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.
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.
I mean it’s a little more than that. Like, anarchists also don’t have a particular affinity for “actually existing socialism,” but we get away with it because we typically don’t claim to be marxists.
(also perhaps because we’re funner to be around)
anarchists actually build projects though and haven’t really been directly antagonistic to other socialist orgs in the west for at least the past 50 years. It’s more been an unsteady alliance, or outright neutrality from what I know. Whereas Trot and ultra orgs have been antagonistic, or they’ve been splitters, or they’ve just collaborated with feds. One of the first street level things I did was anti-war protests during the Iraq War, and we had a rival Trotskyite group that surprisingly endorsed the war, so they’d talk shit about us in their publications. I can’t imagine an anarchist group trying to do anything like that.
So I don’t think anarchists really have that same streak of “what if” that @Zuzak@hexbear.net means. Anarchists actually mean it and do something about it.
Certainly this, but also the fact that anarchist critiques of AES states never loop around to “and this is why the U.S. embargo on Cuba is good.”
anarchists can also build a fucking movement, holy shit y’all are good at getting people out on the streets
Anarchists tend to be better writers and artists, as well. The zines, the Wobbly tunes, the comics, and the SF stuff are all phenomenal.
@Rx_Hawk@hexbear.net this is p much it. Gonzalo CIA Maoists do not uphold Mao Zedong thought and currently define themselves by opposition to it, same thing