Memes

As an ML, I'm quite fond of other leftists, thank you very much.

While we might have our disagreements, some of them quite stark, I still get along with my Trotskyist or Anarchist friends, and their struggles are also my struggle. I might disagree with how they're going about it, but that's what critical support is for.

I love it when other leftists offer criticism. It makes the movement stronger, not weaker, by allowing us to root out wrong ideas or approaches. "Ruthless criticism of everything that exists," as Marx said.

The problem I have with Trots is that they are incredibly obstinate about criticisms that make no fucking sense. For example, the chief Trotskyist criticism of the USSR is the whole "permanent revolution" thing, the idea of expanding the revolution globally. What that actually means is a permanent state of warfare with every other country on earth. Because supporting a revolution in another country's borders is a violation of their sovereignty.

This is a completely impractical and self-destructive approach to foreign policy, and to the extent that the USSR did try to expand communism to other countries, for example, in Afghanistan, it is rightfully criticized for it. But Trots will simultaneously criticize the USSR for things like invading Afghanistan and critize it for not being expansionist enough!

They're just contrarians for the sake of it. It's impossible to know what the Trotskyist position on anything is going to be unless you know the Soviet position, in which case you know it'll be the opposite. There's no actual reasoning beyond that.

I've mostly seen non-ml socialists and anarchists. I don't know what you've heard, but Trotsky was also ML.

"Friends" is overselling it, and Stalin was the one that was elected because he was a more capable leader with a better understanding of Marxist theory. With Sverdlov and Lenin dead, the choice was fairly obvious.

Trotsky's plan of Permanent Revolution rested on the idea that the peasantry would erode socialism, because he thought they could not be truly aligned with the proletariat. That's why he wanted to kick off revolution in the west, hoping that would save Russian socialism. This was, of course, proven false, as socialism survived and trying to build up socialism together with the peasantry worked out.

Trotsky then spent much of his time attacking the soviet union, essentially whining due to his loss. I don't think using a pejorative meant for those who defend socialist countries and oppose imperialism helps your argument here.

Tell me you've never read anything Lenin wrote without telling me:

Trotsky arrived, and this scoundrel at once ganged up with the Right wing […]

What a swine this Trotsky is: Left phrases, and a bloc with the Right.

This is an instance of high-flown phraseology with which Trotsky always justifies opportunism… The phrase-bandying Trotsky has completely lost his bearings on a simple issue.

Trotsky has never yet held a firm opinion on any important question of Marxism. He always contrives to worm his way into the cracks of any given difference of opinion, and desert one side for the other.

Trotsky behaves like a despicable careerist and factionalist of the Ryazanov-and-co type. Either equality on the editorial board, subordination to the central committee and no one’s transfer to Paris except Trotsky’s (the scoundrel, he wants to ‘fix up’ the whole rascally crew of ‘Pravda’ at our expense!) – or a break with this swindler and an exposure of him in the CO. He pays lip-service to the Party and behaves worse than any other of the factionalists.