trot

thoughtful response

I'll help urmums401k@hexbear.net out here. We can summarize the first quote as follows:

information coming from the provinces

eyewitnesses I won't name

As for the rest, the CIA/MI6 possibly contributing (note: it would have happened either way - the material reasons why people went on general strike/took up arms would still be there) to the start of the uprising does not serve as evidence for much other than confirm the obvious fact "the USSR and NATO were geopolitical enemies". It's akin to saying China abandoned socialism by 1969 because of this, or that Lenin was a "german agent".

Yes, the uprising in reality did not have a single coherent ideology: some were libs, while others (most) were workers with actual grievances against the bureaucracy, who were forming workers' councils (e.g. Greater Budapest Workers' Council) and demanding direct workers' control of industries. Though note: none of the prominent participating organisations made any calls to return to capitalism, and the said workers' councils were the only ones that persisted for months after the military intervention, until the leaders were all arrested. Even if we suppose that the initial leaders of the movement were sponsored by the West, that soon stopped being the case because the leading organisations obviously changed.

Mao, being a true adherent of Socialism in One Country, knew: there can only be one.

Old guy, see: every post-Sino-Soviet split Maoist

to be fair the take itself does not imply supporting Ukraine, just that it's silly to believe the war will ever lead to any "denazification" at all, and to be all SMO ZOV GOIDA 🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺 because of it.

In contrast, I love Maoists and MLs so much, they never ever ever ever fail at any of the above.

the new user has sent a nonsense, probably accidental report on a post! All gather in the town square for the public execution

RCP can't stop winning just because CPB keeps embarrassing themselves on their own

Yes, but this is just the Canadian section.

That's the point. "Unrealistic" demands that everyone agrees with yet which cannot be achieved under capitalism are good and should be made more often.

Because unlike the dumb trots, MLs and MLMs definitely always have the correct party line on everything, especially the less members they have and the more generally obscure they are, am I right?

In fact, this is why you can just choose any ML or MLM party you want, no matter how small, and engage with just that one party's line, because they are actually all equally correct! For example, let's say the Italian PMLI, who... support sending weapons to Ukraine?

Uh-oh, not a good look for the Stalinists!

For context - Trotsky's own position on the Sino-Japanese War was far more reasonable:

We do not and never have put all wars on the same plane. Marx and Engels supported the revolutionary struggle of the Irish against Great Britain, of the Poles against the tsar, even though in these two nationalist wars the leaders were, for the most part, members of the bourgeoisie and even at times of the feudal aristocracy...In the Far East we have a classic example. China is a semicolonial country which Japan is transforming, under our very eyes, into a colonial country. Japan's struggle is imperialist and reactionary. China's struggle is emancipatory and progressive...

But Chiang Kai-shek? We need have no illusions about Chiang Kai-shek, his party, or the whole ruling class of China, just as Marx and Engels had no illusions about the ruling classes of Ireland and Poland. Chiang Kai-shek is the executioner of the Chinese workers and peasants. But today he is forced, despite himself, to struggle against Japan for the remainder of the independence of China. Tomorrow he may again betray. It is possible. It is probable. It is even inevitable. But today he is struggling...

But can Chiang Kai-shek assure the victory? I do not believe so. It is he, however, who began the war and who today directs it. To be able to replace him it is necessary to gain decisive influence among the proletariat and in the army, and to do this it is necessary not to remain suspended in the air but to place oneself in the midst of the struggle. We must win influence and prestige in the military struggle against the foreign invasion and in the political struggle against the weaknesses, the deficiencies, and the internal betrayal."

(Leon Trotsky, On the Sino-Japanese War, 1937)

Note the conclusion of "We must win influence and prestige in the military struggle against the foreign invasion and the political struggle against the weaknesses, the deficiencies, and the internal betrayal" - even if skeptical in the KMT being a reliable ally, completely the opposite of "never collaborating with the bourgeois KMT government", and definitely not advocating for taking up arms against the KMT yet.

So, why did the Chinese Trotskyists have a different, incorrect position? Because they were already getting violently purged for years with the help of the KMT out of reasons initially completely unrelated to the Sino-Japanese war. They were already a fringe, beheaded tendency in China, their leaders imprisoned or dead, which is why their positions deformed in this way, and not because they were dirty Trots who just want defeat for all communism. But they sure did make a convenient bogeyman nevertheless.