What do Trotskysts actually do besides demanding the gold standard...

What do Trotskysts actually do besides demanding the gold standard, releasing newspapers and critically supporting US proxies? I have never seen a Trotskyst movement ever to achieve anything close to something successful, they are in practice impotent SocDem parties who use the name of Trotsky merely not to be associated with dictatorships.

Why is Trotskyism still so popular if it's been an utter ridiculous failure? Even anarchism had more practical success than Trotskyism.

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Bump, I'm genuinely interested to hear from a Trot why this tendency is appealing to him

they actually do some very good labor journalism

Struggle sessions

Snuggle sessions with Frida Kahlo.

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Why he looked so much like a woman on this one? Was Trotsky an effeminate sissy?

I view Trotskyism as the most theoretically correct tendency out there.

I will acknowledge the lack of practical successes, but I would counter: Through most of the history of Trotskyism it was violently opposed by the entire collective resources off the USSR and its client states. And after the USSR collapsed, NO tendency has had many practical successes, so it's unfair to single out Trotskyists for this.

Trots are just leninists who just skip all the steps and go straight to the part where they become social-democrats and don't even pretend to be socialist

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Which one though?

Most Trotskyists agree on the same overall principles, they just disagree on the application of those principles.

Also, this just confirms that anti-Trotskyists have literally no argument. They just dislike Trotsky for aesthetic reasons, like him not having enough tanks.

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I did, you fucking illiterate mongrel.

No, you made a claim

What the fuck do you call this

That's not you arguing for the theoretical superiority of trotskyism, fam, that's you arguing why all the historical failures of Trotskyism don't matter and explaining one aspect of Trotskyism

Correction: you don't actually explain anything you just brush off your myriad historical failures with "the Soviets were sabotaging us"

The OP didn't address any of the supposed theoretical failings of Trotskyism. He just referred to its supposed ineffectiveness. But here's one reason I think Trotskyism is theoretically superior:

It's the only tendency capable of properly explaining what happened in the USSR.
Other tendencies claim that the USSR degenerated into "state capitalism" or "revisionism" which is reformism and therefore inconsistent with any revolutionary socialist ideas. The tendencies that don't do this either claim that the USSR was capitalist from the start (an absurd claim considering the massive civil war that followed and the class factions on either side of it) or that it's problem was it was "too hierarchical" and "too centralized", which are utopian claims that don't even pretend to address the historical circumstances of early 20th century Russia.

The Soviet Union dedicating absurd amounts of resources to crushing Trotsky-inspired movements domestically and abroad is a historical fact. If you want to put your fucking head in the sand about it, that's your problem.

Lenin and the Bolsheviks destroyed socialism in Russia

bitch please even my liberal friends accept that Cuba is based

I was referring to his hilarious failures in the Congo and Bolivia. During the former of which he literally considered mounting a one-man revolution.

Oh boy. Please tell us your "superior" explanation
It did. It was called the NEP
Not really, no
It was. If you read Marx you'd understand why. You don't have socialism when the socialist party or the proletariat rule the country, you have socialism when you abolish class, capital, and the state - which neither the soviets nor any other revolution has done.
Trotskyists never needed the SU to fail horribly at everything they've done, they did quite fine at it themselves. Unless you mean to say the KGB brainwashed you into NeoCons?

Are you serious? What about Maoism? Almost all movements that came close to gaining power were Maoists, and Maoists took over Nepal although they splitted now. All Trotskyism does is running in western elections, unsuccessfully.
On the contrary, it was often propped up by anti-communist forces simply because of its contrarianism to the USSR. It's no big surprise many Neocons used to be Trotskyists in the US. Trotskyism was basically the only tendency that was allowed to exist in the Cold War.

The whole hurr durr bureaucracy argument against Stalin is bullshit, and has been debunked over and over. I've read a Trotskyst text recently and it was doing nothing else but calling Stalin a dictator without materialist analysis. The problem with Trotskysm is that it critisizes everything Stalin did but doesn't even try to tell you what they would have done different. At least Leftcoms and Anarchists disagree with Leninism on a fundamental basis but Trots see themselves as Leninists, but somehow think the dozens of succesful examples of Leninism in practice are incorrect.

You guys still need to provide evidence as to why you think the lower stage of communism has to be stateless.

Because you can't have a state without class. If you still have a state you have a DOTP, a proletarian state, state here defined as an instrument of class rule, but socialism requires abolishing the proletariat as a class.

Go fuck yourself.
Wrong.
Thinking you can move from one mode of production to another without a revolution is the fucking definition of reformism.
Capitalism cannot have a DotP. A DotP necessarily means that you've moved past the capitalist mode of production proper. Which is why the entire combined forces of every major capitalist country on Earth was trying to crush Soviet Russia.
Go fuck yourself.

Maoism is probably the most successful 21st century tendency, but they still haven't had a successful revolution.
…I said opposed BY the USSR, wtf are you smoking
They are empirically true. The overwhelming bureaucracy of the SU is how Stalin managed to seize and maintain power.
That's absolute bullshit, because Trotsky said repeatedly the problem wasn't Stalin himself but the increasing bureaucratization. If Stalin hadn't seized power, it would have just been some other asshole dictator.
They tell you exactly what they would have done differently. They wouldn't have pursued Socialism in One Country and they would have tried to reintroduce democracy to the best of their abilities.
You can't have read the State and Revolution. You couldn't possibly read Lenin's description of the DotP as the pure democracy of the working class and think that Stalinist Russia or Maoist China were good examples of that description. I just fucking refuse to believe someone can have that poor of reading comprehension.

Hi Muke, this is an overly dogmatic notion arguing about semantics and not reality. The USSR didn't have class, but class struggle, due to the fact that the majority of the world was still capitalist (and trying to overthrow them). You also still have capitalist roaders within the country for which you need the state apparatus to surpress.

You are asking the wrong question. You should be asking what do the Communist Left actually do today.
The fact that we are reviving this stupid discussions like le pratical ML/Stalinism vs. infantile leftcom or Trotskyism shows to utter state of communism in the XXI century.

Nah
Not an argument. Lenin literally called it State Capitalism
Except the "state capitalist" theory doesn't imply that.
That's exactly when the DotP exists
No, it means the proletariat control the state. It doesn't mean they've abolished capitalism yet, and it is per definition impossible for it to exist after capitalism, since class would be abolished.
Not an argument

Not Muke, fam. Class struggle can't exist without there being a class to begin with. You're just describing the revolutionary state and the DotP

Do you understand English? Propped up = supporting. Do you deny that Trotskysm was flirting with all kinds of reactionary powers (sometimes even unintentionally) out of sheer contrarianism against the USSR?
Oh please show me these "empirically true" evidences of bureaucracy under Stalin. Bureaucracy only emerged in the USSR after the Kosgyn Reforms: Firms started to produce with a profit motive (production for exchange), but the socialist state still had a detailed planned economy which was an antagonsim to the anomy of the quasi-market, therefore, a mileu of middle men was established to allocate goods, labor and resources by compromising between those two forces - this was the notorious bureaucracy of the USSR, the apparatchiks, that didn't exist in Stalinism, where the economy was run by the workers. This is the correct materialist analysis, not "hurr durr omnipotent Stalin imposed bureaucracy".
True, Stalin was against bureaucrats but Trotsky doesn't care, he flings shit at Stalin at every opportunity.
Socialism in One Country isn't an ideology, it's just an assesment of reality. The USSR was in no way ready to fight the entire world in the 20s (which would have been the practical implication of "Permanent Revolution"). Read this critique of Permanent Revolution from a MLM viewpoint:
docdroid.net/0N7qBEt/continuityandrupture.pdf#page=262
No u

Because it reintroduced capitalist elements into the economy, not because it recreated the capitalist as a ruling class.
If you think the USSR "devolved" into state capitalism, you necessarily think it wasn't capitalist before.
This is like saying the French Revolution was the presiding of the bourgeoisie over feudalism. It's utter nonsense. It was the bourgeoisie OVERTHROWING the feudalists and establishing themselves as the new ruling class with a new state apparatus to back their position. Same things in Russia, except replace "bourgeoisie" with "proletariat" and "feudalists" with "bourgeoisie".

Do you? I said the USSR was trying to crush Trotskyism. How is "well, the USA was actually maybe possibly supporting Trotskyism" an argument against the fact that the USSR was OPPOSING Trotskyism? The two things literally aren't connected, it's a non sequitur.
…I said the bureaucracy is HOW Stalin seized power, which necessarily means that it existed BEFORE him. Please read my arguments before attempting to refute them.
You are fucking delusional.
You cannot be a Marxist and believe in socialist nationalism. The two are literally mutually exclusive.

Jesus, what is so fucking hard to comprehend that you can have a country with no class but that class can exist outside its borders. Guess what, Marx didn't think about this scenario this is why his theory was later expanded on.

trotsky was just like stalin, but with warfare abilities as good as mao's.

in the theoretical frame, trotskyism is just pure third worldist bullshit

in the practical frame, trotskyists are just pure firs worldist, imperialist bullshit

try to prove me wrong trotskiddies

lmao, all I was trying to say is that your persecution complex about getting ice pick'ed is ridicolous considering that Marxism-Leninism was pretty much openly banned in many Western countries and only Trotskysm was allowed. How is that not a big fucking advantage?
Please provide an argument. Stalin was the most popular candidate, he got elected into office. At the same time, Trotsky was disliked by the Bolshviks and the populace.
Stalin made anti-bureaucratic struggle to one of his priorities, try to have the new electoral system as a weapon against bureaucratization (Stalin, "Report to 17th P.C.," 704, 705, 706, 716, 728, 733, 752, 753, 754, 756, 758.). Furthermore:
t. Stalin
You are absolutely braindead when you equate Socialism in One Country nationalism. Stalin was very much anti-nationalist, he cracked down harder on nationalist movements than Lenin.

So in other words the capitalist mode of production still existed and thus it was not socialism
Fair enough. I'm of the opinion that it was always capitalist. It never reached the point of abolishing capital
And that's exactly why the DotP is a TRANSITION stage. You think all the feudal institutions disappeared once the national assembly was declared? The bourgeoisie needed to rule for a period to replace those institutions with their own, same thing with the proletarian rule

Having the state take the role of the bourgeoisie does not abolish class, it just centralises capital. Marx did in fact consider it. He also said that a revolution confined in one state is doomed to fail, since, just as you admit, you can't make the revolutionary transition when your enemies are trying to destroy you. The revolution must be international, it cannot devolve into a conflict between states or it will stall. I'm not blaming the Soviet Union for not being socialist, it never had the chance to.

Oh god

How was the USSR taking the role of the bourgeoisie, it was not a kleptocracy, there was not a market, its international trade was less than 4% of its economy even in revisionist times.
For it to be capital there would have been an accumulation-investment cycle, which wasn't, booms and busts, which didn't exist either, law of value determining production, which wasn't happening as well.
Well, Marxists-Leninists are internationalists. However, when you have enough natural resources, you can build socialism on one country only when its big enough. Obviously small countries like the DPRK or Cuba are bound to run into problems which forces them into revisionism. I don't see how this stance isn't stale dogmatism, you either support Socialism in One Country but don't call it socialism (ergo having a transitionary revolutionary state for like a century or something), or you are a defeatist in practice, because, you will always have competing countries. This is due to the ability of modern capitalism to palliate its contradictions through outsourcing into concentrated areas of increased class struggle (such as the debt-complex that is the EU chokeholding Greece, or sweatshops in Bangladesh). Modern capitalism wages imperialist wars, global redistribution and net extraction and global speculation as utilities to keep class struggle at bay. Even if you'd get a revolution in the center of capital, it is very likely just going to be one country. Porky will never let the 20s happen again.

I think the reason why you guys increasingly start posting without them is because you want to give the impression that the ultraleft stance is Holla Forumss consensus.

trots are as dumb as tankies

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indeed
all marxists are dumb

My knowledge of the economy of the SU is kinda limited but didn't they still use money? Economic plans were still calculated using rubles. Commodity production still existed, and though it might not have engaged in much international trade there was still a market inside the soviet union, production was just heavily socialised and centralised.
Don't really have much to say about the rest. I still maintain that the SU wasn't socialist and couldn't make the transition unless it won the cold war, which it didn't. You have a point in that a widespread international revolution is highly unlikely, but so is the rise of a large revolutionary state like the Soviet Union. The next revolution is gonna have to have a very different character from what we've seen in the 19th and 20th century.

I'm not a leftcom, fam. Haven't read enough to form my opinion. I just like a lot of leftcom posters since they make a lot of theory heavy posts, which is why I cringe when I see a leftcomflag make such a low-effort one

This shitposting flag got boring fast

I am 100% genuine

What you think of as the revolution will never ever happen.

Read my post here I was paraphrasing. I should probably have said that the revolution would have to be international in order to succeed, but since the German Revolution failed we didn't get the big international revolution everyone was hoping for

And the big international revolution will literally never happen. Capitalism develops unevenly across the globe, making simultaneous revolution in more than a few countries extremely unlikely. You thinking muh true socialism is only possible globally doesn't matter (since it's literally just a debate over semantics, no one gives a shit). Revolution won't happen all over the world at once. You gotta update the theory to make it fit reality. Autistically repeating "the revolution must be international!" over and over doesn't change the fact that it will never happen like that, and more importantly, it doesn't help you figure out what to do when revolution actually happens, but inevitably remains isolated to one or a few countries for some time.

Is that a woman (male)?

Have ya heard of the Posadists mateys? They were actually involved in the Cuban revolution as the only allowed Trotskyist group.

As Leninists, they have the October Revolution under their belts.

They're popular because they're Leninist without being Stalinist. If you see Stalin and the rise of the Nomenklatura as a misstep, you're probably going to be attracted to Trotskyism. It's especially popular now because most of the arguments for Stalinist tendencies are moot at this point.

Remind me why any actually socialist working class man should spare a single second for your dead Russian celebrities when even social democracy presents a far more vibrant prospect to anyone who isn’t interested first and foremost in emptying their balls over how great the global south is?

Lenin actually achieved a socialist revolution instead of jerking off in his armchair or breaking windows and getting beat up by the police.

Oh yeah I forgot that l*ninists can’t imagine anybody actually desiring socialism so they project on others their own propensity towards lifestylism and personality cults

Don’t forget you are right now not doing much more drumming your fingers waiting for the revolution like the most sedentary leftcom. Claiming little skirmishes in Asia and Africa that end in precisely zero gain for anybody but party members as proof your movement is relevant to the working class is pathetic.

Wow, truly astounding. And what happened after the fall of the USSR? It was reversed almost immediately and here we are again, nearly at Industrial Revolution levels of inequality with rapidly declining standards of living. If you get Porky to share, you'll get an amazing standard of living, but the only way to do that is to scare him with Bolsheviks.

And we're trying to build power. Yes, in some ways revolutionary moments arise on their own, but we need to organize and build up our strength to push these moments in a progressive direction. Otherwise you get an Occupy Wall Street with everyone angry and in the streets, but no one really sure what to do.

Sounds like a bad text. Try "The Revolution Betrayed" by Trotsky instead.

Trotsky literally called the SU a "degenerated worker state", which is pretty much a code-word for "state capitalism".

He literally devotes an entire chapter of The Revolution Betrayed to explaining why the USSR is not "state capitalism" and how that phrase is basically meaningless. Try reading a book for once, you stupid fucking anarchist.

for the average worker there was no difference other than worse technology and quality of life

protip: we should wrap Trotskyists in left unity shills, then add more layers of trots and unitists until the necessary yield is achieved.

Trotskyism allows you to be an ML without having to justify Stalin or Mao. Literally all of its appeal, the rest is window dressing.