I don't mean to be sectarian. I know a fuck ton of Trot individuals and orgs and their position on Gaza is very good. But SWP is so bad it's almost comical.

I discovered this as I was trying to find out why We Are Many dissolved 5 years ago. Did SWP go right??

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[–] Terrarium@hexbear.net 24 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Yes, Trots are effectively religious believers in the capacity of the settler working class. In rejecting "campism" they substitute it with a childish idea of revolution by international solidarity between trade unions and around 50 Trots per country. No material analysis of those unions or their interests enters the equation. They are the working class, per the logic.

These were the same people who went to Palestine and told everyone that the "Israeli" working class would ally with them, contrary to the groups that said they must take up arms ans become militant immediately.

[–] happybadger@hexbear.net 19 points 1 week ago (1 children)

they substitute it with a childish idea of revolution by international solidarity between trade unions and around 50 Trots per country

You underestimate the power of 50 trots. That's over 200 orgs, 600 competing newspapers.

[–] Terrarium@hexbear.net 13 points 1 week ago

And, believe it or not, 1600 grooming allegations

[–] Sebrof@hexbear.net 8 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Thanks for the comment. It's very frustrating these types of leftists. And the other party that wasn't a Trot group, but an "anti-revisionist" group (they were similar to Trots in ways but like Stalin and Mao) were the worst of the two when it came to the above problems. When I brought up settler colonialsim (I'm no scholar of it, but I thought the party members should at least uh... know about it) at one of their public events they got real mad. Asking me if that meant I was just against immigration and believed people couldn't move around then. They said it "divided the workers" and they then tried to set up a debate against me. I am not one for debates though. And I doubt it would have been in any sort of good faith. I decided to nope out of there and hope they they made a big enough ass of themselves at the event that they've since faded away. But, unfortunately, I know it's not that easy. They're still around with their damaging line.

[–] TreadOnMe@hexbear.net 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

It's incredible that they do not know the difference between immigration and settler-colonialism. The differences literally couldn't be more stark. Even Marx divided workers into subcategories, and if they like Mao and Stalin, then they must at least recognize the difference between peasants and proletarians.

[–] Sebrof@hexbear.net 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Terrarium made a point above which I can agree with, having interacted with them, they don't actually seem to study any of their supposed heros. I was making an argument for national liberation movements and supporting anti imperialist struggles even if they aren't explicitly socialist in nature, and I was pulling literal quotes from Stalin in the Foundations of Leninsim, but they just handwaved it away and pulled some other quotes from the book that made it appear that "nationalism is bad".

I had an argument with them where I was stating my understanding of socialism as the transition period etc etc, standard stuff I thought. But they argued against me. Saying that we don't need a transition. We will, literally, just jump straight into communism. And this is why the Russian and Chinese revolutions failed, because they didn't push the communist button I suppose.

Again, I tried to find some text from their heros to explain my viewpoint, but it did no use. They also wanted to do away with money entirely. I hate money as much as the next communist, but I think you can't just get rid of it tomorrow and expect logistics to continue. That seems like you need some sorta of, hmmm, transition period almost? I even quotes parts of The Gotha Program about money being replaced with labor tokens as an example of a transition. But again... no. I realized that any further papers on cybernetics or etc. even just for brainstorming or having a fun hypothetical with were pointless to bring up too.

Their answer is to simply press the big red button, and everyone else was to stupid or blind to know how.

And they don't read any theory except for what they themselves published back in the 60s.

There's more I can say, but I'm already afraid of doxxing myself

[–] TreadOnMe@hexbear.net 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

The fun part about these people is that they are literally the utopian socialists Marx was railing against, they just don't understand enough about overall socialist history to understand that. It seems like they are Luxembourgists without actually reading any Luxembourg or understanding what side of the nationalism debate Stalin and Mao were on.

[–] Sebrof@hexbear.net 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

They are definitely utopians without evem knowing what that word means. They were frustrating to deal with, but the only way to defeat them is to outorganize them (which wouldn't be hard) and let them stay in the marsh.

I haven't read Luxemburg's works, I only know of Reform and Revolution and some broad history of the German Revolution, so may I ask what Luxemburgists believe in? And I imagine that even if I were more familiar with Luxemburg's writings it wouldn't explain those who call themselves Luxemburgists. I'm just imagining they are some different flavor of Trot - but that's probably unfair as I haven't investigated it.

[–] TreadOnMe@hexbear.net 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

They are not Trots, they were a flavor of German Communists specifically from the KPD if I am remembering my acronyms correctly.

Anyways, to summarize, while they were in theory allied with the Soviet Union, Rosa Luxembourg argued against, for example, giving Ukrainians their own nation, as they didn't actually have a distinct ethnic identity outside of recent nationalist romanticism, whereas Lenin and Stalin believed that allying with the Ukrainian nationalists and giving them their own nation after the revolution, would allow them a more united front against their actual enemies in international capital and the white army. Stalin, especially, being a minority Georgian, was early on very big on the idea of giving persecuted ethnicities within the Russian empire latitude to form their own nations, ultimately compromising with others in the Bolsheviks with his idea to literally split up most of Russia into local nations.

In hindsight, Luxembourg may have been correct, but it literally took the collapse of the Soviet project to see her visions of ethnic conflict fulfilled. Yet with the fall of Yugoslavia, we also saw what could have been the eventuality of her ideas as well. It turns out that the national problem is really really difficult.

There are plenty of other theoretical differences as well, but I am not going to bore you with the details here.

[–] Sebrof@hexbear.net 3 points 1 week ago

Thanks the the write up! Definitely not boring!

[–] Terrarium@hexbear.net 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

lmao setting up a debate is the most Troy thing ever. They probably would've packed the audience too. They have weird habita like that.

The "divide the workers" nonsense is a tailist canard. It's an excuse with over a century of history peddled by people who want their socialism to be simple more than accurate. The working class is already divided. Our task is to frame how it might be leveraged, and having a large settler component ia just a material and relevant fact that has to be contended with. These are not serious people, they don't even really read Marx, just Trot (etc) summaries, and they end up aubacriving to cartoon ideas of the analysis, idealist ones, rathee than subjecting it to material interests like those of settlers. The same way that anyone trying yo organize under segregation would beed to understand that the working class was already divided by anti-blackness and that this had both a material and psychological draw for whites. Recognizing it would not be dividing the working classz it would be understanding an existing divisiin so that you can think about how it might be overcome.

On the plus side it us not that hard to out-organize these types. They are internally volatile. That anger they showed you is the kind if thing they also do internally to those they "mentor". Of course, if therr isn't already a good anti-imperialist / ML group to join it would be a lot of work to build one, but it is also very rewarding.

[–] Sebrof@hexbear.net 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Exactly what you said about it being an existing division. I tried framing it that way too, that I am not the one making these divisions, these divisions already exist and we have to include it in our analysis. But no, they acted like me speaking the word itself is what is dividing the working class.

And they were alo very anti nationalism. Because, guess why, it "divides the workers". I put more energy than I should have pulling quotes and arguments from Fanon, and even the big man of steel himself Stalin (as this group claimed to be Stalinist), as to why national liberation should be supported.

But every time just just sent me a doc their party wrote in the 60s about why I was wrong and why the BPP should be opposed.

I don't have to deal with them anymore thank god