I actually saw a real Trotskyist group IRL a while back, and recognized it as one simply because they were selling physical newspapers. I felt so vindicated when it turned out I was right, haha.
Why do you nerds hate Trotskyites again? I genuinely struggle to tell a difference between your camp and theirs.
Not sure what you mean by "camp," but even ignoring Trotsky's treason, he took the wrong stance on the peasantry, thinking it incapable of genuine alliance with the proletariat, as well as pushing for the failed theory of "permanent revolution" instead of focusing on building up industry domestically.
As for Trotskyites themselves, they have a very bad history. As an example, the Chinese Trotskyites wanted the CPC to fight the Kuomintang and Imperial Japan at the same time, fully knowing it would be suicide. Western Trots essentially just serve as useful "left" anti-communists most of the time, communist in aesthetic while opposing every country that tries to build socialism.
Ty for the genuine reply. I meant camp as in political camp/grouping btw, wasn't meant as a insult.
I've read quite a bit of theory from both ML-Stalinist sources and Trotskyite sources and at least to me it seems like pretty minor quibbles between the two on ideological terms. Might just be me approaching it from a anarchkiddy perspective though lol.
Gotcha, regarding "camp." I took it to mean "campist," haha. Marxists tend to prefer the term "tendency" to describe which grouping of Marxism we align with.
As for the term "Stalinist," while Stalin himself does have some theory under his belt like Marxism and the National Question, "Stalinism" isn't really a tendency. "Stalinism" is more of a term for Stalin's policies in the early USSR, chiefly Socialism in One Country as opposed to Trotsky's Permanent Revolution, neither of which are particularly relevant today as the USSR is long-gone and we have new and different conditions.
The biggest difference between modern Trotskyites and Marxist-Leninists are in whether or not to support AES, and whether or not socialism can be achieved locally or if it must be global. Trotskyites tend to oppose AES, because in their eyes unless revolution happens everywhere, worker states decay over time and fall back to capitalism. Marxist-Leninists take the view of supporting socialism, and that in order to globally achieve socialism, we need to build it up locally, ie the more socialist countries there are, the easier it is for socialism to be achieved globally. We don't see there being an "inevitable" decay in socialist states.
Trots tend to be either in the Global North, or in pockets of South America. Marxist-Leninists tend to be found in every existing socialist state, much of Africa, and of course Asia, though Marxism-Leninism is rising quickly in the Global North as the conditions of imperialism degenerate and falter. Trots also love the aesthetics of the old-fashioned party, preferring physical newspapers, tons of hammers and sickles, while generally failing to meet the people where they are at, ie it becomes more of a LARP than a real party in my experience.
As for why I gave a genuine response, I just tend to shrug off percieved insults as long as the question seems genuine, more often than you'd expect people respond well to keeping a cool head. Just something I've adopted over time as I've gotten more uses to talking about Marxism-Leninism online and in-person.
Most relevant non-sectarian meme.
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