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Why do people here really not like Trotskyists? (hexbear.net)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Why do people here really not like Trotskyists? Is it just because of his beef with Stalin and not an actual criticism of his views? Do people really not think a global movement would be superior for the betterment of all people?

Edit: Thank you to everyone who provided context and history, y’all are a wealth of knowledge.

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I consistently see two big pitfalls for people who are sympathetic to leftist ideas but aren't quite leftists:

They're soft on U.S. imperialism
They're inadequately critical of U.S. propaganda about AES states

Trotskyism seems to lead people directly into both. It's built around a sort of leftist Lost Cause mythos, where all these revolutions were good at one point but betrayed by those dastardly MLs. This means criticism of MLs that goes far beyond reasonable (Parenti's line about utopian socialists never having to address the problems inherent in running a state come to mind), which leads into 2, then 1 seems more palatable because opposing these evil ML states is good, actually.