Urbandale posted:this is relatively handy
https://syriainbrief.wordpress.com/2016/08/19/leftist-groups-on-the-syrian-civil-war/
this is better tho
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1c5KNtwuqBSs3wbZQt7UsOrmFHPD-ajbHTmqnanUjne8/edit?usp=sharing
I'm sure getfiscal knows more about this but it seems like Pablo destroyed the Trotskyist movement. While Trotskyism contained within it the possibility of pro-imperialism, the figure of trotsky himself prevented a full abandonment of "critically" defending the ussr. Even though Pablo was expelled and the split was about tactics and not ideology, it just seems to me that this is what it has become about with the main Trotskyist movement being fully committed to imperialism. Whether this is the legacy of entryism, the result of the inherent flaws of Trotskyist ideology, or simply the result of the petty-bourgeois class base of the surviving organizations is something "what is Trotskyism 2.0?" will have to answer 
Edited by babyhueypnewton ()
Constantignoble posted:what are some good references for this stuff? has anyone ever published something like a comprehensive (or at least reliable) genealogy of leftist sects, or is this more something one picks up in drips and drabs from a hundred different books over years
certainly in britian its quite simple
nothing new to most people here, but it might be a good conversation starter with people on the fence
how about that syria huh. whats the deal with it
Constantignoble posted:what are some good references for this stuff? has anyone ever published something like a comprehensive (or at least reliable) genealogy of leftist sects, or is this more something one picks up in drips and drabs from a hundred different books over years
https://www.akpress.org/trotskyismandmaoism.html this is alright iirc. also maoism in the developed world and maoism in the developing world by robert j. alexander
i'm on page 2 and already i'm seeing sloppiness that suggests a narrow frame of reference:
The mainly Arab Christians, mostly Orthodox and Eastern Catholic, but also Assyrian, Chaldean and Armenian, including a small Aramaic-speaking community at Maalula, constitute 10 per cent.
that's a bit like saying "mostly Scottish people, but also Glaswegians and Aberdonians"
also, i notice that's literally the only mention of Maaloula in the book. wonder why that might be...
getfiscal posted:Trotskyism is pretty diverse and it has different roles in different countries, same as Maoism. I mean there are parties that started Maoist and then evolved into electoral fronts (PT in Mexico, SP in Netherlands). France is probably the most "mainline" Trotskyist and those groups are pretty consistently anti-imperialist. The Cliffite trends are very small in France, and that's the group that most people here don't like most. I think it makes more sense to think of a "critical" or "dissident" communism, with Maoism, councilism, Trotskyism, etc. all being parts of that general grouping, although within each country one or another might be dominant.
I think this is an alluring concept because it fits our postmodern sensibilities. It may be true in practice that maoism has functioned as 'dissident' communism and we all know some of the more hilariously backwards positions American maoists have taken on world issues. It may even be true that today the cultural revolution serves as an Eden before the fall and the persistence of idealism in the face of praxis (this is clear enough in the claim that maoism only formed after the death of mao and is the sole property of a few ideologically pure groupings).
But looking to the cultural revolution is fundamentally different than looking to the bolshevik revolution. Without an understanding of that, the persistence of maoism against the Chinese state compared to the stagnation of Trotskyism against the collapse of the USSR is unexplainable and theory itself is replaced by the immediacy of practice. For one thing, trotskyism only formed after the Bolshevik revolution ended (by its own conception at least). Maoism may exist now as a reaction against the present but its genesis came when its utopian moment was actually existing. And as I am currently reading Perry Anderson's history of the formation of the absolutist state, the origin of a social formation is an essential aspect to its reproduction and realization of its limits.
Trotskyism also is centered around individuals who present the most coherent theory. While somebody like Bob Avakian serves a similar purpose and more interestingly Prachanda, the figure of Trotsky is not the same as the figure of Mao. Liberals think this is a weakness but it is a strength. Mao represents a utopian possibility personified while Trotsky represents a scientist and politician who's mantle can be claimed by anybody. You can claim Mao-against-Mao while no one can claim Trotsky-against-Trotsky, this points to a fundamental value of the symbolic function of Maoism. Of course this easily leads to ultra-leftism and a defense of the Wuhan uprising but I view these errors as friendly like Mao did. The problem with such fetishization is that it failed not that it is counter-revolutionary. At least in the present, any defense of the Cultural Revolution is revolutionary which is why we still read someone like Badiou while the polemics against Stalin in every trot historian's work is so tiresome.
Finally, the truth is essential. The cultural revolution did represent something fundamentally new in human history and maoism really did serve as a revitalizing force for the world revolutionary movement. It's significant that maoism was as important for May 68 as it was for the BPP. This gets more complicated when you look at the third world but I don't think that's really significant since we are talking about ourselves and our own legacy, the function of 'oppositional' Marxism is fundamentally different in those places. Trtoskyism represents a fundamentally incorrect analysis of the world and lost any claim to truth after the second world war and the beginnings of decolonization. While many trots supported the Cuban revolution and many maoists opposed it, this was in spite of the basic logic of their ideologies. It's fashionable now to ignore theory as idealism but at the end of the day there can be no revolutionary practice without revolutionary theory.
Trotskyism has never represented a utopian possibility, rather it is a conception of how to recreate a fallen utopia. There's a long line of this thinking in Marxism, particularly in trying to recreate the Paris commune, but from the vantage point of the present it's clear that the difference between Trotskyism and Maoism is "the awakening of the dead in those revolutions served the purpose of glorifying the new struggles, not of parodying the old; of magnifying the given task in the imagination, not recoiling from its solution in reality; of finding once more the spirit of revolution, not making its ghost walk again" as Marx said. Maybe you would be more inclined as a negative nancy to say one is tragedy and one is farce; regardless your conception is an abandonment of truth within utopianism altogether.
The weakness of a socialist vision created in opposition to actually existing socialism is at the core of the impotence of Trotskyism, but it is still a compelling utopian vision among certain strata.
@getfiscal, for what its worth, almost all the orthotrots have been repeating the imperialist line about Dictator Assad butchering hundreds, no thousands, no millions in Aleppo
Edited by pogfan1996 ()
babyhueypnewton posted:You can claim Mao-against-Mao while no one can claim Trotsky-against-Trotsky
this is interesting because ever now and then i see non-Trotskyist MLs talk about rescuing Trotsky from his supporters, who (apparently?) often take lines that Trotsky himself would have disavowed, which makes me think that some modern Trotskyists are actually doing this, but in the opposite direction, using Trotsky against Trotsky to work against a more functional anti-imperialist politics. I don't know much about it though but maybe some of that sounds familiar to you.
pogfan1996 posted:Maybe you can expand on the thought that Trotskyism doesn't represent a utopian possibility. Some of the most attractive aspects of Trotskyism to the newly recruited is the utopian vision embodied in Trotskyism. The most powerful arguments it brings is a vision of a socialist future, one created in reaction to the reality of building socialism in the USSR. This distinction is important because the college students hawking copies of Socialist Worker or The Militant don't want to recreate the USSR. They want to reconcile their anti-communism with the realization that capitalism is the problem.
The weakness of a socialist vision created in opposition to actually existing socialism is at the core of the impotence of Trotskyism, but it is still a compelling utopian vision among certain strata.
@getfiscal, for what its worth, almost all the orthotrots have been repeating the imperialist line about Dictator Assad butchering hundreds, no thousands, no millions in Aleppo
Here i don't mean utopian as in imagining a pure vision beyond the practical consequences of real life but in the opposite way: the ability to understand the historical specificity of capitalism and the narrow horizon of its ideology. Trotskyism as it exists today is, like you said, the combination of liberal ideology applied to marxian categories. A liberal understanding of power is sutured onto socialism and you get Stalinism and totalitarianism. This leads to the desire for something new but in reality is just the current society but better. Sort of like in back to the future 2 when marty goes into the future and everything is exactly like the 80s but "futuristic."
I think this extends Trotskyism quite far, which is what ive always tried to understand with Trotskyism as the primitive version of a much more influentual western leftism. For example, the overwhelming tendendy of the western left today is to focus on liberal issues as sites of independent struggle which don't "go away" with socialism. The obsessive focus on lgbt rights in cuba should show that an obsession with practical politics is the opposite of utopianism: it is the abandonment entirely of the idea that socialism is an entirely new society which is necessarily more advanced than the capitalist world in culture.
I think pro-imperialism is the same. Critics accuse anti-imperialism of lack of principle and apologia for any anti-american nation but it's actually the opposite: opposition to the syrian war is rooted in a practical understanding of the limits of capitalism itself. Refusing to take a side and refusing to engage with the real issues is anti-utopian: it is unable to imagine Syria being the downfall of capitalism and instead defends local, moral issues as the only way to maintain personal virtue in the face of the overwhelming power of imperialism. No one against russian "imperialism" seriously believes the defeat of russia will lead to the end of capitalism, it is simply a retreat to idealism against utopian belief that capitalism as a system is a paper tiger.
I participate in a group which is mostly former Cliffites and I have had long discussions about Syria with people that are respectful and intelligent so I don't think people should be written off.
getfiscal posted:I agree with most of what you said BHPN, I mean they are distinct trends.
True though i think it's important to talk about why they are different. I haven't read that mlm-mayhem guy's polemic against Trotskyism but i would imagine it's the opposite of what im trying to say since he's the kind of maoist I'm trying to save the ideology from. As for the rest of your statement, i too would probably get along better with an ex-trot who sports cuba than with a "maoist" who thinks an RCP polemic from the 70s is reason enough to dismiss them forever. Perhaps on this issue of maoism and Trotskyism this isn't so important, maoism will keep on trucking whether the RIM still exists so the RCP can exchange polemics with the afghani maoist party or not just like Trotskyism will attract the same people and have the same function where there's one 4th international or a hundred. But on the issue of imperialism, where liberal leftists in the first world can have a real effect on the anti-war movement, these discussions are important and the unity of leftists who claim to want the same things is no longer a petty issue.
babyhueypnewton posted:i too would probably get along better with an ex-trot who sports cuba than with a "maoist" who thinks an RCP polemic from the 70s is reason enough to dismiss them forever.
Actually the people I know mostly support Sam Farber's line on Cuba lol. We just don't talk about that much and talk about Canada. But you're right that JMP makes the opposite point: His pamphlet argues that both Maoism and Trotskyism are a response to the dangers of "Stalinism." Which I understand what he means but I would be closer to you on this. Although I do think that "Stalinism" is a failed road in the sense that Mao meant, like, it will terminate in revisionism.
getfiscal posted:The DSA is basically an umbrella organization at this point and a lot of the youth are way to the left of the old organizers. They are organizing people who have never been in left-wing groups before and are mostly coming out of the woodwork. The line of the organization itself is almost irrelevant compared to those people being active and looking around for things to do and learn. Like Marx said, "Every step of real movement is more important than a dozen programmes." They've probably got more than 10,000 members at this point, it's more significant than most other groups. I've tried to stop making fun of them and talk to them more.
Wow somebody needs to read some LENIN #dontbowtospontaneity
babyhueypnewton posted:Wow somebody needs to read some LENIN #dontbowtospontaneity
Every SPD must be looked at as a potential partner for an SED in an American equivalent of East Germany under JDPON.
tpaine posted:ex...swiper? ex swooper? like a bird with broken wings? were you talking to a rehab owl or...???
who? Who
good article about how the us had been pushing to topple the syrian government for over a decade
babyhueypnewton posted:For example, the overwhelming tendendy of the western left today is to focus on liberal issues as sites of independent struggle which don't "go away" with socialism. The obsessive focus on lgbt rights in cuba should show that an obsession with practical politics is the opposite of utopianism: it is the abandonment entirely of the idea that socialism is an entirely new society which is necessarily more advanced than the capitalist world in culture.
i don't really understand what you're saying here. maoism quite clearly asserts that the cultural conditions of this new society do not come merely as givens but require the programmatic and conscious intervention of the masses to assert. lgbt rights or similar social concerns do not "go away" an require particular intervention as independent struggles even if their material basis is tied to broader systems. this was the basis for a great deal of social campaigns carried out during the cultural revolution, feudal and patriarchal attitudes were still pervasive throughout this new society which is why things like the Criticise Confucius campaign were mobilised