I’m reading a book that’s getting into the historical splits in the international trotskyist movement… jfc you get three trots in a room and you end up with nine groups. And all of them are anti-democratic cults.
What book?
AM Gittlitz - I want to believe. It’s about Posadism, but gets deep into the shitshow of Trotskyism in Latin America and Europe.
A work of art.
I bet none of you liberals even read the 234 word letter Lenin wrote to Stalin on July 2nd 1916 about the imperialism of cookie companies from Guatemala
This is why right wings always win, for them, a briefcase of money is enough to reach an agreement.
Beautifully crafted joke 👏 and too true. We really need to differentiate a liberal vs a Marxist who still has some liberal tendencies. I don’t think any of us are perfect and to be so under current conditions would make socialism unnecessary, so it follows socialism can’t be built from perfection either, yes? No, of course not from dirt either, but certainly good enough is good enough at some point? The Bolsheviks weren’t perfect and they succeeded. So perhaps we should aim for being pragmatically “good enough”? Go half a point backward from perfect and try, continue until pragmatic progress is made?
There are different ideological requirements for someone aspiring to be a revolutionary cadre and someone who is just an ally or a supporter. We have to be pragmatic to a certain extent and forge alliances even with groups which have different ideological views when there is a common goal. When we are talking about building an actual party however there needs to be much more discipline and unity. Democratic centralism is a must.
I completely agree.
Lotsa communists in the imperial core still fighting over the century old dead guy feud between Trotsky and Stalin as if the conditions of semi-feudal Russia are super relevant to organizing their own countries with advanced economies in the 21st century.
This is the point, depending on the type of society, ideologies must be adapted, turning them into dogmas leads to failure by definition, this is the mistake of many parties on the left, eternally debating secondary aspects and forgetting what people really need, what should be the center of their commitment, not complying to the last comma what their corresponding ideology dictates. While the right does not have this problem, since for them the people themselves are secondary and the interests of large corporations are always identical. Today more than ever a great alliance of the left is necessary, leaving its debates internally to find compromises instead of confrontations.
I laughed. I’m just ML more than that and its too in the weeds. I respect all the differing ideas for their merits. I’m not against protracted revolution where it stands. I’m not against building a mass-line revolutionary party. They usually go hand in hand. You have a legal side and an extra legal side.
I wanted to get involved with some Trots in Washington State because of Sawant. I wasn’t the one with the problem. That’s the way it goes in the US. There are no developed parties. There is no Mass-Line or protracted war.
You can totally hate Iran and China, and I will still work with you to break the slumlords.
