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It never ceases to amuse me how the anti-sectarian rule is never actually applied when it comes to trots. Some things transcend principled application of the rules.
I mean, it would really help that Trotskyists don’t conveniently peddle pro-imperialist lines whenever there is an opening in the crisis of capitalism.
This is not a recent phenomenon. This goes all the way back to when Trotsky himself was alive.
I have used this example before, when China was being invaded by imperialist Japan, the Trotskyists in China somehow managed to weave a “revolutionary defeatism” line that communists should never collaborate with the bourgeois nationalist KMT government and should use the opportunity to overthrow the KMT government instead, and if you don’t, you are worse than the foreign imperialists.
Even in the name of anti-fascism, it was always accompanied by an equal measure of anti-communism. To the Trotskyists, they’d prefer to live under the rule of fascist imperialist Japan because that will somehow trigger an international uprising of the working class movements, without regards to the specific national and colonial contexts of the workers movements across different countries and regions. It borderlines on idealism.
Sometimes I shudder to think what would have happened if the Chinese communists did not purge the Trotskyists in time. Granted, the “Stalinist”/Comintern faction (Wang Ming faction) wasn’t good either, but Mao still gave credit where credit is due to Stalin (70% good, 30% bad), and refrained from being overly critical despite their personal and ideological differences. Mao was especially vicious against the Trots and equated them to 汉奸 (Han traitor i.e. traitor of the Chinese people) which is one of the worst insults you could have gotten from him.
Holy shit, the Chinese trots preaching revolutionary defeatism had to be on some wild ideology
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.
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.
So they lost the internal Party power struggle and they got so pissy about it they went completely suicidal out of spite? You're not making them look good tbh.
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!
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
Dumb guy asking you to clarify: they ultimately took their stance because of course they denounced the guy who was killing them?
That makes sense, it is a rare person who could make peace with the people killing and/or torturing their comrades.
I mean, it would really help that Trotskyists don’t conveniently peddle pro-imperialist lines whenever there is an opening in the crisis of capitalism.
I mean, anarchists get criticized for doing this a lot too but the anti-sectarianism rule applies to them too.
I always think of the joke:
"Well you know, I like to think of myself as an anti-sectarian leftist."
"Really, what's that mean?"
"It means I don't like trots."tbf trotskyism (at least as far as I see it practiced) is the pro-sectarianism socialism.
Trots are indistinguishable from feds in action. It's kind of impressive because most of them are 100% sincere.
Ironic
Whether or not an act of sectarianism actually gets punished or not relies on whether someone is around to complain about it. There are barely any trots here but a decent number of anarchist.