Why do people here really not like Trotskyists? Is it just because of his beef with Stalin and not an actual criticism of his views? Do people really not think a global movement would be superior for the betterment of all people?
Edit: Thank you to everyone who provided context and history, y’all are a wealth of knowledge.
It’s mostly because of who the western left has been for the past 50 years. Like I don’t mean to be critical of anyone here, but the strands of leftism that we represent are sort of new in the west. Or rather, haven’t been around in great force in a long time. American leftism had been largely dead since maybe the Weather Underground. It wasn’t until around Occupy Wallstreet (2012) and the revitalization of the DSA (~2016) did American leftism begin to grow again, and become more coherent rather than an ambient feeling in the air.
But when I say it was dead, I don’t mean it was inanimate. From between around 1972 to 2012 there were communists in America but the dominant ideology was Trotskyism. They wiggled their way into being the only game in town for a long while. You wanted to join a student org? Ok, here’s 6 students on campus who swear they’re not Stalinists. You wanted to join a party? Ok, here’s ISA. You were randomly handed a newspaper at a protest by some type of communist party? Probably Trotskyites (or the other pejorative, Marcyite, although Marcyism today is much more aligned with international Marxism-Leninism)
It can’t be overstated how they much they dominated discourage and organization in North America for decades. They were the primary leftists around, and honestly I think they’re where some of the American leftist stereotypes came from. “That’s not real communism” or how we’re all students or we’re pushy with pamphlets.
So anyway, since people here by and large represent a break from that, there’s going to be tension. I’m going to guess most people here have no association with American leftist organizing as far back as the 80s or 90s. I’m close, I remember going into leftist chat rooms and forums around 2003 and they were all largely Trotskyists. Even our beloved Marxists.org is ancient enough to have Trot founders.
So that’s it really. Newer leftists are breaking away from the previous parties/orgs and trying to find new ground, since the perception is the past 4 decades of American leftism have been highly ineffective. Saying those decades have been ineffective is synonymous with criticizing Trotskyists, since they were the dominant voice for much of that.
from the 90s onward the most active radical left tendencies in the US were anarchists. for better and worse, the earth liberation front, the battle in seattle, the antiwar movement, and occupy all had overwhelming anarchist undercurrents.
yeah you’re right. Throughout the 90s there was also the anti-globalist movement, there were the “post-leftists” on college campuses, various ecological movements too.
I realized I forgot to mention that. Younger people throughout the 90s and onwards had anarchist tendencies if they wanted to do something real. The Trotskyites I mentioned became increasingly older, more weird, secluded and bitter. Whereas the anarchist types were the ones continuing the work on the ground.
Same thing has fully destroyed leftism in countries like Finland that really would have needed consistent theory and understanding of socialism to prevent things developing to where they have developed. I see the propping up of the Troskyist left and pushing out of the ML theory to some fringe position of “Stalinists” as one of, if not the most harmful, in ridding the world from class awareness and an ability to see a way out.
The entire point of socdem governance is to exist with capitalism and the troskyist talking points that frame communism as utopistic and out of reach have aided in cultivating our current “End of History” mindset. The way trotskyims became the only viable left option to even be considered is a very bourge project imo. And has been sadly way too successful.
But this is just my personal take from the surroundings and history I live in.
Can I just say, I kind of love the Marcyites? They’re funky little freaks who logiced their way to ML positions, through Trot ideas.
A lot of trot orgs become weird culty sects, but the Marcyites accidentally reinvented ML somehow. It’s kinda dumb, and I love it.
I was very confused when I learned the WWP had Trot roots. Like, these guys fucking love AES! Idk the history of it or how the party came around to this though. Any good reading on what happened?
Well Sam Marcy himself came from a Jewish Russian family that was a target of the pogroms during the Russian civil war. They ended up escaping Russia with the assistance of the communist forces. That probably colored his impression of the USSR for the rest of his life, since although he would criticize Stalin and Soviet bureaucracy, he always regarded the USSR as legitimately socialist and a defender of workers’ rights. Also you’re right, every WWP member I’ve met has been lovely. It’s kind of surreal sometimes because a lot of them in my area are older white people, yet they’re very rabidly pro-China, and that’s just not normal at all to see in older Americans lol.
So from the outset the WWP was weirdly pro-Soviet while also being Trots. The Marcyite movements were like reverse splitters. Every time they split they became more ML. The WWP initially split from the Trotskyite Socialist Workers’ Party over support for China. Marcy, Copeland, and the members they had cultivated all had a positive opinion Mao. PSL would eventually split from WWP and there’s not a whole lot of literature on why. But I’ve asked around and it seems to have been a split in desired tactics among certain members of the leadership, and it wasn’t a split over ideology. This is anecdotal, but I’ve been told by some older PSL members that the idea is WWP wanted to continue being more structured like a Trotskyite party. They wanted to continue the tactics of street protests, newspapers, etc. whereas some of the initial PSL members wanted to be more like a coherent electoral/political party that was directly structured after the Communist Party of Cuba.