Wtf is a trotskyist?
Trotsky hated “Stalinism” so much that he was willing to try to collaborate with the actual HUAC against the CPUSA and Stalin, possibly selling out his comrades in Latin America in the process (though this is unclear and he certainly denied it). He failed to, but only because the US side rescinded its invitation. https://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/trotsky.htm
He was a bastard and every time I research him, I find some new comically disgusting thing he said or did. Stalin should have killed him sooner.
Most Trots are at least slightly better than the man himself, but that’s not saying much, and the nicest thing you can say of a given Trot is that they are really an ML with a subcultural affect (or a baby communist who doesn’t know better and got swept up by the only game in town).
The rightists of the opposition bloc are not Nazis but Russian (etc.) rightists who were within the Soviet Union or fled from it. I don’t endorse the “Nazi collaborator” claim, though I think the characterization of “show trials” is also ridiculous, as demonstrated by the much worse nature of the secret trials carried about by the Khrushchevites. Frankly, when I am feeling masochistic, I prefer reading about the opposition bloc stuff than the foreign fascist collaborator accusations.
Also, like, reading the comments of the very thread you link is a good idea.
Huac thing is insanely egregious and somehow I never knew about it
Also anarchists hate him too and it’s a good way to get left unity going
every time I research him, I find some new comically disgusting thing he said or did
Other than the HUAC thing, what are other examples?
He worked with rightists in what is commonly called the “opposition bloc” to destabilize the USSR, toward what end other than hating Stalin I am not even sure. Another member of this bloc was Yagoda, head of the NKVD and a butcher in the Great Purge, second only to his successor Yezhov (whose status in this regard I am unsure of). The bloc will make you lose years from your life trying to get consistent stories out of it if you research it.
As was mentioned elsewhere in the thread, he claimed that the Politburea were fascists and that the Soviets and Nazis represented a unified “camp” competing against the British-Aligned camp (though even in this distortion he recognizes that the Soviets hate the Nazis).
Trotsky flip-flopped on “Lenin’s Last Testament”, I believe initially recognizing it as the fabrication it was but later holding it up as real for opportunistic reasons.
Ironically, from what I can tell, he also flip-flopped on the “socialism in one country” thing (along with promoting a misrepresentation of it that exists to this day) after first supporting it, before even Stalin did, because once it became Soviet orthodoxy and Trotsky was ousted, it was just another thing to twist to paint them as devils.
A lot of self-proclaimed Trotskyists were the Vaushites of the 20th century.
fuck trots
imagine basing your entire personality off shit that happened 100 years ago in a country you don’t live in. They call themselves “anti-revisionists” but that’s just hiding from our current contradictions by retreating to some idyllic past where people like Stalin didn’t have to make tough decisions that may have been wrong. Pure dogmatism
i wanna preface this by saying i’ve done a lot of work with Trotskyists (Socialist Alternative, ISO, etc) and they can be alright, honestly. I think most of the problems people have with Trotskyists is that for the longest time, like after the 1960s to maybe 2016, they were the only communists in town, especially if you’re from somewhere western. They were always the most prominent and vocal, and there’s still residual effects of that, like for instance our very beloved marxists.org is operated by Trots, and they seem like cool people who are very dedicated to maintaining the best online repository of socialist literature anywhere. They even have all of Stalin’s writings there and he’s their mortal enemy. So yeah, part of the dissatisfaction with Trotskyites has got to be the fact that they were so embedded within western leftism for so long, but now their influence is rapidly waning as new people have taken an interest in leftism without a lot of the unnecessary baggage of the past. So it’s partially a new blood vs old blood fight too?
maybe someone has mentioned it already, but one of the problems with Trotsykists in the west at least is how often they ended up becoming affiliated or infiltrated with feds. I know that was a huge problem in the UK and it’s happened with a few American parties. But that’s also an effect of Trots being the most prominent game in town for so long. Trotskyism was an easier sell to westerners in some regards. You can be a communist and still be critical of all of the west’s enemies. It’s perfect.
There’s also a weird level of former Trotskyists who became conservatives with age, very notably Irving Kristol and James Burnham. Kristol was an anti-Soviet socialist organizer in his youth, then he made such a hard swing that the term “neoconservative” was invented to describe him specifically. James Burnham was founder of a Trotskyist party notably backed by Trotsky himself, but he also took a huge swing. He ended up working for the OSS (precursor to the CIA) and then founded the conservative magazine National Review. The whole “Trot to neocon pipeline” thing.
all in all, it really just depends on the organization and what they’re doing. If you’re working with an org and they’re throwing around terms like Stalinist or removedd workers’ state, then maybe they’ve got some baggage they haven’t quite jumped over quite yet, maybe try to get them back on task.
There’s also a weird level of former Trotskyists who became conservatives with age […] The whole “Trot to neocon pipeline” thing.
That was also very common among Marxist-Leninists of the 1960s and 1970s, especially those upholding China. Lots of them became the foundational stones of Green Parties, or even worse, climbed upward liberal politics and became staunch supporters of neoliberalism.
The current Chancellor of Germany, for example. Or the infamous Gerhard Schröder. Or many hawkish Green Party politicians like Joschka Fischer (Former Foreign Minister 1998-2005) who used to throw rocks at cops in the 70s.
The issue lies therein that many of the people who were leftists in the 60s and 70s would probably be libertarians today. They had a strong focus on social issues and personal liberty even before getting high paying jobs/bureaucrat postings that let them just be libs again.
I guess that might be a more European phenomenon where there was more of a Marxist-Leninist presence, versus the US/Canada where Trotskyites have historically been more organized. ML parties in North America weirdly would spring out of splits from Trotskyite parties, rather than the other way around. Even now the PSL, one of the bigger ones, traces its lineage back through Sam Marcy’s split from the Trotskyite Socialist Workers Party.
It really is wild to me to think about how so many higher level European politicians were throwing Molotov cocktails 40 years ago and have ended up becoming the very thing they were fighting against in their youth. Time is weird.
Lot of responses talking about Leon Trotsky himself (none that I saw which focus on his time before the Bolshevik band breaks up, someone should write that one!), lots talking about collaboration with anti communist groups by Trotskyist organizations and their development path due to being the only game in town over here in the west at least. Not much talking about their mass media focused strategy.
A part of the Bolshevik revolution that never gets enough attention imo is the newspapers. All kinds of political movements all over the world had presses, but what made communist newspapers interesting during the revolution was that they represented a powerful political tool that would ultimately become, and arguably already was, mass media. One of the leading edges of the movement to overturn social order was what would become, and arguably already was, a force for social control in the imperial core’s development into consumptive economy.
So it’s easy to understand why mass media plays such a big role in Trotskyist actions and strategy in the 20th century.
The failure of it comes from still fighting on that terrain when it’s already lost. Bolshevik newspapers did fantastically well to disseminate their ideas to people because people were willing to read them with an open mind. The states media organs were underdeveloped and the consumers were partaking in a form that, while it had been in existence for hundreds of years, didn’t have the perfect delivery of ideas mastered yet. There were rough edges to be expected in mass media and the state couldn’t credibly just call something stupid and have everyone believe it.
Once the state was credible though, once the craft of media was so perfected that every poison pill slipped right down our gullets, once the blip of American postwar production passed and everything faded to consumption, it was over. We could have the gulf of Tonkin, contras, nayirah, anthrax, wmd, viagra soldiers and beheaded babies. There’s no socialist newspaper that could stand against that machine.
I forgot what I was talking about.
There’s stuff to dunk on Trotsky about but Trotskyism has really taken on a life of its own among Western Trots. While they talk about his silly ideas a lot, the thing that’s worth criticism with Western Trots is mostly social.
I don’t know how to describe it other than they always seem to be trying to trick people. They will hold some kind of seemingly socialist line on some issues and then triangulate to appeal to liberals the next day and then do some ultra criticism of AES after that. The whole time you get the overt “I’m parroting a line the party taught me” vibe. It feels robotic.
Also maybe this is just me but every Trot I’ve met orchestrates force in numbers in advance of any action or push. This is usually a good tactic but it can also mean that they hold a rally with 6 speakers from different industries and they don’t mention that they’re all Trots in the same org. The audience is meant to think it’s a coalition but it’s just one org doing a little show.
They also have a habit of cooption. About 2 weeks late to most issues, they tail something and then try to take credit or recruit from it without even authentically supporting the cause.
And finally, something that’s not just social: their messaging tends to be like if you took an ML and then asked them to ruin the messaging a little bit. Just enough to bother every other person in the room. “Palestine will be free! Resist imperialism! Both sides should stop killing civilians!”
With that said I’ve worked with many Trots and they can be good coalition partners. Especially if you take a 100% extractive approach towards them.
subbed
I dont have “much” of a personal problem with trotskyists. I think they are overly critical of some projects though. At least based on what I heard from them. I will fully admit I dont frequent their circles though.
i don’t read theory so everything i know is purely vibes based
trotskyism gives me some bad vibes since western trotskyists wholly disown the soviet union, practically allying themselves with anti-communists. and actually allying themselves with anti-communists as entryism is promoted within trotskyism iirc.
they give good vibes since they actually exist and actually get things done. could that effort be utilized more effectively? maybe? probably? but other tendencies haven’t managed to get as much of a foothold, so another critique is that they suck up space that other tendencies could take up. whatever.
if someone has real facts instead of just vibes, that’d be welcome
in conclusion, i don’t like trots since it’s funny
You’re not far off it for someone who hasn’t read theory on it
i think a reasonable, non-sectarian answer for people on this site would be typical opposition to all AES countries.
I honestly like trotskyism, at least from the bit of trotskyist theory I’ve read. It seems to make sense, in theory, you know? As far as actual, modern trotskyists, I’ve never met any. I know Frida Kahlo was a trot, and I like her artwork.
Frida in 1953
“Today like never before I am not alone. It has been 25 years that I have been a communist. I know the central origins. I know the ancient roots. I’ve read the history of my country and almost all the villages there. I know its conflicts of economics and class. I understand clearly the materialist dialectics of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao Zedong. I love them as the pillars of the new communist world. I realized the error of trotsky since he arrived in Mexico. I was never a trotskyite. But in that time, 1940-I was only an ally of Diego. (personally) (political mistake)- But you have to take into account that I’ve been sick since I was six years old and really very little of my life I’ve enjoyed health and I was useless to the Party. Now in 1953 after 22 surgeries I feel better and I can from time to time help my Communist Party. Since I’m not a worker, I am an artisan - and allied unconditionally to the communist revolutionary movement.”
Her then husband was a Trot and she also fucked Trotsky, but she never actually agreed with his politics, and after he was assassinated and she and Diego got banned from the Communist Party, she became even more pro-Stalin
Because they always cry about “red fascism” and are staunchly anti authoritarianism, even though Trotsky was authoritarian until he didn’t win the power struggle and so he started crying and whining about “Stalinism.”(which isn’t a real thing because Stalin didn’t actually contribute to Marxism in the way others did. He was a Leninist.) They also seem to have an issue with literally ever AES country and it’s revolution, yet they have no actual idea on how to achieve revolution in a different way.
casually making up a “trotskyist” to get mad at
they always cry about “red fascism”
No, in fact Trotsky condemned the abuse of the term “fascism” (see: “social fascism”)
and are staunchly anti authoritarianism
Trotskyists have read Engels.
`An important part, which becomes more and more important, of the Soviet apparatus is formed of fascists who have yet to recognize themselves as such. To equate the Soviet rйgime with fascism is a gross historic error … But the symmetry of the political superstructures and the similarity of totalitarian methods and of psychological profiles are striking." Trotsky, Nouvelles dйfections (17 March 1938). La lutte, pp. 161–162
Calling the Soviet Union fascist has led to modern day Trots saying “red fascism.” And yea, I was mostly talking about Trotskyists, but obviously they were inspired by how much he wrote and complained about “Stalinism” even going so far as to blame “Stalinists” for the rise of fascism. Trotskys writings could mostly be summed up as “i could do it better.” And with “social fascism” he was just angry that Stalin and the Comintern called social democrats the left-wing of fascism(which is true).
Cherrypicking the most obscure text by Trotsky imaginable, even then proceeding to ignore all context of and exaggerate what was said, and then claiming modern Trotskyists say the Soviet Union was “red fascist” because they took their ideas from the above obscure text (neither is true). Magnificient.
The full paragraph, without anything omitted “for the convenience of the reader” (machine translated from French, because there seems to be no full English translation after a brief search - does that tell you anything about the text’s importance?):
Fedor Butenko took the plunge to fascism. Did he have to deny himself a lot? To fight against himself? We do not think so. A considerable – and increasingly important – part of the Soviet apparatus is made up of fascists who have not yet recognized themselves as such. The identification between the Soviet regime as a whole and fascism is a historical error to which ultra-leftist dilettantes are inclined, who ignore what fundamentally differentiates the social bases of these two regimes. But the symmetry of political superstructures, the similarity of totalitarian methods and psychological types is striking. Butenko is a symptom of great importance: he shows us what the careerists of the Stalinist school are in their natural state.
The context is that Butenko, the Soviet envoy to Romania about whom this paragraph speaks about, had actually renounced communism and defected from the USSR to fascist Italy earlier in 1938. To remark on the bureaucracy producing such people is completely different from shouting “red fascism” because a CIA-funded radio station told you to.
they can get their red fash ideas from “Fascism: what it is and how to fight it” if it’s the popularity of the text that matters. He writes so much about Stalinism, which doesn’t really exist. He was fine pre and during revolution but once he lost the power struggle he really lost it. Still waiting on that successful Trotskyist revolution too. I also wont pretend that i could convince someone with the username “trot” that he was just mad that he got BTFO of the USSR. Having only 4000 votes compared to 700,000 really stung. His post exile theories are ones of sectarianism and wanting to capitulate to social democrats(which he was a socdem at one point). When I meet a Trot that supports AES, even critically, ill let you know. His writings are the reason we have to deal with so many “leftists” who are anti-AES.
“Fascism: what it is and how to fight it” - where Trotsky says the complete opposite to what you are implying? From where are you getting that he called the USSR “red fascist”, when he instead demanded for its leadership to not equate everyone else with fascists in order to form a united front against actual fascism (a completely valid criticism given any amount of historical hindsight whatsoever)? Surely, if Trotsky were to believe the USSR was “red fascist”, he would instead argue for a united front against the USSR and not alongside it - but he did not.
When I meet a Trot that supports AES, even critically, ill let you know.
You could meet more than exactly 2 trots then, instead of getting all your information on Trotskyism from Grover Furr. Or are we defining “critical support” as being without the “critical” part again?
It is the duty of all revolutionaries, but also all consistent democrats, to wage a consistent struggle against this criminal imperialist blockade and unconditionally defend the Cuban Revolution.
https://www.marxist.com/50-anniversary-sputnik-soviet-science.htm
We must remember what we are speaking about. We are speaking about a country, Russia, which in 1917 was one of the most backward, underdeveloped countries in the world. Within the span of 30 years, the Soviet Union was able to achieve what took the advanced capitalist countries hundreds of years to do and what many countries have as yet been unable to do. By the end of the Second World War the Soviet Union had gone from a backward, semi-feudal, illiterate country with little to no infrastructure to become a modern, industrialized, developed economy. By the end of World War II, the Soviet Union had become one of the world’s superpowers, militarily and economically, second only to the United States. A quarter of the world’s scientists were found in the Soviet Union, which also had a health and educational system equal or superior to anything found in the West - to the extent that she was able to launch the first space satellite and put the first man into space.
Excerpt from a 1940 SWP article:
THE SOVIET UNION REPRESENTS THE FUTURE
But do not the Finnish workers live under better conditions than the workers in the Soviet Union? Do they not have a higher standard of living and greater "freedom”? They leave the ground of Marxism who present such arguments.
One thing that every worker must understand is that capital ism is in a stage of decay and with it capitalist democracy. Whether in Finland or in any other part of the capitalist world, the workers face a choice between fascist slavery or the proletarian revolution. Capitalist democracy is doomed and whether it is this year or in ten or twenty years it will be destroyed by the fascists — or by the proletarian revolution establishing a higher form of democracy.
Finland is part of the decaying capitalist world. The foundation of the Soviet “Union, nationalized property, represents part of that future world of planned economy and the production of goods for the welfare of the people. In the last analysis the existence of the Stalinist regime is to be explained by the fact that the capitalist world still exists.
Let the workers destroy the capitalist world and Stalinism will have no base whatever. It will disappear from the Soviet Union like the scab on a sore from which the pus has been drained. The advanced Finnish workers, considering the historic interests of their class have no alternative but to defend the Soviet Union from the capitalist world.
Another quote from the same article:
History knows no example of a union defeated by the bosses in a serious struggle coming under the control of revolutionary workers as a result of the de feat. A defeat of the union by the bosses means the destruction of the union. To be for revolutionary defeatism within the Soviet Union is like being for the defeat of a union in a struggle against the boss. All the crimes of a reactionary trade union leadership would not make it any less of a crime on the part of a worker to follow a policy of defeatism in a struggle between the union and a boss.
Do you think the authors of anything in the above actually believed the USSR was the same as Nazi Germany?
The position of a majority of Trotskyist organisations is that the existence of socialist/workers’ states is objectively good for the world and they must be critically supported, even though their bureaucracies are steering them towards capitalist restoration. A minority believes that they are already “state capitalists” and therefore equivalent to the USA. But absolutely no-one sincerely conflates them with fascism.
No, in fact Trotsky condemned the abuse of the term “fascism” (see: “social fascism”)
They are addressing modern Trotskyists, not Trotsky himself. Did you miss that point or are you intentionally obfuscating it?
What point is there to make?
This applies equally little to “modern Trotskyists”, and claiming anything to the contrary betrays a distinct lack of investigation with an overabundance of speaking.
Verification is trivial: pick your favourite trot website and look up “red fascism”.
This depends very much on the flavour of Trot, I’ve found. There’s not a lot of overlap between more Orthodox groups like the Sparts and, say, Cliffite splinters who are often completely divorced from much of Trotsky’s theoretical positions.
Trotsky himself claimed that the Soviets and Nazis formed a united bloc due to the Pact, that was the second “camp” in his “third camp” theory, so he might call them something other than fascist, but he certainly gave them a very similar smear even in his own day.
casually making up a “trotskyist” to get mad at
“we are totally different than other ultraleft wreckers” lol ok whatever dude
Trotskyists have read Engels
yeah that’s the problem, imagine reading a 150 year old book while crying about “Stalinist revisionists”, incredibly out of touch from our material conditions
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CW: also not left unity, sorta
spoiler
Literally worse than anarchists though, Anarchists had Catalonia, Makhnovia, and Korean People’s Association in Manchuria (probably missing some). Trotskyists, however, just have a bunch of weak political parties. The neo-zapitsitas in Chiapas and the Kurds have Anarchism synthesized with some other beliefs. Where have trotskyists had a significant impact? How are they supposed to have a permanent revolution if they can’t even achieve any sort of revolution? (Trotsky was involved with the October Revolution, but that doesn’t really count)
Trotskyism is "we would have done it better. we didn’t, but we could!?
Trotskyists would be wise to stop calling themselves that. Trotsky was the opposition and there should be no joy in constantly being the opposition to revolutions that succeeded.
This is a slight exaggeration, there were significant trot groups holding territory in China and Korea during the Japanese invasion. And of course POUM collaborated (though not really trots by that point.)
Can you give some specifics on the China and Korea thing? Korean liberation forces fought the Japanese in a few battles, but almost always in China, and I can’t find anything about a significant Trot group let alone one that held territory
Ugh, so sorry, I was thinking about the Vietnamese Trots which did iirc take territory off the French.
The Chinese one I found in a translated trove of documents about the KPAM where they mentioned Trots holding several villages in the North West, aided by Soviet Left Opposition emigres. Generally cordial relationship.
Oh yeah Ngo Van and his folks. It seems most of what they did was fight in Saigon and then be forced back, and early they had agitated a lot in villages during the 1930s though got cracked down on hard. They had a significant presence in the late 1930s though not in a military sense, but with strikes.
Trotsky inspired a bunch of insufferable newspaper salesmen
