this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2026
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What Is The Deal With Trotskyism And Maoism? (lemmygrad.ml)
submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by asdasd201@lemmygrad.ml to c/asklemmygrad@lemmygrad.ml
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Edit: I'm from the Global South, I should've clarified that on the post. The lesson has been learned.

Many leftist movements, legit or not, call themselves either Trotskyist or Maoist and keep dissing Stalin for his “socialism in one state” policy and “ruining” Comintern and Deng Xiaoping for his “liberal” policies.

I want to know what they are trying to do by distancing themselves from the USSR and PRC while fetishizing Cuba and Vietnam—you'll only hear them talking about the Vietnam War, btw—and following either the guy who lost the power struggle or a literal Marxist-Leninist who supported one of the refused countries and founding the other.

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[–] Zuzak@hexbear.net 25 points 3 days ago

None of the theoretical disagreements are actually important. If Trotsky had wound up in charge instead of Stalin, then all the Trotskyists would be Stalinists. It's the rhetorical position of opposing AES states in practice while extolling the purely theoretical merits of socialism which defines them.

Basically, they have this perfect vision in their heads of how things could've gone and then they look for whoever lost and assume their loss is the reason things didn't go perfectly. The reality is that material conditions impose restraints on these perfect visions and the results were always going to be grittier than what they imagine no matter who was in charge.

Maoists and Trotskyists seem to differ mostly on vibes. They both hate AES states for not being ideologically pure enough but one positions themselves more as high-minded intellectuals and the other as more radical. But the powers that be don't really care either way so long as they primarily focus on criticizing their geopolitical enemies.