So a bit of context, the EFF is a prominent pan-African, ostensibly ML leftist party in South Africa. This is an FAQ from early 2024, that same year the country had an election in late May. Personally, I don’t think the EFF arrived at these sentiments wanting to appeal to western liberals or whatever. If you know anything about Malema or the EFF, you’d know that they are not concerned with playing soft with right-wingers, much to the chagrin of the compromised ANC and white supremacist “Democratic” Alliance. Not sure who wrote it, but from the writing style I think it might have been written by either Shivambu or Malema himself.
Some quotes for those who don’t want to read:
Stalin and Mao were NOT Marxists, they were actually quite anti-Marxist in that they led regimes based not on democratic control of the state by the workers, but rather based on totalitarian control by an elite stratum of bureaucrats who were a parasite on the workers’ state.
The Stalinists were terrified of any potential opposition, and especially the intellectuals that they could not control. They were snuffed out, in many cases quite literally. Individual expression was portrayed as counter-revolutionary, even culture was subjugated to the “collective will” - not of society but of a handful of bureaucrats desperate to cling on to their power and privilege.
Had the Communist International remained firm on the positions of Lenin and Trotsky, the victory of the world revolution would have been ensured. Unfortunately, the Comintern’s formative years coincided with the Stalinist counter-revolution in Russia, which had a disastrous effect on the Communist Parties of the entire world.
Had the Communist International remained firm on the positions of Lenin and Trotsky,
Trotskyist detected; opinion rejected.
Yep, instant red flag there. No one mentions Trotsky in a positive light unless they are a Trotskyist.
No one mentions Trotsky in a positive light unless they are a Trotskyist.
This made me laugh. It should probably be enshrined as a quote somewhere.
I am glad you found it humorous, but I am serious: I have never heard of anyone mentioning Trotsky in a positive light (or even talking about them that much outside of criticisms towards Trotsky) that was not a Trotskyite.
As for Hoxha? No one talks about them AT ALL except for Hoxhaists … I am dead serious. Hoxha is not relevant enough for Marxist-Leninists to even consider criticizing because Hoxhaism is fringe (I think), so the only people really talking a lot about Hoxha are Hoxhaists.
To be fair, I don’t think Trotsky is that horrible. He did sowed division among the party in many occasions and did deserve to be expelled from the party. But he was an important revolutionary and had a very important role during the civil war as commander of the Red Army. I think he also wrote a good book on the history of the revolution, which was recommended by some ML friends as well (I haven’t read it yet, though).
The problem of Trots is they fantasize about an alternative reality with Trotsky in the command of the USSR that is completely counter factual. Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky were together in the party when the Bolsheviks sent away many intellectuals and possible oppositors to exile, not to mention the Kronstadt sailors episode, when Trotsky did not hesitate to massacre the rebellion. He was even in favor of having full control of the unions by the party, with a militarized working class. So in the end, Trots believe in a democratic and pluralistic Trotsky that never existed in the first place.
His success are overestimated tbh, he didn’t have the authority to continue the war at Brest Livotsk, took the decision alone and then convinced the central committee to go along with it. Nobody in such an important position should be doing stuff like this, and that was frankly a warning sign that he could not be trusted with any sort of authority.
If he’d been living in China today, the CPC would have allowed him to be at most a restricted translator or a low-level archival researcher in an institution like the Party History Research Office before revoking his membership lol. But nowhere close to the free reign he enjoyed.
But his orders were to negotiate a peace deal. Lenin was furious with him when the Germans resumed the war and he was against trotskys actions from the start (which directly contradicts the trot claim that he was lenin’s best friend lol). After the bolsheviks were forced to sign the much harsher final peace treaty, he was removed as commissar of foreign affairs and put in charge of the red army. Where I also heard his successes there were overstated (incl at kronstadt) but I’d have to look at the specifics again. For one thing though trotsky was clear about this himself he was not in charge of the actual fight to put down the rebellion, he only voted for it along with other bolsheviks.
(edited for clarity)
His success are overestimated tbh…
I know your comment touches on his insubordination at Brest-Litovsk, but this thread is reminding me of another Trotsky tidbit from the Russian Civil War.
The context has to do with the formation of the Red Army to defend from counterrevolution in 1919. A faction of the party congress known as the “Military Opposition” erroneously supported keeping the Red Army as a group of guerilla fighters instead of a regular army, but they had some legitimate gripes with one of the largest proponents of the latter and correct course. I speak, of course, of Trotsky.
The majority of the delegates from the army were distinctly hostile to Trotsky; they resented his veneration for the military experts of the old tsarist army, some of whom were betraying us outright in the Civil War, and his arrogant and hostile attitude towards the old Bolshevik cadres in the army. Instances of Trotsky’s “practices” were cited at the congress. For example, he had attempted to shoot a number of prominent army Communists serving at the front, just because they had incurred his displeasure. This was directly playing into the hands of the enemy. It was only the intervention of the Central Committee and the protests of military men that saved the lives of these comrades.[1]
Considering how many Trotskyite screeds are distortions about what Stalin did to muh Old Bolsheviks in the 1930s, I had whiplash the first time I read that paragraph.
History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks): Short Course, page 300. Foreign Language Press. Emphasis mine. ↩︎
oh yeah, there’s apparently a picture of the cadre laughing with each other when the motion to expel trotsky from the party passed, but I’m not sure if someone just made the backstory up lol. By that time he was pretty widely hated, huge individualist and did not feel party procedure applied to him. this is not someone you can have in any important positions - imagine making him party secretary. he would have been what trotskyists say stalin was.
Yes, the number of times Lenin roasted Trotsky in the Soviet congress were countless. This info about his role being less than it was I am not aware. I mean, I know the role of the commissars of the Red Army wasn’t of commanding the troops, but more akin to approving and disapproving decisions and keeping an eye on the ex-Tsar officials to avoid betrayal. But Trotsky became famous for this role.
he seems like the kind of guy who kept falling upwards as we say throughout his life. as you said he kept trying to split the party, was warned repeatedly over it, and even with consequences he kept doing it. there’s no proof Stalin or even the USSR sent the assassin after him too, it’s just an assumption we all make. It’s certainly probable especially as other attempts had been carried against Trotsky before, but just as possible that Mercader acted on his own/mostly on his own. Either way everything that ties it to Stalin came from well after the fact from witnesses and conspirators, in the late 80s and early 90s, when it was trendy to hate on Stalin and anyone with some story to sell was trying to sell it (understandable tbh in the economic conditions).
What do you think about the anti-Stalin stance he had and his dispute with Lenin over trade unions?
I think his anti-Stalin stance was less about fixing the party line than it was a power play. And I think Stalin outplayed him and the other bolsheviks that sided with him. I have no idea if Trotsky was in power things would have turned more democratic or anything. This is mere speculation of Trots.
It was funny because of how true it is.
Both the Trotsky part and the Hoxha part? Yeah you can just tell if they are a Trotskyist or a Hoxhaist by a few details, and it is always funny reading a text that seems theoretically sound, until you come across some mention of “permanent revolution” or “anti-revisionism” and then you explode from the absurdity of being able to recognize them off of only a few details.
I mean, I knew that already about the EFF. I’m personally not sure what to say, in my experience Trotskyism seems weirdly common outside of SAFTU and the tripartite alliance. By no means do I think the EFF or whomever are a psyop, and I think it’d be erroneous to attribute this to some fetish for matyrdom and defeat given the actual platform of the EFF.
The most important thing is not if they have a martyrdom tendency, but the fact that they are Trotskyist (which is an opportunist trend).
Oh I know. It’s just that I was sure someone was going to invoke Manoel’s words on the western Left’s Christian-esque celebration of defeat and martyrdom. EFF being opportunist would be disappointing, but I’m not sure where it’s trotskyism comes from. Trots in SA are unfortunately a thing, but I feel it might’ve taken root partially because of the biggest ML formations (with exception of SAFTU) getting too comfortable with post-Mandela ANC’s rightist turn. Trots are still wrong of course, but I don’t think it gained prominence out of nowhere.
Reading the same, cookie cutter disparagement of “Stalinism” and the whole “elite stratum of bureaucrats” already reeked of Trotskyite drivel. Actually name-dropping Trotsky made me audibly laugh. They’re not Marxist-Leninists.
I swear that seeing the mention of “Trotsky” outside of criticizing them or talking about them before their weird counterrevolutionary teen phase instantly makes it clear that the person mentioning Trotsky is a Trotskyite. The mention of Stalinism, bureaucrats, and permanent revolution makes it clear that they are Trotskyites.
Agreed, local movements always were somewhat skeptical of the EFF and Malema. Seeing this along with the other legitimate controversies, I can’t say I blame them.
Imagine disregarding the most succesful communists ever and calling yourself a communist
Yep, I expect as much from westerner libertarian “socialists” but not an ostensibly ML org in a country where the liberation movement was greatly advanced with the support of the Soviet Union and the PRC. Nonetheless, props to the EFF for making Afrikaners and US white nationalists angry.
trot nonsense
Hello horse.
👋
funny that a horse said “trot nonsense”, right?
Sorry for being late but I forgot my password so I had to find my old phone since it had my password. But anyways kinda cringe of the EFF for saying this I thought there takes would have at least been better.
Yep, the South African left has been in some dire straits, and “kinda cringe”, since the late 1990s.
EFF are trots who flip flop on Zuma, GSM rights, and xenophobia. SACP have been largely silent on the ANC’s rightward neoliberal shift since Mbeki, though recently fractures between the two have become quite public since the SACP’s announcement to independently contest local elections later this year. SRWP was weird but I was nonetheless optimistic about it, seems to have gone quiet unfortunately.
Personally, I think AbM (leftist but not ML as far as I know), SAFTU (explicitly ML trade union federation), and as far as I can tell KAAX (anti-xenophobia formation founded by a former SACP member) seem to be the only good options without the major problems mentioned earlier at the moment. Nonetheless, I would encourage SA comrades to join the local EFF or SACP chapter, as there is no perfect leftist formation and anyone who claims to be is either an academic with no history of activism or a charlatan.
Had the Communist International remained firm on the positions of Lenin and Trotsky, the victory of the world revolution would have been ensured
“If only the german revolution that was put down by the freikorps had instead magically survived so that the german revolutionaries had come to help us suppress the peasantry and form a dictatorship of the workers instead of a joint dictatorship of the workers and peasantry (despite kulaks resisting collectivization either way and the peasantry not being responsible for the overthrow of the soviet union) we would totally have world communism by now guys, it was all stalin’s fault bet”
What?
What would be a good ML answer/response to the statement that Mao and Stalin ran bureucratic totalitarian regimes instead of just saying "you aren’t educated enough on the topic. I’m asking because this comes up a lot in my conversations.
Neither were dictators and both were subject to democratic oversight. The CIA itself admitted as much, about Stalin at least
You could point out the fact that totalitarianism borders on racist caricatures of how the systems actually worked (and how the term really does not describe anything outside of the vague description of excess authority combined with evilness); you could also show how it is hypocritically applied to supposedly “evil” countries with excessive authority that happened to have fought against America and compare it to evil countries with excessive authority that were in support of America.
Honestly, if they are not willing to deal with your evidence and claims, then do not bother. Talking to them about how they are actually complicit in whitewashing colonialism and destroying the movement for workers’ liberation will just get them to fall back to their racist tropes again.
My favored approach when I have the energy for it is to gently (not condescendingly) probe until I know what someone’s actual stance is. Otherwise, you’re playing guessing games trying to refute arguments they may not even understand, much less believe in fully.
For example, asking what they mean by:
Mao and Stalin ran bureaucratic totalitarian regimes
Which is a word salad political descriptor. Any organization at scale has some kind of bureaucracy in order to make it go more smoothly and ensure things are compliant with social regulations (laws). And totalitarian is a meaningless word, on the level of saying extreme dictatorship or something. It needs to mean something concretely. A dictatorship of one individual seems like the closest real equivalent to total control and then we’re basically talking about a monarchy, no? But the west still likes monarchs sometimes, so calling AES states monarchies could go against their interests of continuing to promote monarchy as a legitimate power form.
And then total control via one individual does not make sense with extensive bureaucracy, since you’d have to be trusting that the bureaucrats do everything exactly as you want at all times.
Or if we look at it from the standpoint of total surveillance, the only way that would even be close to feasible is with automation that did not exist in that time period (and it still wouldn’t be total). You can’t just enlist the population to surveil the population, without having some of the population not be surveilled.
It’s pure nonsense when you break it down, so getting someone to delve into the actual thought process may on occasion deprogram them a bit just from getting them to actually reflect on what it means. It’s likely that often times these are borrowed terms they got from anti-communist media.
You should have linked the FAQ here so that we could have access to it.
If those quotes are from the EFF, then the mention of Trotsky alongside the mention of “Stalinism” (an unscientific descriptor used by those that fight against the self-proclaimed Stalinist authoritarian regime) already means that they have a strange Trotskyist stance or leaning in general (no one cares about Trotsky except for Trotskyists, I imagine). Their explanations for why Stalin and Mao were not Marxists end up being typical liberal explanations for communists in general. Also, what counterrevolution was conducted under Stalinism? There was an attempted counterrevolution against the government, but resisting against that is not counterrevolutionary!
It does not matter whether or not they are trying to appeal to western liberals: They are influenced by the liberal methodology of historical idealism and anti-communism, but give off an air of Marxism by appealing to the “correct Marxism” of Lenin and Trotsky. Opportunism such as this is quite honestly annoying and confuses the proletariat into believing that the socialist projects under Mao and Stalin were failures that should not be emulated.
I actually did link the FAQ, but will hyperlink it here for your convenience.
I’d agree that there is some chance of opportunism being a good explanation for this. I think that Shivambu being the author of the FAQ would be a good explanation for this, he deserted the EFF for the MKP despite the former’s previous opposition to the latter’s leader some years ago. That said, I find it strange that this doesn’t come up more often given the praise the EFF tends to get on many online ML spaces, including here on grad. I don’t think this makes the org any less worthy of support of course, Malema is pretty much the only mainstream South African politician I trust to pick up where the tripartite alliance gave up in terms of decolonisation and land back, but it is nonetheless strange given how often I’ve heard of Trotskyism being a largely first world phenomenon.
I have never heard of that person or the party you mentioned before your post, so maybe it was that ex-EFF member you mentioned (but who knows?).
Edit: Sorry I did not realize that you linked it.
Right, sorry I figured that if you know the EFF and Malema, you’d probably know Shivambu. Floyd Shivambu was a close friend of Malema going back to their time in the ANCYL, and later helped co-found the EFF. MKP was formed by former president Zuma and really ate into the EFF’s votes during the May 2024 elections. Subsequently Shivambu and a bunch of other prominent EFF leadership figures defected to the MKP under the guise of “coalition building”, but I personally suspect he did it as a career move.
