What Trotsky believed and why he believed it is almost irrelevant compared to the rhetorical position that someone assumes by calling themself a Trotskyist. The basic vibe of it was, “The USSR could’ve been good, but it went wrong at such-and-such point, so as it is now it’s bad.” If you erased Trotsky and all of his ideas from history, there would still be plenty of people adopting that position while calling themselves something else. It’s a way of tempering support and gaining protection from criticism of a state’s actions. We see a similar phenomenon with ultraleft Maoists opposed to the modern PRC. By holding up an improbable ideal of “What could’ve been,” they malign the real material improvements delivered by the actually existing socialist projects, and frequently they’ll be some of the first to criticize such projects in order to distance themselves from them. The perfect is allowed to be the enemy of good, and so they become de facto supporters of the status quo because nothing is ever good or pure enough to challenge it. Criticism of AES states is fine, but if you completely write them off then you’re throwing away your only proof of concept that your ideology - which seeks to overturn the world order and bring war and instability in the short term - can actually succeed at making things better.

It’s a meme cuz in the cringe world two or three whole generations turned out to be plants or genuine reactionary dipshits, and in the rest of the world they were innefective while always shitting on AES

In any case, as any other leftist they are always annoying and the True One Leftists

Taimur Rahman - Why I am not a Trotskyist.

TL:DR, it’s eurocentric, rejected the revolutionary potential of the peasantry in a way that was proven 100% wrong by history, and rejection of socialism in one country expects every country to stay in a state of paralysis rather than build their own socialism. It’s also nearly defined entirely by it’s opposition to AES states, so it’s had quite an overlap with the US imperial project in helping tank communist movements esp in latin america, and that rabbit hole goes really deep.

I consistently see two big pitfalls for people who are sympathetic to leftist ideas but aren’t quite leftists:

1. They’re soft on U.S. imperialism
2. They’re inadequately critical of U.S. propaganda about AES states

Trotskyism seems to lead people directly into both. It’s built around a sort of leftist Lost Cause mythos, where all these revolutions were good at one point but betrayed by those dastardly MLs. This means criticism of MLs that goes far beyond reasonable (Parenti’s line about utopian socialists never having to address the problems inherent in running a state come to mind), which leads into 2, then 1 seems more palatable because opposing these evil ML states is good, actually.

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.

Trots and MLs want practically the same thing but Trots define themselves by their opposition to MLs. Depending on the circumstances they join the “tankies bad” crowd when it suits them, then drop out of it when it doesn’t.

This splitting and wrecking is incredibly harmful to the left. There’s absolutely no tolerance for Vaushites or nato-“anarchists” that form the core of that anti-tankie crowd, because it is anti-communism. Trots therefore represent a dangerous tendency within the left that might split and join in with anti-communism if they feel a particular way on a particular day.

With that said my experience with trots is that they have been very good at two particular things: Archiving and newspapers, which includes blogs and some sites that are blogs but manage to present as larger news orgs.

Oh and their entryist and reformist tactics have repeatedly failed.

It also bears to remember that Trotskyists served as a bulwark against “Stalinist” USSR during the Cold War in the West.

Michael Hudson talked about how he was approached by the State Department to work with them after Super-imperialism was published, and at first he was a bit worried because of his Marxist background. He said that once they learned about his actual family history (his father was a Trotskyist labor leader in Minneapolis and he himself is the godson of Trotsky) they were like, “ok, good, not a threat to us.”

It’s actually not a surprise that many Trotskyists ended up being neo-cons in the US, especially since they hated the USSR so much.

Michael Hudson is a based Trotskyist though, so he’s kinda like an outlier.

Trots who have never been to AES countries like to tell me all about how China is such a capitalist imperialist nation, and how we must stand against China. Like, what the hell are you talking about? You’re an American, like me, living in get imperial core, benefiting from the exploitation of the working class, and you’re telling me to oppose a country that has done more for its people to lessen that in just the last year than my country has in the last 75? I think American leftists have much bigger priorities than trash talking AES and helping the empire by spreading Sinophobia and lies. Go to China, ask the working class how their lives have changed since they entered the work force. Ask the elderly how their lives have changed since they were kids. Talk to actual Chinese proletariat. Try to avoid using the C word, and focus on material ways their lives have been made better over time. Don’t ask any of them to overthrow their government, that would be stupid as fuck and you’d deserve it if they reported you and got you kicked the fuck out.

one time a nice seeming man at a bernie event convinced me to buy a newspaper and it was the worst piece of shit i’ve ever read

There are Trots and then there are Trots. If someone wants to place the writing and ideas of Trotsky on a pedestal and feel he had particularly keen insights… ok, fine, whatever. I don’t particularly see it but if they’re otherwise just standard issue Marxists then I don’t really have a problem with that. I feel Trots like Kshama Sawant fall into this category.

The problem is that so many Trots have just unbelievably bad takes on not just AES states, but also on other pretty much all official enemies of the US State Dept. Laura Garza is a somewhat prominent Trot. While she probably represents the more extreme end of shitty Trot takes, read this verbal diarrhea and try not to get extremely angry:

How much assistance should the U.S. provide — military and/or financial — to foreign countries at war, like Israel or Ukraine? What, if any, should be the litmus test for American allies to receive assistance from the U.S.?

I defend Israel’s right to exist as a refuge for Jews and condemn the Jew-hating pogrom organized by Hamas with the backing of the Iranian regime. The capitalist regime in Tehran and the reactionary forces it backs in Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad are enemies not only of Jews but of working people of all nationalities. So long as capitalism exists, in times of crisis, the rulers will turn to scapegoating Jews to smash the working class as they did in Nazi Germany. The fight for workers’ power and socialism is the only solution to end the anti-working class poison of Jew-hatred.

I stand with the people of Ukraine in their battle for independence and sovereignty over all of Ukraine and against Moscow’s reactionary invasion.

I don’t support the policies of the U.S. capitalist class and their military, which is used worldwide to defend U.S. profits and imperialist domination, not the interests of working people here or elsewhere. I am for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Korea, the Middle East and Europe. I defend the Cuban Revolution and call for an end to the U.S. embargo on Cuba, which is used to suffocate the Cuban population for their decision to reject living under Washington’s boot.

While this might be extreme, it’s not too far off from bad foreign policy takes from Trots. Some support for Cuba sprinkled in there but to aggressively support Israel is inexcusable.

A Trot with not bad foreign policy takes in a good Trot, in my book. They’re just hard to find.

Apart from what others have said, If you follow contemporary Russian politics, a Russian communist once described the parallels of the historical image between Trotsky and Prigozhin.

The reason I even brought this up is because it so accurately predicted the fate of Prigozhin, months before the mutiny when Prigozhin was just making noises criticizing the Russian government:

A bright, daring, well-spoken tongue, and with an unusual ability to whip aimless youth into fanatical shock troops, Trotsky forged himself the image of the creator of the Red Army during 1918-20. A brilliant military commander who does not care to show respect for and prone to launch into tirade against his political peers, except towards a certain leader (i.e., Lenin, but even that was not always the case either). Useful during war time, but a dangerous figure during peace time. Trotsky would reap a short-lived fame and gain a cult status in the country, but the System will eventually get rid of Trotsky because he proved too much of a threat and a liability to the post-civil war Soviet Union.

Leading a rebellion of Left Opposition against the government, Trotsky was eventually exiled to Kazakhstan and ultimately met his end in Mexico.

In contemporary Russia, Prigozhin in many respects reflected the same historical image and cult status of Trotsky. And the amazing part here is that even his exile (to Belarus) and his death (plane crash on the way to Moscow) could be predicted, as the System decided to get rid of him when he proved to be too much of a liability.

The only difference here is that both Stalin and Trotsky were true believers in their ideologies, while Putin and Prigozhin believe in nothing. Truly as Hegel once described: first as tragedy, then as farce.

As Samir Amin summarises in Revolution from North to South:

The central reality of the imperialist character of historical capitalism implies an inescapable correlate: the long transition to socialism occurs through unequal advances, mainly originating in the peripheries of the world system. There is no “world revolution” on the agenda whose center of gravity would be found in the advanced centers. Lenin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, and Castro understood that and accepted the challenge of “constructing socialism in one country.” Trotsky never understood that. The limits of what was achievable in these conditions, beginning with the heritage of the “backward” capitalism found in the peripheries, accounts for the later history of the twentieth century’s great revolutions, including their deviations and failures.

Quite simply, the Trotskyist hypothesis of permanent revolution is in opposition to the idea of socialism in one country, which Stalin, and most subsequent revolutions, have followed.

My few experiences with Trots:

1. I tried to talk to some SA people, all they wanted to do was sell a newspaper, even as I was asking about their platform and what joining might look like. Once I bought the paper they were a little bit friendlier but that was all I needed to experience to not want to be involved.

2. Two different Trotskyist groups injecting themselves into every vaguely left thing in town. One of the groups was straight up disruptive while the other one would just try to recruit people.

3. A Trot that somehow snuck into a union organizer position ghosting me and my coworkers when we tried to organize. I found out he quit from someone else in the labor movement a few months later.

4. Over the last year I’ve been introduced to a number of people who had interest in an ideology that is a weird blend of Trotskyism and anarchism and most of those people and their ideas are absolutely cursed.

The local IMT adjacent org is running a defacto fraud scheme on easily impressionable young people where you have to give 60-120$ per month to be part of a 6 men local chapter of their party.

They ask specifically the new member to write them a void cheque so that the money can be transfered automatically monthly.

Also, they seem to believe that only imperial core countries can be the vanguard of world revolution. So i guess all i have to do is for these enlightened red mandarins and messiah to press the button any day now.

For me, it’s not rare for them to in effect, even if not intentionally (extreme benefit of the doubt) to prop up western narratives about AES.

I respect the hell out of certain things.

Trotsky as an individual played an important role in the Russian revolution. Respect for that. Also the armored propaganda train was badass, but nkt exactly relevant outside of being cool.

The larouchites probably play a role in forever tainting the term even though I wouldn’t exactly call them dedicated communists to phrase as diplomatically as possible.

They used to join and intentionally split parties.

They punch left and do the the capitalists work for them, historically speaking at least.

None of this is aimed at any actually existing comrades who think he had some good points (AET, actually existing trotskyites).