The Beginners Guide to Becoming a Trotskyist
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I was thinking of submitting the following as an article for the Standard, but wasn’t sure if it might be taking the piss a bit much, your thoughts would be welcomed:
“Becoming a Trotskyist is an option often considered by those young people wishing to develop an interest in becoming “political”. Other options do however exist. For those who have a loathing of their fellow human and a deep disinterest in anything other than their own personal advancement, The Young Conservatives may be the appropriate choice, however if your interests lie more towards activities such as table tennis and playing dungeons and dragons the Young Liberal democrats may be the outfit for you.
One of the advantages of choosing the Trotskyist option is that you can have all of the joy of being a member of a major political party by joining a Trotskyist organisation which is in the Labour Party, or you can enjoy the Kudos of being in a minor party, but supporting the Labour Party anyway. It’s a bit like trying to be cool and saying you support Luton Town, but then cheering and whooping every time Chelsea win the league.
A word of warning for you. Although it may seem that becoming a Trotskyist is the ideal way for a social incompetent individual to suddenly develop a windswept and interesting persona, generally speaking most people will still think you’re a bit of a twat.
So then which Trotskyist group to join? Well there is no doubt that this is an area where Trotskyism really excels. Trotskyism certainly has the Adam Smith Institute Award when it comes to the issue of choice. You may want to join one of the bigger Trotskyist groupings, for instance the old perennial the SWP or if you don’t have enough UCAS points to join what’s left of the SWP you could go slightly down market and join one half of what used to be the Militant Tendency, The Socialist Party of England and Wales (commonly known, quite appropriately as SPEW). For those with more outlandish tastes there are groups such as The Workers International to Rebuild the Fourth International (which has very few builders in its ranks) or perhaps The Socialist Appeal Group (which doesn’t seem to appeal to many people) however, sadly the option of joining the Socialist Solidarity Group is no longer available, it appears there was a lack of Solidarity.
One thing to make note of is that in every Trostkyist group there is one bloke who is wearing John Lennon glasses, has swept back hair and has a goatee. Please remember the unwritten rule is that there can only be one Trotsky lookalike in each Trotskyist group. Also note that if you say to the Trotsky lookalike “you look just like Trotsky”, in an act of faux modesty the lookalike will of course say “who, me? I never realised” and then walk away as happy as a dog with a tin dick.
Another option is to “grow your own”. This may appeal to those with a more environmentally friendly disposition as it allows you to recycle the names of previous Trotskyist sects (and there are loads to choose from) and recycle old ideas from those sects. This option also has the additional bonus of allowing you to be the leader, which means you can claim to be the leading edge of the vanguard of the working class and you can begin collecting your own small group of devotees who will admire you and if you’re lucky elevate you to guru like status.
This brings us neatly to the idea of internal party democracy within Trotskyist Groups. The short answer is that there isn’t any. A phrase you will hear very early on in your quest to become a Trotskyist is Democratic Centralism, don’t be fooled by the title, it is democratic in the same way that the Isle of Dogs is an Island, i.e. It isn’t.
The late, great Brian Clough once said that if he had a disagreement with a player, they would sit down, talk it through thoroughly, look at both sides of the argument and then agree that Clough was right all along. Democratic Centralism works exactly the same way, with the membership taking the role of the player and the Central Committee taking the role of Brian Clough (minus the charisma).
As a young recruit to the ranks of Trotskyism don’t think that your life will now all be beer and skittles. One thing that Trotskyists admire above all other things is activism, to be part of the struggle one has to be active. It doesn’t really matter what the activity is, it doesn’t matter whether it is useful or not, it shows that you are part of the class struggle (as if you had any choice!). One of the activities that must be undertaken is “selling the paper”. All Trotskyist groups have a paper, usually with a very striking title and a big red banner top. The paper will have lots of angry headlines stating things like “we demand”, “we show solidarity with” or “stand up against” and of course the inevitable appeal for donations to the fighting fund. However quite what is done with the fund or who it is actually fighting is never actually explained.
Alongside “the paper” Trotskyist organisations usually have a “theoretical Journal”. As a callow recruit to this new world you will probably get the latest copy of the theoretical journal and try and plough your way through it. This may lead you to worry that you cannot read an article all of the way to the end and that the sheer repetitive tedium causes your whole being to begin to fracture, your mind to want to strangle you for putting you through this torment in the first place and that your bowels start to loosen at the thought of reading any more. Don’t worry that you cannot finish reading one of these articles; the truth is no one ever has. The theoretical journal is not there to examine intricacies of economic or political theory; no these journals exist to boost the fragile egos of the authors, who are usually described as “leading comrades”. These articles will also act as the basis of lecture notes when these “leading comrades” take up their future careers as part time lecturers in Sociology at the University of Mid Wankthwaiteshire (Formally Wankthwaite Secondary Modern), where, ironically no one will ever read them either.
Getting back to activity, activities are collected by Trotskyist groups in much the way that boy scouts collect badges. It is a kind of bizarre left wing virtue signalling. Activity that you may well be involved in usually involves “supporting workers in struggle”. What this means in practice is that your group of Trotskyists turn up uninvited at some local strike or protest group, to be greeted by the welcoming sounds of workers greeting you with words like “oh fuck, here they come again” or “shite, pretend you haven’t seen them”. You can then spend the next hour or two patronising your hosts by explaining your “superior knowledge” of their struggle, attempt to extract as much money from them for your fighting fund and generally get on everyone’s tits, before fucking off to the pub half way through the protest.
Another type of activity you will probably be involved in is the rally. This is a chance for you to vent your anger and vitriol to all things and everyone, with chants and heckles galore. Although you may be protesting or angry at the symptoms of capitalism, it is important you don’t lose sight of the main focus of your overwhelming hatred and anger, other Trotskyist groups. Because of the schisms and splits that are a regular occurrence in Trotskyist groups most of the Trotskyists at any rally will have at some time or another been in the same party as each other. The rally therefore becomes a bit like a family funeral, there are lots of people who used to be in relationships but who now deeply despise each other. For the new recruit to Trotskyism this can be a bit of a social minefield. End up talking to the wrong person and you can be ostracised by your own group for ever more.
Another interesting point about rallies is that this is the only time when the unwritten rule of Trotskyism can be broken. At rallies it is possible for two or more Trotsky look a likes to be at the same place. However be warned it is not a good idea to gather all of the Trotsky look a likes together and take a selfie with them, it might seem funny, but Trotskyism is no laughing matter.
Let us now turn our attention to the international dimension. In 1938 it was decided by Trotsky and his followers that the way forward was to bring together Trotskyists of all nations together to form an international organisation uniting all Trotskyists together in a spirit of harmony, cooperation and fraternity, recognising the need to move away from the localised splits and schisms of Trotskyism that had occurred at national level. As a result of that great step forward in harmony, cooperation and fraternity, the last 80 years have offered Trotskyists the opportunity to fall out with each other on an international scale, giving you, the same level of choice on an international level that you have experienced on a national level. As this is a guide, I thought it might be useful to outline some of these “internationals”. At the last check the list of “Fourth Internationals” is as follows:
- Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI)
- Coordinating Committee for the Refoundation of the Fourth International (CRFI)
- United Secretariat of the Fourth International (USFI)<sup>[3]</sup>
- Fourth International (ICR), also called FI (La Verité) or FI (International Secretariat)
- International Bolshevik Tendency
- International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI)
- International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist) (ICL-FI),<sup>]</sup> previously the International Spartacist Tendency
- International Marxist Tendency (IMT), previously the Committee for a Marxist International
- International Socialist Tendency (IST)
- Internationalist Communist Union (ICU)
- International Workers League – Fourth International (IWL-FI)
- International Workers’ Unity – Fourth International (IWU-FI)
- League for the Fourth International (LFI) [split from (ICL-FI)]
- Revolutionary Communist International Tendency
- Trotskyist Fraction – Fourth International (TF-FI)
- Workers International to Rebuild the Fourth International (WIRFI)
And if you fancy being a little bit avant-guarde there is also
- The League for the Fifth International (L5I)
Do bear in mind however that by the time you have finished reading this there will probably be a few more. Therefore when you join a Trotskyist movement, it is important to check regularly which international they are part of this week, as it can cause embarrassment if you think you’re in the wrong international.
Having a bit of a swagger when talking about the Trotskyist grouping you belong to is also vital to your image as a Trotskyist. Back in the day members of Trotskyist groupings often claimed to be affiliated to a party in some far flung corner of the globe which was a “mass Party”. This “party” was usually in places such as Bolivia or Tanzania, etc. Nowadays, with the advent of the internet, bullshit such as this is easier to sniff out. Therefore being a little circumspect with your claims of mass influence for your grouping is the strategy to adopt. A popular approach to this problem amongst Trotskyists is to make the claim about being part of a mass party, but then state that it is not possible to divulge any further information, so as not to endanger comrades in your affiliate party. This not only adds kudos to your one man and a dog party, but also adds to the sense of paranoia, so vital to the Trotskyist experience.
By this point in the guide you may be thinking to yourself, “what is the bloody point of all of this Trotskyist nonsense”. This doesn’t mean that the issues that made you interested in politics have gone away. You probably still realise that there are huge contradictions between how the world is and how it could be. You’re probably genuinely concerned that war and destruction, continues despite all of the peace initiatives put forward by organisations such as the UN. You may still find it unbelievable that many people in the world are starving when food is being destroyed and ploughed into the ground and that it is beyond belief that in Britain in the 21<sup>st</sup> Century millions of people are relying on food banks. You might start thinking wouldn’t it be better to have an open and genuinely democratic approach to politics, one without leaders or lead, without posers and factions and schisms. You might then start to look at the Socialist case, put forward by the Socialist Party, the case for a world without guns, borders, leaders, money and markets, the case for a system of common ownership and genuine democratic control. If that is the case, why not join with us and join in the real political struggle, the struggle to win the working class of the world to the ideas of socialism and overthrow this hateful system of capitalism.
That is excellent!! 😆
As an ex long time on and off member of what was Militant, then Militant Labour then SPEW, it’s spot on. I too once talked to a chap from the Spartacists at a rally and was frowned upon for weeks….
Not sure for the Standard, but funny nonetheless
Can you imagine that the wife of Leon Trostyist took a much better stand than her husband? She knew that the soviet union was a state capitalist nation, and she was thrown out from the Fourth International. Don’t tell to a Trotskyist that Trotsky himself paved the road for Stalin taking control of the Bolshevik Party. He was a despot when he was the commissary of the Red Army, and he became unpopular within the workers, and the statement was made by a Trotskyist known as Isaac Deutscher, who also was his best biographer, and he was killed by an ex-Trotskyist who became a Stalinist
If not accepted by the Socialist Standard, our blog will be very happy to put it on the web. Just give it the go-ahead Bijou.
We’d also welcome many other satirical articles you may produce in the future.
Bijou Drains wrote
“You might start thinking wouldn’t it be better to have an open and genuinely democratic approach to politics, one without leaders or lead, without posers and factions and schisms. You might then start to look at the Socialist case, put forward by the Socialist Party, the case for a world without guns, borders, leaders, money and markets, the case for a system of common ownership and genuine democratic control.”
The problem is that, apparently, just like the Trots, the SPGB won’t have ‘an open and genuinely democratic approach‘ to ‘science’, a ‘science’ under ‘a system of common ownership and genuine democratic control‘.
The SPGB seems to argue for the elite leadership of ‘scientists’ over ‘science’, where, for example, ‘elite physicists’ determine ‘physics’, ‘elite logicians’ determine ‘logic’, ‘elite mathematicians’ determine ‘mathematics’, all without any ‘genuine democratic’ involvement by the vast majority of workers.
Even worse, the SPGB seems to argue for an Engelsian version of ‘Scientific Socialism’ (and not for its political opposite, ‘Democratic Socialism’), which, being supposedly ‘scientific’, would cause the same problems in any politics, as in ‘science’: an elite leadership would have to determine ‘politics’, and this political form of ‘socialism’ would thus not be amenable to democratic control. Clearly, if it was under democratic control, the majority could vote to democratise ‘science’, which is anathema to ‘Scientific Socialists’. We can have ‘elite science’ or we can have ‘democratic science’, and we should be open about this political choice.
For those workers with a political bent towards the ‘democratic’ choice about our ‘science’, the history of bourgeois science (for that is what it is) shows that all science – physics, logic, mathematics, etc. – has changed over time in society, and so any ‘science’ is a socio-historical product. The political control of changes within ‘science’ in a democratic society has to be under the control of the majority, so that that ‘science’ follows the interests, needs and purposes of the vast majority – and not those of an elite who claim a ‘special consciousness’, like ‘physicists’.
This ‘democratic’ argument is, of course, completely in line with the SPGB’s democratic traditions – so it’s very strange that members of the SPGB seem to be so resistant to it, and apparently favour the Trotskyist political line about ‘Scientific Socialism’.
Dear L Bird
As a way of demonstrating our democratic commitment I am going to open a thread on the forum exclusively for discussion about having an “open and democratic discussion about having ‘science’ under ‘a system of common ownership and genuine democratic control‘. I will use these very words as its title.
You could demonstrate your commitment to democratic discussion by using this thread to discuss this concept and not derailing other threads.
You criticise the SPGB, however I doubt that there are any other political organisations who have tolerated your interjections in the way that we have.
You may even find that other members of the forum are willing to join in the discussion, to start the ball rolling, I will place a question for you on the thread.
All I would say is please behave with a bit of respect and use the thread to show case your ideas and not spread it out all over other threads, like an excited puppy learning to piss on newspaper for the first time.
Bijou, it’s a shame that you are unable to answer without using abuse, a political criticism of your very post about Trotskyism. I’ve shown that you share the very same commitment as Trotskyism to a supposed ‘Scientific Socialism’, which denies that workers can ever control ‘science’ by democratic methods.
So, also following your very words, could you ‘please behave with a bit of respect and use the thread‘ to actually answer serious political criticism of your opening post.
I doubt that you will do this, because I’ve given you every opportunity, many times, and many others who argue your undemocratic views, to actually answer why you argue that the Trotskyists are correct, about ‘science’ being a socio-historical activity which can only be controlled by an elite.
I know that you don’t like this political criticism of your views, and take it as an ‘abuse’ of you personally, and so you think it acceptable to ‘personally abuse’ your critics, but at some point you’re going to have to answer this political issue – why does your party argue that it is ‘democratic’, and yet line up with the undemocratic Trots about ‘science’?
Even having me banned, which has been done before by the SPGB, won’t stop the question being asked in the future, by any worker looking to socialist ideas, and finding the SPGB to be, at least, confused about “workers’ democracy”, and at worst, like the Trots, to be devious about it.
The ball’s in your court, Bijou.
“You criticise the SPGB, however I doubt that there are any other political organisations who have tolerated your interjections in the way that we have.”
This observation is true, isn’t it?
We have placed temporary bans upon your good self, but equally a great number of our own members have also suffered this sanction. It appears that you were never really singled out, per se
Could you acknowledge that in this respect of offering a platform to our critics we have shown admirable forbearance that should be commended, Lbird, even if you do consider your contributions to be pearls cast before swine
alanjjohnstone wrote
“Could you acknowledge that in this respect of offering a platform to our critics we have shown admirable forbearance that should be commended, Lbird, even if you do consider your contributions to be pearls cast before swine”
I’m very happy to do both, alan!
First. The SPGB has shown admirable forbearance that should be commended. Though I should say that I’ve also made similar statements about the SWP and ICC, who also showed ‘admirable forbearance’ when their undemocratic ‘materialism’ was criticised. But like the SPGB too, they couldn’t answer the political criticism of their ‘materialism’ (or its synonym, ‘Scientific Socialism’) – see Bijou Drain’s (lack of political) response.
Second. Ahem! Am I allowed to spell this out so brutally? 😀 The very nature of ‘materialists’, as exposed by Marx?
L Bird
I have made a political response, for that see the thread that I set up. I notice that you have studiously ignored the questions posed, as per usual, and have carried out your usual smoke and mirrors response.
So why don’t you answer the political question posed on the thread I started? I can only assume you are frightened that the fragility of the position you put forward will be exposed once again.
Why not go to the thread set up for discussion of your ideas and answer the questions posed. I can only assume that if you don’t then it is because you’re frightened of the exposure of your ideas to criticism by class conscious members of the working class?
Excellent; satirical, funny, pointed.
Deserves a wider readership; be it in the standard, SOYMB, or wherever else you can/may post it.
Thank you. 👏🤣👏
NB. You forgot (unsurprisingly 😃) to include The Socialist Party… …Scotland, alongside Spew etc etc etc
(Which, if I’m right is one reason why we had to drop the short form “The Socialist Party” and use SPGB instead!?) 😡
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