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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[–] 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!