Without resorting to vitriolic name-calling and unproven conspiracies and 70+ y/o propaganda, Explain why picrel and his thought is le bad?
Just want honest, productive discussion
If I describe his life, you will say it is 70+ year old propganda because he died 85 years ago
Chat GPT say why Stalinists hate trotsky from a Stalinist perspective
Trotsky's life between 1903 and 1927 would be described as the story of a brilliant but dangerously ambitious factionalist who repeatedly placed himself above party unity and the interests of the socialist state.
A Stalinist would begin in 1903, when Trotsky refused to side firmly with the Bolsheviks led by Leon Trotsky or the Mensheviks after the split of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Rather than committing himself to Lenin's disciplined revolutionary party, Trotsky spent years attacking Lenin and trying to position himself as a mediator above the factions. Stalinists would emphasize that Trotsky denounced Lenin as authoritarian and repeatedly predicted that Bolshevism would lead to dictatorship.
The Stalinist narrative becomes more hostile after the October Revolution. Although they would acknowledge that Trotsky played a major role in organizing the uprising and later building the Red Army during the Russian Civil War, they would insist that these achievements made him arrogant. In their telling, Trotsky became convinced that he was the indispensable leader of the revolution and expected to inherit Lenin's position. His military methods are often portrayed by Stalinists as excessively harsh, bureaucratic, and reliant on former Tsarist officers.
After Lenin's illness beginning in 1922, Stalinists would argue that Trotsky ceased behaving like a loyal party member and instead organized a personal opposition. They would claim that while the country was exhausted by war, famine, and economic collapse, Trotsky continually stirred up disputes inside the party. His criticism of the leadership, especially of Joseph Stalin, would be presented as an attempt to divide the party and undermine collective leadership.
By 1923, Stalinists would say, Trotsky openly challenged the party majority through the Left Opposition. They would portray his supporters as intellectuals disconnected from ordinary workers and accuse them of demanding policies that threatened stability. When Lenin died in 1924, Stalinists would insist that Trotsky's political line was decisively rejected by most Bolsheviks. His theory of Permanent Revolution was condemned as unrealistic and contrary to the possibility of building socialism in a single country.
By 1927, Trotsky had been removed from the Communist Party. A Stalinist would describe this not as a persecution but as a necessary defense of the revolution. They would argue that Trotsky continued factional activity despite repeated warnings, formed blocs with other oppositionists, and placed his own ambitions above party discipline.
Why did Stalinists hate him so much? Speaking as one of them: because we saw Trotsky not merely as a rival politician but as a threat to the unity of the revolution itself. He had spent years attacking Lenin before joining the Bolsheviks, then after Lenin's death he acted as though he alone understood the revolution's true path. We believed he encouraged factionalism at a time when the Soviet state was surrounded by enemies and struggling to survive. To us, Trotsky was not just mistaken; he was the embodiment of intellectual arrogance, disloyalty to party decisions, and a constant source of division. The more celebrated his role in 1917 became, the more dangerous we considered him, because we feared that his prestige could be used to challenge the party leadership and reverse the course we believed was necessary for socialism's survival.
>>2831397Stalin should have sent the icepic on your grandmother rather then on poor Trotsky.
>>2831397>Trotsky denounced Lenin as authoritarian and repeatedly predicted that Bolshevism would lead to dictatorship.So… are you intentionally misunderstanding state and revolution or did you never read it? Dictatorship for who? Lenin didn't hide the fact he wanted a dictatorship … of the proletariat. To use dictatorship while referring to Lenin implicitly buys into liberal horseshoe theorists by changing the definition to match the bourgeois one.
>>2831403turns out asking an ai to do your thinking just leads you to become a liberal.
At least Grok would have included a rant about White genocide in South Africa.
>>2831391Betrayed democratic centralism. He and his ideas were unpopular within the party, and he just couldn't accept it. Constantly went outside the party to try and get people on his side, was always making problems. His actions are one of the main things that led to the paranoia of the USSR, especially when even after he got exiled for continuously betraying democratic centralism, he created a whole organization dedicated to overthrowing the USSR for his own personal gain. Given how most people in the party hated his guts, I guarantee he would've purged even more people than Stalin did. But that was never happening because Trotsky was despised. His history as a Menshevik constantly standing against Lenin must not be forgotten either. I'm not a Stalin apologist per say, but Trotsky got what was fucking coming to him.
Also the USSR was not equipped for permanent revolution after the revolution, and if they had stuck to that it would've speedran the collapse. SIOC and industrialization, even with their issues, were necessary after the crushing of revolutions abroad. Stalin made a lot of other mistakes unrelated to this, but this wasn't one of them.
>>2831391Because he tragically went crazy after realising the world communism would never happen in his lifetime. Although Stalin killing his family didn't help at all.
>>2831391>>2831397>>2831400>>2831403>>2831404>>2831406>>2831407>>2831434>>2831441>>2831448>>2831449>>2831453Here is a bunch of audiobooks against Trotsky and Trotskyism, mostly by Lenin and Stalin. These are their direct writings. These are mostly preserved, ironically, on a Trotskyist website, Marxists.org
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nYnSplhJec&list=PLXUFLW8t2snsEF6_Sp7CrdTTT91Pqf0BcIdeally you should just read these works, but in case you don't have the time to do so, you can listen to these while working or doing chores.
They would have governed similarly given the material conditions. Who cares about this in 2026
>>2831520Trots are not dead yet. In fact, if you want to help comrades from Pakistan who are being held in prison go ahead and share this video.
Also sign this petition
https://pakistansolidarity.org/>>2831391He was fine with all the shit he complained about the stalin clique doing, dude was just mad he wasn't in charge of it. Oversaw the dismantling of workers councils and introduction of taylorism as early as 1920, bro was basically same as the party bureaucrats he was complaining about in everyway imho.
He’s bad because he lost and his word is bad because it’s the words of losers. The closest any Trot came to actually being in power is having the most trusted politician in Argentina right now.
>>2831520
>Why would i waste my time with this? The man is dead and so is his ideology.
you shouldn't if you don't care, but if you do care, there are your answers.
>>2831548>might makes right ITT<trial by torture in usapolman you guys are literally devolving into bronze age slave owners
>>2831397>Chat GPT say why Stalinists hate trotsky from a Stalinist perspective>A Stalinist would begin in 1903, when Trotsky refused to side firmly with the Bolsheviks led by Leon TrotskyUgh. 1 sec let me lazily copy something worth anyone's time.
>>2831562He lost the political struggle and got killed, he sucked, he probably didn’t even make Frida Khalo cum
>>2831554
Marxism still wins because China is winning
>>2831594How many weeks until China pushes the socialism button?
>>2831536
>Who the fuck cares about trotskyites the USSR DOESNT EVEN FUCKING EXIST ANYMORE
words like "trotskyism" refer to political tendencies which can exist beyond the era in which they initially appeared. it is precisely these tendencies that i believe people are arguing against when they say "trotskyism"
>>2831597>How many weeks until China pushes the socialism button?about 1222 more weeks until 2050
>>2831597Whenever the US breaks apart and falls into warlordism
Trots are the only communists who do anything today
Also "party unity" isnt democratic centralism, and democratic centralism isnt just blindly obeying stalin either, stalin distorted what lenin made.
Like top-down dynamics is not socialism, its reestablising class relations and destroying worker control in the political and economic process, thereby making the claims of a "prole dictarship" impossible under a stalinist regime
Thought democracy would genuinely defeat the mystical bureaucratic class, which apparently was the vector of all evil within the ussr, and replacing it with the *people's democratic* bureaucracy would somehow resolve it
>>2831569From Black Bolshevik by Harry Haywood:>From late 1922 on, Trotsky made a direct attack on the whole Leninist theory of revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. He denied the possibility (and necessity) of building socialism in one country, and instead characterized that theory as an abandonment of Marxist principles and a betrayal of the revolutionary movement. He postulated his own theory of “permanent revolution,” and contended that a genuine advance of socialism in the USSR would become possible only as a result of a socialist victory in the other industrially developed states.>… At the base of this defeatism was Trotsky’s view that the peasantry would be hostile to socialism… Trotsky portrayed the peasantry as an undifferentiated mass. He made no distinction between the masses of peasants who worked their own land (the muzhiks) and the exploiting strata who hired labor (the kulaks). His conclusions openly contradicted the strategy of the Bolsheviks, developed by Lenin, of building the worker-peasant alliance as the basis for the dictatorship of the proletariat. Further, they were at complete variance with any realistic economic or social analysis.>Trotsky’s entire position reflected a lack of faith in the strength and resources of the Soviet people, the vast majority of whom were peasants. Since it denied the revolutionary potential of the peasantry, the success of the revolution could not come from internal forces, but had to depend on the success of proletarian revolutions in the advanced nations of Western Europe. In the absence of such revolutions, the revolutionary process within the Soviet Union itself would have to be held in abeyance, and the proletariat, which had seized power with the help of the peasantry, would have to hold state power in conflict with all other classes….>Trotsky’s scheme of permanent revolution downgraded not only the peasantry as a revolutionary force, but also the national liberation movements of oppressed peoples… Thus, in “The Struggle for Power,” he wrote that “imperialism does not contrapose the bourgeois nation to the old regime, but the proletariat to the bourgeois nation.” >While Trotsky de-emphasized the national colonial question in the epoch of imperialism, Lenin, on the other hand, stressed its new importance. “Imperialism ,” said Lenin, “means the progressively mounting oppression of the nations of the world by a handful of Great Powers; it means a period of wars between the latter to extend and consolidate the oppression of nations.”>… In the United States I was to witness how Trotsky’s purist concept of class struggle led logically to a denial of the struggle for Black liberation as a special feature of the class struggle, revolutionary in its own right. As a result, American Trotskyists found themselves isolated from that movement during the great upsurge of the thirties….>We students felt that Trotsky’s position denigrated the achievement of the Soviet Revolution. We didn’t like his continual harping about Russia’s backwardness and its inability to build socialism, or his theory of permanent revolution. The Soviet Union was an inspiration for all of us, a view confirmed by our experience in the country. Everything we could see defied Trotsky’s logic.>His writings were readily available throughout the school, and the issues of the struggle were constantly on the agenda in our collective. These were discussed in our classes, as they were in factories, schools and peasant organizations throughout the country….>The struggle raged over a period of five years (1922-27) during which time the Trotsky bloc had access to the press and Trotsky’s works were widely circulated for everyone to read. Trotsky was not defeated by bureaucratic decisions or Stalin’s control of the Party apparatus — as his partisans and Trotskyite historians claim. He had his day in court and finally lost because his whole position flew in the face of Soviet and world realities. He was doomed to defeat because his views were incorrect and failed to conform to objective conditions, as well as the needs and interests of the Soviet people….>Throughout this whole struggle, we Black students at the school had been ardent supporters of the position of Stalin and the Central Committee. Most certainly we were Stalinists — whose policies we saw as the continuation of Lenin’s. Those today who use the term “Stalinist” as an epithet evade the real question: that is, were Stalin and the Central Committee correct? I believe history has proven that they were correct. >>2831569Critical support to Trotsky in his fight against the Bolsheviks led by Leon Trotsky.
>>2831569it took so many replies before one of you noticed LMFAO. rage baiting is so easy on here and i respect you so god damn much.
>>2831864we just automatically dismiss everything an ai writes.
>>2831606this is also my predicted endgame
>>2831865you also dismiss anything that's too long, has sources, or is of higher quality than vitriolic shitflinging. this is an imageboard after all
>>2831750correct post, OP will not reply, and if he does it will be silly
>>2831751from what source are you hallucinating that greentext
You’re just going to say that any criticism is a conspiracy theory, stop pretending you want a productive discussion.
>>2831870MaoAnon already mogged OP and everyone can see it, so while no discussion is possible with OP, it is possible educate lurkers by mogging OP.
>>2831391>Explain why picrel a wrecker
>and his thought its not that bad
the main problem is that he wouldnt adhere to party discipline, specifically democratic centralism. the problem was not because permanent revolution is a bad idea and sioc is a good idea, its that he lost the vote and wouldnt shut the fuck up about it. then tried to do a coup when he was in the minority. then he got thoroughly btfo and was so sour about it that he spent the rest of his life spreading propaganda against the revolution. pretty fucked up and stupid
>>2831391Its the same thing as Stalinism in practice, the party form is opportunist by nature and will trend towards the restoration of capitalism as we have seen time and time again with Leninism and Social Democrats pick and choose your flavour, fascism or liberalism.
>>2831750>and contended that a genuine advance of socialism in the USSR would become possible only as a result of a socialist victory in the other industrially developed statesThis is one of those things that most modern MLs agree with now but still somehow cite as a reason to dislike Trotsky. Between this and his criticism of thr bureaucracy as an emerging fifth column I really don't understand how people can say he was wrong.
>>2831940Trotsky was wrong, but I actually wholeheartedly agree with:
>This is one of those things that most modern MLs agree with now but still somehow cite as a reason to dislike Trotsky.Most "Marxist-Leninists" in the US today, especially PSL, CPUSA, FRSO, etc. are essentially Trotskyist with only semantic disagreements with Trotsky's opportunist and chauvinist line. These terminally-online "to trot or not to trot" arguments are mainly a waste of time because the two "sides" arguing aren't actually in opposition, they're mainly concerned with the particular aesthetics of the legacies they convergently evolved out of.
>>2832052>Trotsky was wrongHe wasn't wrong about the necessity of international revolution, or about the bureaucracy forming the basis for counterrevolution.
>>2831397Fuck off ai user
>>2831876
illiterate
>not because permanent revolution is a bad idea and sioc is a good idea, its that
he started that statement with "not because"
>>2832153
They were also echoed by later anti-revisionist critics of the Soviet Union. MLs say all the things about Khruschev that Trotsky said about Stalin.
"stalinists" remain mindbroken about trotsky and sometimes anarchists because they're so utterly fixated on the idea that correct theory leads to correct praxis leads to victories and successes…but the USSR is dead, so they don't have modern victories to pull up, so instead they just are stuck in a mental loop of the 1920s-40s so they can be smug over and over.
it's more a coping mechanism to deal with modernity than anything because nobody has a great idea of how to move forward, save for the people who are cheerleaders for china and seem to just kinda hope that it won't go sour.
>>2832178Full scale trvclear war
>>2832109>>2832153>his predictions and criticism of the ussr all became true.Except they didn't beyond the vague notion that Soviet Socialism would, at some indeterminate point, collapse. It did not collapse the way Trotsky claimed it would, and the role of the bureaucracy as he outlined it didn't come to pass (and frankly, Trotsky should be the last person to criticize anyone on bureaucratization)
>He wasn't wrong about the necessity of international revolutionThat's an interestingly vague way to allude to Trotsky's critique of "socialism in one country", as if all but him stood against "international revolution". Whether or not revolution must occur internationally was never up for debate, Trotsky's assertion rests on the claims that Stalin and the Comintern under his influence caused revolutions to fail, and that it wasn't possible to build up socialism within the USSR in the first place.
The first claim is patently absurd. The Comintern enabled revolution in a way that no international body has matched before or since. It dragged parties mired in chauvinism (such as the CPUSA) kicking and screaming into a revolutionary position and practice. Where it did make mistakes, the deep understanding of Revolutionary Communism it engendered enabled member parties to correct their practice and ultimately succeed. Trotsky's Fourth International and all attempts at reconstituting it since have never demonstrated the political or practical clarity that the Comintern consistently had.
This being said, it's also important to remember that one of the basic features of qualitative change within historical materialism is that it's principally an internal process. Whether a revolution fails or not can never be the fault of any one person external to that revolution. The failure of revolutions in the imperial core states was/is first and foremost a failure of Communists and "Communists" in said states to analyze their conditions and apply Leninist/Maoist principles correctly to their conditions. Stalin cannot be blamed for this, and Trotskyist insistence on blaming an external individual for an internal matter (worse still: their own failures) is a reflection of their fundamentally chauvinistic petty-bourgeois view towards the imperialist world system, and evidence that Trotsky would have done worse, not better, when it comes to national liberation struggles in particular.
>or about the bureaucracy forming the basis for counterrevolution.It stinks of bitterness for Trotsky to identify a bureaucracy which formed
while he and Lenin were both still alive as the basis for counterrevolution. Additionally, one must note that Trotsky and his comrade Isaac Deutscher both agree in their respective works that bureaucratization was an inevitable product of Russian backwardness. Trotsky cites the newly-demobilized Red Army commanders returning to their homes and using their new political and social clout to take up posts in local soviets and the Party as the beginning of Soviet bureaucracy. This was in 1922, while Trotsky and Lenin were still leading figures in the Party and Army. So again, how does it follow that it is the fault of Stalin? Bureaucracy is apparently a regrettable but unavoidable product of Russian conditions until 1926, where it's suddenly all Stalin's fault.
Internal counterrevolution is obviously an issue, but it's not a matter of a "bureaucrat" class emerging within the socialist state. This is a framework which results in the bizarre fence-sitting you see Trotsky and Marcyists today engage in, where the Soviet Union and other states are "degenerated workers states" until this or that arbitrary point, and Trotsky never had anything unique to say about preventing internal counterrevolution. Again, this is where the vital and alive tradition fostered by Stalin and the Comintern shows its power, as the Chinese revolution was able to identify how a new bourgeoisie can form within the Communist Party and forged a path forward for future revolutions to prevent this.
>>2832178>correct theory leads to correct praxis leads to victories and successes… which in turn produces more correct theory, yes. Fascinating to hear someone criticize "Stalinists" specifically for this, as Trotskyists would (or at least should, if they grasp their own ideology) agree with such a statement. This is a Marx and Lenin concept, not a Stalin one.
>they just are stuck in a mental loop of the 1920s-40s so they can be smug over and over.Nobody preoccupied with defending
Trotsky of all people in the year of our lord twenty twenty six should ever make this statement about anyone else, ever. The projection is incredible.
>>2832178Given the very same standard you have set up here, why should anyone care about trotsky?
>>2832178>>2832186As long as you don't have a more succesful alternative to present, this criticism is retarded, you might as well say people should have given up on socialism all together after the failure of the paris commune. The Soviet Union was an actual state of millions of people, one of the most powerful in history, that lasted almost a century. Literally, and I mean literally, NO other ideological path has produced anything on its scale
This is the problem with anti stalinoids, they have nothing to offer at all
>>2832609Permanent revolution is the only way global socialism
>>2832622and yet it still shit itself and died.
90% of marxist leninists states that have evr existed have collapsed.
The 20th century had the greatest opportunity and possibility for establishing communism worldwide and marxist leninists pissed it all away.
>>2832622I'm not shit talking the USSR. I'd probably consider it humanity's greatest sociopolitical achievement to date. However it obviously didn't work and we should be understanding why. I think it's hard to deny that there was at least some truth to what Trotsky was saying.
>>2832257>It did not collapse the way Trotsky claimed it would, and the role of the bureaucracy as he outlined it didn't come to pass If memory serves, he argues that the lack of political oversight of the bureaucracy by the workers would lead to the former developing bourgeois tendencies and eventually restoring capitalist class relations. Is this not what happened? First the impetus towards socialist construction stagnates in the postwar era and the USSR rests on its laurels. Eventually it begins restoring limited market relations directly, leading the managerial strata to dissolve the state entirely and capitulate to capitalism and imperialism. How does this differ from what Trotsky predicted?
>The Comintern enabled revolution in a way that no international body has matched before or since.Then one wonders why Stalin dissolved it. Frankly it seems to me that Stalin was already exhibiting many of the characteristics Khruschev was criticized for. You can draw a direct line from the popular front to the Khruschevite retreat unto reformism, from the many postwar foreign policy compromises (percentages agreement, dissolution of the Comintern, offers to withdraw from Germany) to "peaceful coexistence". Indeed, in what way does the practical expression of Khruschev's peaceful coexistence differ from socialism in one country?
>The failure of revolutions in the imperial core states was/is first and foremost a failure of Communists and "Communists" in said states to analyze their conditions and apply Leninist/Maoist principles correctly to their conditions.Frankly I think it had a lot more to do with the simple absence of objective revolutionary conditions. Any society which has both the material basis and institutional capability to suppress class struggle through reform is not capable of revolution. As Marx said no social order ever disappears before it has exhausted all possible avenues of its development.
>as the Chinese revolution was able to identify how a new bourgeoisie can form within the Communist Party and forged a path forward for future revolutions to prevent this.Aren't you a Maoist? Do you consider contemporary China to be socialist?
>>2832257>>2832629I'd also like to add that I don't mean to imply that Trotsky himself would have been able to solve any of these problems. Clearly there was substantial hypocrisy in his criticism as you point out, and there was a lot of personal animosity on his part. However, this doesn't mean his criticism was always wrong.
>>2832622>>2832257>Nobody preoccupied with defending Trotsky of all people in the year of our lord twenty twenty sixa thing that I didn't do
>Fascinating to hear someone criticize "Stalinists" specifically for thisI use the word "stalinists" because there's other people who call themselves ML but get far more interested in defending China and dont really care to re-litigate the early 20th century over and over
>This is a Marx and Lenin concept, not a Stalin one.of which yes I do have some criticism, mostly that it doesn't take scientific thinking seriously enough but insists on the "scientific correctness" of its thought.
>>2832628Unless you have something better on offer, that is nothing but the meaningless protestations of an anticommunist retard.
>>2832629You called what that other retard was saying a "total truklear war", that is shitting on the USSR dumbass
>>2832649>Muh China>Muh 20th century Yes people discuss the century that led up to the current century, as well as one of the more important socialist states in history. Deal with it
Notice how none of these dumbasses has anything on offer at all and cannot even address what I'm asking them. They bring nothing to the table, no alternative, no lesson, only that another retard like them was "right about some stuff". Fuck off with this weak ass nonsense. Bring me an alternative, give me anything that would work better than bolshevism or shut your filthy mouth about the USSR
>>2832651>that is shitting on the USSR dumbass That post wasn't shitting on the USSR, it was criticizing MLs for being stuck in the past.
>>2832651boy you're…special
>>2832651>Unless you have something better on offer, Trotskyism
>>2832654His "problem" with "tankies" is that they uphold the soviet union despite it having fallen. It having fallen is not relevant, unless you have something better on offer. If you don't you're just saying "weeeeelll don't follow bolshevism, you might establish a state of millions that lasts almost a 100 years, do what I do and achieve less than nothing instead". That is shitting on the Soviet Union and its many achievements
>>2832657Still waiting for your groundbreaking new ideology that's going to btfo bolshevism.
>>2832658Achievements of trotskysim: less than nothing
>>2832664I'm not discussing shit with a hyperaggressive retard.
>>2832666It's because you have nothing to discuss and nothing to respond with. All you had was condemnation of the USSR. Whether I'm "hyper aggressive" is not relevant
>>2832670okay dude, call the NKVD on me, they'll be here any minute.
>>2832672I accept your concession. Now never needlessly criticize the Soviet Union ever again!
>>2832664>Achievements of trotskysimIts never been tried
Trotsky was the first neoliberal in history
>>2832693That would be Stalin and the partition of Palestine
>>2832696Ollahooakbaring retard
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