evaluated and a new vote may be held.
The purpose of this method is to maintain unity in action. We are more powerful in a unison, so we must carry out the political line faithfully.
When a split occurs, the splitters will claim they reject that DemCen occurs in the party e.g. there's no open debate, the party refuses to reconsider the line, etc.
The party will claim the splitters are undermining the democratic will of the party.
If there was a single split, I would consider either of these possible. But Trotskyists are routine offenders. The most obvious explanation is that the tendency (in general) does not practice DemCen. I don't know the politics of every Trot party, so there are probably exceptions to the trend.
My point is that I think there can be a split where the splitters don't reject demcent, but reject a deformed and distorted organization that no longer represents revolutionary marxism for example. Say there's an org that starts out revolutionary but then grows and becomes more dsa like, and the core group of revolutionary marxists are now overpowered and the org could start doing stuff like idunno, endorsing Biden and fundraising for him or something, supporting the local police during blm, whatever.
In that case, do you still think that core group would be rejecting democratic centralism?
To further clarify, I'm not talking about any specific example, just thought experiment
That's a fair point, I see what you mean.
You are describing a Liberal organization using DemCen. I'd consider splitting a rejection of DemCen, even if I agree with rejecting DemCen in that case.
A Leninist party is a revolutionary Marxist party guided by DemCen. Trotskyists generally emphasize their interpretation of "revolutionary Marxist" over DemCen. MLs tend to put more weight in DemCen.
Could be, I only have real experience with my particular org, and for us demcent is our core tenant
Fair. I'm talking about very broad trends in these movements. I'm hopeful the splitting in US parties is coming to an end.
Random musings below, feel free to ignore lol
ML parties tend to be extremely unified, even when radically changing political course. Vietnam, China, the Soviet Union, Cuba, etc.
Trotskyists see cults of personality, bureaucracy, and a dictatorial nature in these parties. MLs see a strict adherence to DemCen and unity in action which enables them to struggle for their people. At least, that is how I see these disagreements often play out.
Also, I'm a candidate for PSL. Our political history comes from countless splits, so I can't claim to be above it lol
Neoconservatism as an ideology evolved out of Trotskyism.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism
You had no idea because it’s literally not true. The ideology of neoconservatism has nothing to do with Trotskyism as a theoretical tradition. There are like maybe 5 prominent individuals who had some degree of connection to Trotskyists groups, or groups descended from Trotskyist groups, and some degree of connection to neoconservatism, and that’s the basis of the “trot-to-neocon pipeline.”
Half these people weren’t actually Trotskyists in any meaningful sense or, like James Burnham, were members of Trotskyist groups as young people or in college and wound up rejecting Marxism altogether as they moved right.
Funny enough, the surface-level shit take that Trotskyism gave rise to neoconservatism is itself obviously not a Marxist analysis. There’s no analysis of the material forces underpinning the rise of neoconservatism, there’s just the shallow idealism of “these people thought X and then later thought Y, and therefore Y is the consequence of thinking X.”
I didn't say I HATE them, I said I didn't like them, I think their ideology is a dead end, but despite that I still see them as fellow travelers
Just another day on the hexbear site.
Scrolled through the thread and it's not as bad as i thought it'll be.
Okay having actually talked to and interacted with a Trot org at this point, I think a lot of people are over generalizing. There are Trotskyist orgs that are no longer attempting entryism, doing active organizing, and producing contemporary analysis to shine light on the failures of bourgeois democracy and grow a workers party. You know, all the same shit we say Marxists should do on here all the time. Many 'Trots' just consider themselves "Marxists." Some comrades don't like Trots mission of developing a smaller number of politically educated cadre and building a vanguard party from a tight core outwards rather than focusing on mass issues - but at the end of the day it seems a widely blown out of proportion disagreement over tactics towards the same just goals. I think organizing benefits from both strategies as different people will be drawn to different methods, and in the imperial core I think more traditional focus on the proletariat rather than mass-line/maoist organizing still makes sense. I guess time will tell in that regard.
Rather than listen to a bunch of leftists with axes to grind, though, you can just check out their analysis and organizations yourself. I think a lot of the negativity towards Trotskyist comes from people's subjective experiences with smaller groups or orgs, and they generalize to the entire tendency. https://www.marxist.com/about-us.htm
Edit: but I could be wrong here. If the one true leftist wants to put me in my place I'll take it on the chin.
IMT's website does a good job of highlighting my biggest problem with Trotskyists. Their actions generally support imperialism. That fact was a major tension point for me when trying to do anti-war work with them.
Effort-post below, feel free to ignore if you understand how Trotskyist Parties tend to push the Liberal Interventionalist line uncritically.
I'll focus on their analysis of the situation in Libya as an example.
Any serious-minded person who looked at the situation in Libya would see an imperialist NATO invasion. Here is how people in the Obama administration talked about the affair:
Every single socialist country put out a statement condemning the action, so did most Marxist-Leninist and Left nationalist parties in the world. It was an obvious imperialist intervention in Libya that that needed a broad anti-war front to oppose it. And yet, IMT released an unsourced article about how Libya is actually imperialist and we need to support the "uprising" there.
the workers, youth and poor in Libya have stood up against a dictatorship that has revealed its true character. The uprising that began in Benghazi, the second largest city, has spread to many regions of the country.
Gaddafi responded with brutal violence, and as during the popular uprising in Caracazo, has used the army against the unarmed civilian population. He has also used mercenaries against the people. The fact that Gaddafi was forced to pay mercenaries is evidence of the fact that he does not trust his own soldiers. In Benghazi, the army joined the revolutionary people and this has been repeated in other cities. It is difficult to estimate the death toll, but we know that in Benghazi alone more than 230 people have been killed. Repression has reached such a brutal level that they have used the air force to bomb the demonstrators.
This is the most important part of the article. If true, it would have ramifications for the world socialist movement. But there was no attempt to substantiate this claim.
IMT gladly quoted Hugo Chavez when he said "in Egypt, what is happening in the Caracazo, a sudden awakening of a people. We have just seen the first ripples. They are events that mark a new story in the world." Yet, his comments that the news surrounding Libya were built on a "colossal campaign of lies" fell on deaf ears.
Today all the major oil multinationals are operating in Libya, British Petroleum, Exonn Mobil, Total, Repsol, among others. On the other hand, it is worth noting that Gaddafi holds five percent of the shares of Fiat, as a result of opening the country to the Italian capitalists.
This uprising in Libya has the same causes as those in Tunisia and Egypt. The result of Gaddafi’s deals with imperialism has been an economic disaster for most people, despite the country's oil wealth. Libya is a country with 30 percent unemployment and the cost of living is getting ever higher. The prices of basic foodstuffs such as rice, flour and sugar have increased by 85% in the last three years
Every single point made here would also describe Venezuela. Multinationals operating in their borders, mass unemployment, and inflation. That is not a justification for imperialist intervention in a sovereign nation.
Personal experiences with the IMT as well as checking their websites has pretty much shown me that they are also more than a little casually transphobic, refusing to publish any purely supportive articles but instead posting endless criticisms of "the movement" or "queer theory" where basically inbetween single sentence support they denounce everything and say that the only way forward is for the trans community to subsume themselves into the workers movements. In at least one case they flat out called campaigns to get trans women treated equally to cis women within Labour "a waste of time".
Thats not to say that they never write supportive articles, there are a few, not more than you can count on one hand, but you'd never know since as far as I can tell they do not tag those articles with anything so even if you enter their categories for gender issues you cant find any of the supportive articles, only the criticisms. The supportive articles are also never highlighted on the international page even when trivial bullshit like fundraising the Trotsky museum makes it on at the same time as articles about the UK/US war against trans people are buried in national websites.
I tracked down the article you're citing from.
https://www.marxist.com/truth-about-present-revolutionary-uprising-libya.htm
In fairness, I think the last paragraph addresses at least some of your concerns?
Without doubt, imperialism in this situation will try to assert their interests. We oppose any imperialist intervention in Libya. The imperialists are the ones who sold weapons to Gaddafi, made business deals with him to plunder the country's oil wealth and used the country as a barrier against illegal migration in Europe. Imperialism is not interested in the fate of the Libyan people, but only the country's natural resources.
I'm much newer to the movement so I'm not familiar with some of these old disagreements. I guess I lack the necessary context to really develop a strong opinion on this particular issue. I just see so much vitriolic hate for Trots online, and it does not match up to my (again, limited) understanding of them in real life.
We oppose any imperialist intervention in Libya.
That's not true. The operations in Libya in March 2011 was objectively an imperialist intervention. IMT calling it something different does not change reality. History has vindicated this understanding, but it was obvious in the moment as well.
In most interactions with them I find that they occupy a space inbetween ultras and MLs, mega-leftists perhaps?
Ultra leftists are those who take the positions appropriate for when the working class has achieved class consciousness and is the revolution is nigh or already happening, it's more how we should ideally structure things, and it is not what you talk about when you're talking to working people, and not taking ultra left positions is rather important, because you have to meet people where they are
The job of an org is to build a bridge for the working class from where their consciousness is to where you need it to be, ultraleftists just stand on the far end of the gap yelling at people for not being across it yet
