Trotskyist Groups

Historically I understand that Trotsky was just a walking division bar, but how exactly are Trotskyist groups today divided and unorganized? How do they compare to Marxist-Leninist organizations and how much power or influence do they have?

Historically I understand that Trotsky was just a walking division bar, but how exactly are Trotskyist groups today divided and unorganized? How do they compare to Marxist-Leninist organizations and how much power or influence do they have?

The reason that I would say that Trotskyist are divided and unorganized is that they seem to lack being men of action, only talking and never doing. This would make a normal person think that they are "divided and unorganized". Mostly the difference between Trotskyist and Marxist-Leninist is how much on does. The Trotskyist are more a debate group and the Marxist-Leninist are a real party trying to get real work done.

The ranks of most Trotskyite groups are filled with social-democrats well on their way to outright anti-communism.

Some don't even call themselfs Trotskyite, but still use his works to support out right anti-communism ideals.

"and the natural gravitations to one pole or the other cause natural splits in Trotskyism. Some are attracted to only the Marxist pole (WWP, PSL, maybe the Sparts)"

Would just like to point out as a PSL member/branch organizer that we are not a Trotskyist party. That is a big confusion because the WWP was one and we formed out of that party. We have many different members in our party and Ive never once met a Trot in the party. We are M-L.

I personal think trots are more into theory than action and calling everyone sectarian while being the worst sectarians out there.

Largely this thread so far has lacked a material base, and instead resorted to crude slanders.

The problem with Trotskyism is the same problem that faces all communist groups, a complete disconnect from the worker class. Without being able to test ideas in the field of class struggle, Trotskyist can only resort to rigorous debate to examine ideas. Since ideas cannot be rejected on the basis of testing, groups end up splitting along ideological lines, rather than methods of organization, relation to classes, ideas for action, etc.

But this effects the whole communist movement, except where those organizations are able to effectively lead struggle. You see the same crap in a million tiny Hoxhaist sects, five million Maoist groups (most of which have faded away). All that's left are the official CPs, which, due to their ties to organized labor, are largely immune from a trillion split.

of course, they're almost all social democratic

Differs by place, really. In some countries, they are the best of the bunch in terms of size and influence, though still minuscule compared to all the bourgeois parties. I'd say this is the case in the UK (SWP) and the Netherlands (IS, that is, SWP affiliate), and probably some other countries. In these places, they've got a pretty big say in most of the activism that takes place through several front groups, while all other revolutionaries (M-Ls, but also other Trotskyist groups) don't have that much to go by.

The problem with this is that they usually decide to liquidate these fronts when they can't get anything out of them any more, or when they can't control them any more. So what you get is that they're always visible and active, which is great, but they never seem to make any long-term progress. This seems to be the problem of at least the cliffite variety of Trotskyism in practice.

Chegitz is right that there are also divisions between Marxist-Leninist varieties. However, the main difference is that there don't seem to be more than 5 of these at any given time, and they are constantly seeking rapprochement. They are also based on pretty clearly distinct approaches to building socialism, rather than to intellectual squabbles. It doesn't seem like a coincidence that there are "additives-free" Marxism-Leninisms of a few different kinds, most of them anti-revisionist, and then Maoism (you may want to count Hoxhaism separately if you wish), and not "Marcyites", "Martensites", "Sisonites", "Avakianites", etc.

In the case of the divisions of Trotskyism, there are at least 20 varieties, most of them based on disagreements between intellectuals about the Soviet Union or whether they should hang onto the rotting corpse of social-democracy. Thus we have Cliffites, Grantites, Taaffeites, Healyites and so on. Once again, this doesn't seem like a coincidence, when you have so many cardinal issues that all seem to lead to definite splits. Now what we have is several that all claim to be the "true" 4th International, others who have stopped bothering with it and done their own thing (CWI, IST) and some who are suddenly enthusiastic about Chávez's idea of a 5th International.

I disagree most trots are more into history than theory. Not all trots some are sane but most have not yet realized that Stalin has been dead for almost 60 years.

Agreed about the Stalin thing. also most trots have a problem throwing the S name around. Ive been called a Stalinist by so many Trots it doesn't even faze me anymore.

It doesn't seem like a coincidence that there are "additives-free" Marxism-Leninisms of a few different kinds, most of them anti-revisionist, and then Maoism (you may want to count Hoxhaism separately if you wish), and not "Marcyites", "Martensites", "Sisonites", "Avakianites", etc.

In the case of the divisions of Trotskyism, there are at least 20 varieties

I don't see Hoxhaists being as reconciliatory as you see they are. They'll work within bigger Maoist groups, but when given the chance would prefer to work on their own.

I don't see Hoxhaists being as reconciliatory as you see they are. They'll work within bigger Maoist groups, but when given the chance would prefer to work on their own.

And yet, there have been Hoxhaist parties who participated in international meetings with other M-L parties. It's true that there are also some who would prefer to exist in isolated little groups forever, but I think you could find those in pretty much every variety of communism. Regardless, it's always good to keep the door open.