chapotraphouse

They tend to be ultras (and, in contradiction, sometimes obsessed with electoralist approaches) and fairly disruptive to others' organizing. Discussing Trotsky himself or permanent revolution can be a good exercise and a way to develop theory but that's usually not what is actually happening.

Examples:

• Notorious for trying to enter other left spaces and take them over. Especially if those spaces seem "ascendant". A lot of this weird tendency of self-congratulation and appointing themselves as the vanguard or whatever even though all they did was show up to something that someone else organized and then take a picture of themselves.

• So critical of the USSR, historically, that there was a serious pipeline from Trots to neocons. The USSR is gone but terrible international takes are still the norm. These are the people telling you to believe in the Israeli working class rather than criticize settler culture in the Zionist entity. Not all, but it's dominant.

• A belief in leading through publications that nobody reads that say a lot about what should happen according to them. Kind of harmless I guess but it does waste people's time when they could be doing useful things or becoming educated. It's also a funny contrast to how they usually characterize themselves as (the only true Marxists).

• A dogmatic subscription to certain approaches to labor that simultaneously alienate everyone else in the space while also supporting labor imperialism. This is annoying to deal with because when other socialists enter the space it will already be hostile to them. I've dealt with this A LOT.

• A cynicism that I don't want to overgeneralize about and can't perfectly explain. Maybe it's just that a lot of them are older. But their approach to issues relating to gender, race, sexuality, etc is often only a way to relate to their target audience rather than a principled position. This really shows in how they use language, incorporate others into their processes, etc. Everything is working class this, working class that, and then some token words so they can pass for "progressive". This does not apply to all Trots but it's very common. I've had to have many talks with Trot orgs' leaders about not being transphobic it casually racist when they want to have a speaker at a rally or something.

A lot of what I'm describing are also behaviors common to the reactionary Western leftist stereotype and is not necessarily about Trotsky or a lot of what constitutes Trotskyism. Think of them as the only acceptable Marxists allowed to survive the Red Scare because of their hypercritical approach to other leftists and the fact that they are usually dependent on the approaches to "organizing" handed down by American and British cishet white dudes in the 1950s and 1960s.

Anyways I should mention again, "not all Trots". I know plenty of Trots I can work with and bring into coalition etc. But I know way more that will basics ruin the space lol. Some of the issues are attributable to Trosky in the sense that he created a narrative for himself as the anti-Stalin and a hypercritic of the USSR. But a lot of it is also just that "which way, Western leftist man?" thing I've harped on.