and don’t really like their culture, including of their interpersonal relationships, but frankly that’s not a problem unique to Trotskysists (Maoists, MLs and anarchists I’m looking at you).
This is definitely a huge issue among a huge chunk of radical leftists I’ve interacted with IRL. Almost all of them seem to be really well meaning people but often get hung up on petty (well mostly petty, sometimes there are real issues like sexual harassment) interpersonal bullshit and that causes a lot of friction when doing IRL organizing. I think if the western left managed to fix this we’d have like 10x more popularity, I’ve seen a few dozen people turn away from my local org (including myself eventually) due to the old guard constantly battling it out over the pettiest shit.
I’m maybe a bit biased, hopefully not orgs are like this but it’s a pretty common pattern I’ve seen both IRL and online.
Yeah not to suggest that leftists have not always had something of a tendency for division and degeneration into critique to the detriment of constructive solidarity, but this is also not sufficient as an explanation in my opinion. If anything, I’d argue that the contemporary version of this phenomenon, especially in a country life America, is deeply mediated by the social groups that radical groups is emerging out of, and fact it is occurring in a cultural and intellectual climate that is still (and has been since the late 80s), not simply anti-Marxist/communist but actually post-communist. We might nuance this by noting an uptick in interest in socialism among the young and working class, but we should not overemphasize the scale or influence of this. Nor should this lead us to lose sight of the fact that a lot of the young people who identify as radical do so in a way that can be quite vague, and have more to do with individual lifestyle aesthetics than a sense of ‘calling’ for the militant path, nor a sense of direct exploitation. This is partly due to the greater presence or visibility in popular culture of ideas that are more just post-modern liberal identity politics marked for the sake of capitalism, and the corresponding greater influence of radleft and anti-marxist poststructural thinkers in what is presented as radical thought. Which should remind everyone that Marxist and Communist politics are not going to be bred in Universities any more. Marxist historians don’t control the history department as much as they used to in some placed. This is not a personal criticism of all these people but more a recognition of the different reasons, conditions and paths that form of the context of people’s experience of radical politics or thought.
What is more significant is the increased level of labor movement activity. A bolshevik style party cannot simply be willed into existence. It is not a vanguard phenomenon (by definition) because it is ‘above’ or separate to the working class like a set of generals or the state, which would be to misunderstand the military metaphor, but because it is supposed to position itself at the forefront of working-class struggle. It is suppose to identify the key areas of struggle and potential and to act accordingly. So it strikes me that American Bolshevism (album title) would have to be born more fully out of the concrete struggle between an emerging American labor movement, in conjunction and synthesis with groups who also emphasize imperialism, colonialism and neocolonialism, racist and gender and LGBT+ struggles.
Alot of these dynamics reinforce themselves in vicious ways too. Bad interpersonal relationships can generate bad politics and vice-versa.
For what its worth, by far the least sectarian environments I’ve encountered where ones where different militants from different orgs had to collectively organize or help on the group in relation to on-the-ground labor struggles in work places.
This is definitely a huge issue among a huge chunk of radical leftists I’ve interacted with IRL. Almost all of them seem to be really well meaning people but often get hung up on petty (well mostly petty, sometimes there are real issues like sexual harassment) interpersonal bullshit and that causes a lot of friction when doing IRL organizing. I think if the western left managed to fix this we’d have like 10x more popularity, I’ve seen a few dozen people turn away from my local org (including myself eventually) due to the old guard constantly battling it out over the pettiest shit.
I’m maybe a bit biased, hopefully not orgs are like this but it’s a pretty common pattern I’ve seen both IRL and online.
Yeah not to suggest that leftists have not always had something of a tendency for division and degeneration into critique to the detriment of constructive solidarity, but this is also not sufficient as an explanation in my opinion. If anything, I’d argue that the contemporary version of this phenomenon, especially in a country life America, is deeply mediated by the social groups that radical groups is emerging out of, and fact it is occurring in a cultural and intellectual climate that is still (and has been since the late 80s), not simply anti-Marxist/communist but actually post-communist. We might nuance this by noting an uptick in interest in socialism among the young and working class, but we should not overemphasize the scale or influence of this. Nor should this lead us to lose sight of the fact that a lot of the young people who identify as radical do so in a way that can be quite vague, and have more to do with individual lifestyle aesthetics than a sense of ‘calling’ for the militant path, nor a sense of direct exploitation. This is partly due to the greater presence or visibility in popular culture of ideas that are more just post-modern liberal identity politics marked for the sake of capitalism, and the corresponding greater influence of radleft and anti-marxist poststructural thinkers in what is presented as radical thought. Which should remind everyone that Marxist and Communist politics are not going to be bred in Universities any more. Marxist historians don’t control the history department as much as they used to in some placed. This is not a personal criticism of all these people but more a recognition of the different reasons, conditions and paths that form of the context of people’s experience of radical politics or thought.
What is more significant is the increased level of labor movement activity. A bolshevik style party cannot simply be willed into existence. It is not a vanguard phenomenon (by definition) because it is ‘above’ or separate to the working class like a set of generals or the state, which would be to misunderstand the military metaphor, but because it is supposed to position itself at the forefront of working-class struggle. It is suppose to identify the key areas of struggle and potential and to act accordingly. So it strikes me that American Bolshevism (album title) would have to be born more fully out of the concrete struggle between an emerging American labor movement, in conjunction and synthesis with groups who also emphasize imperialism, colonialism and neocolonialism, racist and gender and LGBT+ struggles.
Alot of these dynamics reinforce themselves in vicious ways too. Bad interpersonal relationships can generate bad politics and vice-versa.
For what its worth, by far the least sectarian environments I’ve encountered where ones where different militants from different orgs had to collectively organize or help on the group in relation to on-the-ground labor struggles in work places.