Trotsky

everything in british politics is always still the 70s

tag yrself im an irreconcileable splinter-faction in the revolutionary communist international tendency in britain

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FYUOgtYXkAAtmCW?format=jpg

figures from john kelly's contemporary trotskyism, if im reading the twitter thread correctly (this is my jam and my specialism, and when im not busy i may post some more abt it lol ph34r m3) (membership numbers towards the top of the list definitely overstated btw, swp always a bit notorious for this)

Not convinced there's as many two people in the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency In Britain either.

the international tendency to drink alone whilst having an argument with yourself

Btw re: China, anarcho commies Chuang are explaining in rigorous detail how China isn't communist.

It's well worth reading.

https://chuangcn.org/2022/07/china-faq-communist/

everyone should read/support Chuang, everything I've read from them is excellent & I need to get their book Social Contagion

idk who they are but it is so great to find such unapologetically anarcho/ultraleft/marxish writing (from/about anywhere, let alone China) that is clear to read, isn't dogmatic or nihilistic, actually cares about current events and covers them in a materialist way, doesn't pretend to have all the answers, and still takes class struggle seriously as an ongoing lived reality (instead of overtheorizing themselves into abandoning it as a concept). i wish them the best

"There is nothing more to organize. You can organize workers as workers. You can create a special organization of revolutionary workers. But once you have those two you have reached an end. Organization as we have known it is at an end. The task is to abolish organization." pic.twitter.com/u55Ss6xnPH

— American Worker (@AmericanWork47) March 19, 2024

Uh … what?

hegel giving lenin a great side-eye there

Dud.

Uh … what?

― sarahell, Wednesday, 20 March 2024 bookmarkflaglink

Feeling that quote. It's pretty self-explanatory and says something about how certain modes of organisation can subjugate/marginalise others.

everyone should read/support Chuang, everything I've read from them is excellent & I need to get their book Social Contagion

idk who they are but it is so great to find such unapologetically anarcho/ultraleft/marxish writing (from/about anywhere, let alone China) that is clear to read, isn't dogmatic or nihilistic, actually cares about current events and covers them in a materialist way, doesn't pretend to have all the answers, and still takes class struggle seriously as an ongoing lived reality (instead of overtheorizing themselves into abandoning it as a concept). i wish them the best

Good pub trivia factoid: Dr. Nora Volkow, current director of the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) is Trotsky's granddaughter... she grew up in the house where he was killed

while Stalin's granddaughter runs a boutique in Portland OR... wonder if they've ever met

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3496532/Tank-Girl-Josef-Stalin-s-tattooed-British-educated-granddaughter-mother-abhorred-murderous-tyrant-s-dark-past.html

Uh … what?

― sarahell, Wednesday, 20 March 2024 bookmarkflaglink

Feeling that quote. It's pretty self-explanatory and says something about how certain modes of organisation can subjugate/marginalise others.

my experience is that there's this... urge in radical community to want to systematize personal beefs in theoretical terms. i literally saw once a critique that would more accurately have been called "The Latest Drama On The Discord Server I _Used_ To Be A Mod On: A Marxist Analysis"

it's an understandable desire. i'm not gonna say i never ask myself "How the fuck did a shithead like Vaush become the public face of leftism on the Internet? That dude is a piece of shit." i can tell you how it goes, my brain asks rhetorically "why is it always pieces of shit like Vaush who get popular and never, like, people who aren't assholes", and then the little leftist theorist in my head says "well, actually, there a number of structural reasons, which are worth explicating on because they're really important when it comes to formulating a version of class struggle which is truly effective and cannot be hijacked by counterrevolutionary..."

Like out of fucking scope, Brain Trot. Vaush is an asshole. We can start and end there. Writing theory about _why_ Vaush is an asshole isn't going to make anything better.

Anyway, Trotskyists are leftists who "analyze" their personal beefs with other leftists until everyone else stops taking them seriously. I like trots better than tankies, but that's really only because there's no fucking way trots could ever get their shit together enough to gain control of a tank.

Trotskyist: "We must abolish organization in order to prevent this tank from being used to oppress the people!"
Tankie: *gets into tank and drives away*

trufax, ph34r my 4ge ect ect: when i interviewed clr james in the mid-80s (for nme lol) i asked him about trotsky (who he knew in person) and he said "he means nothing to me now"

also grand work allison & busby for choice of cover images there

It annoys me that the picture order doesn't follow the subtitle order.

thats dialectics mate

my experience is that there's this... urge in radical community to want to systematize personal beefs in theoretical terms

also grand work allison & busby for choice of cover images there

Malcolm & (Sir) Matt?

lol at ilxor.com telling me "Trotsky has new answers"

thanks for the chuang link/rec, that looks super interesting (and was the reason I bookmarked the thread in the middle of the night)

ME: I hate you papa! I’m tired of how bourgeois you are! I’m running off to join the circus!

MY FATHER, FAMOUS REVOLUTIONARY LEON TROTSKY: I am NOT more bourgeois than the circus. Do NOT tell people I am more bourgeois than the circus pic.twitter.com/0uOoFhTugK

— madoc cairns | wsj (@MadocCairns) March 27, 2024

classic middle class trot behaviour

I looked him up and now I'm sad because fucking stalin