Opinion of Trotskyists

[politicus]

Whats your opinion of Trotskyists?

Met a few lately and find them hard to stomach. Their ideas just seem so out of touch with reality. I can understand why this particular brand of Marxism is less tainted than others (since they havent had much real power since old Leon got the boot). Still I find it hard to understand why young (or old) people would become Trotskyists. I think I would be a Rosa Luxembourg supporter, if I were a Marxist.

[tpfkaw]

All not "mostly" HPs.

[k-onmmunist]

They mean well... but they're pretty annoying.

[© tweed]

the moral prestige of Trotskyism (for those that are on a wavelength to be able to understand it) has never been exhausted, because the question of 'What could have been?' will remain eternally valid.  Trotsky himself was an amazing and brilliant man of many interests, a phenomenal author, etc.  so he is well deserving of a cult of personality.  also, not that you were implying otherwise, but most Trotskyists think well of Rosa and cite her with regularity.

as for the poll question, I sit somewhere between options one and two.

[Pheurton Skeurto]

I've never met one.

[Yelnoc]

All not "mostly" HPs.

This.  I voted "Other."

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Still I find it hard to understand why young (or old) people would become Trotskyists.

Trust funds and guilt?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

[© tweed]

would like to personally thank Al for his (increasingly) characteristically insightful contributions above.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Option 2.

My uncle, aunt and cousins are Trotskists (well, not actual Trotskists, but they support the historically trotskist party).

[politicus]

All not "mostly" HPs.

This.  I voted "Other."

Fair enough. In my experience any group of people, no matter how extreme in their views, will have some members that are not HPs, that why I wrote "mostly". Neo-nazis might be an exception to this rule, but even they have some confused kids, that are not actually horrible individuals.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Option 2.

[Redalgo]

I voted, "Mean well, but pretty annoying."

For a couple of years as a teen I gravitated toward Trotskyism as a response to perceived class struggle, neo-colonial exploitation, habituated suppression of folks espousing minority religious, political, and economic views in the United States, and a stance that the revolution in the Soviet Union was betrayed early on and reformers - if given time and clout to restore a proper workers' state - could have made the USSR a culturally richer and morally superior country relative to the USA. During this phase I went through it seemed like a good idea for a left-wing vanguard party to capture the state, establish a one-party system until the worst of traditional American values could be purged via education (not punishing dissidents), and muster a powerful military to hop around incrementally from country to country - "liberating" each of them in turn and establishing socialist regimes until world federalism could take hold and promote many social rights for the good of all.

The biggest difference is I did not want the state to wither away anytime in the foreseeable future.

lol - but this was before I got tertiary education and stopped thinking myself a downtrodden prole!

[The Mikado]

Annoying and pedantic almost beyond belief.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Annoying and pedantic almost beyond belief.

You forgot self-righteous. At least from my experience, they hold themselves as the moral standard of the entire left.

[Cory]

Regardless of what you think of them, they are infinitely better then self-described "Stalinists" or "Maoists".

[minionofmidas]

Who, exactly, counts as a "Trotskyist" anyways?

[Redalgo]

Who, exactly, counts as a "Trotskyist" anyways?

The way I see it, Marxist-Leninism branched into Trotskyism and Stalinism, with Maoism being
an eventual spin-off of the latter. If I were to generalize a bit their core differences would be:

Stalinism

- Power is centralized & the state is totalitarian.
- State bureaucrats wield most of the influence.
- Features a nationalist focus on self-sufficiency.
- Socialism comes after the bourgeois dominate.

Trotskyism

- Power is centralized, and the state is illiberal.
- Workers' councils wield most of the influence.
- Has a globalist focus on spreading revolution.
- A revolution can be had anywhere at anytime.

Both would attempt to claim Lenin's legacy and embrace the principle of democratic centralism.
I've never been much of a Marxist-Leninist ideologue, that being said, so maybe I am off-mark.

[© tweed]

Who, exactly, counts as a "Trotskyist" anyways?

http://www.wsws.org     is a good example.  I actually was fliered by this group on campus a few weeks ago.