Honest question because Ive tried to find out but have been too afraid to ask. Whats wrong with Trotskys?
Honest question because Ive tried to find out but have been too afraid to ask. Whats wrong with Trotskys?
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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.
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.
`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.
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
they have no actual idea on how to achieve revolution in a different way.
I've come to the conclusion that (CW: anti left-unity)
spoiler
Trotskyists are as useless as Anarchists.
They're off on their own tangent with their sectarian organisations selling their dumb bullshit newspapers with articles so eye-wateringly long that they are inaccessible to regular working people. Only members of their cult will be willing to read them.
I find they put themselves into the ultimate "arm chair critic" position. By siding with Trotsky then can wash their hands of any perceived failures of the USSR, China or Cuba, while simultaneously criticising any and every one around them and then not offering anything useful or constructive themselves.
The Trotskyist orgs in my city love to cry about how useless "sectarian organisations" are, while at the same time being the very best examples of what a sectarian organisation actually is. It's just projection.
Permanently Deleted
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.