I went to a small meeting for my party, and at the end, one of us went on an anti-Russia and anti-Soviet rant (He’s a Trotskyist). He started with saying that Russia buys gold from Sudanese rebels in exchange for Russian weapns for those rebels. I don’t know if that is true although I don’t necessarily doubt it, and another one of us said it’s probably not only Russia giving weapons to Sudan, but US as well. He said that this proves that Russia is imperialist and that he doesn’t understand why communist parties in the global south support Russia. I said to him that even though Russia has imperial ambitions and capitalist nations always move towards imperialism, I can see why global south countries want to work more with Russia since cooperation with Russia is less harmful that cooperation with the USA. I specifically said that it is choosing for a lesser evil, in order to convince him better.
Then he started talking about how Putin uses Siberian native soldiers as cannon folder to protect ethnic Russians. He then said that this is a holdover from Stalin who kept the colonial system from the Tsar were and that Central Asian and Siberian Native soldiers were sent to the front first in order to protect Russians. He said that Soviet Union was a colonial nation as well for the Russians and Belarussians and that the Soviet Union fell because of this colonisation and that Gorbachov was the first one who tried to correct it.
After that the other member said that it’s hard to convince others when there are not many examples of actually socialism. She then named Cuba as a dictatorship, and I called her out and said it was not. Luckily she was receptive. The trotskyist defended me as well saying that Cuba ‘is not as bad’ and he mentioned that Cuba has a lot of international solidarity because they for example sent doctors to Northern Italy during covid. But he didn’t mention that international solidarity for Cuba also means that they support Russia lol. Then we started talking about Che, and he said that Che wanted to become a minister in Cuba but was forced to leave Cuba by the Soviet Union, because they didn’t like him. I said that it was hard to believe and that I didn’t hear about it. He forgot where he got that from and said that not many people know about it.
I definitely held back a lot, and should’ve gone harder sometimes, but it’s harder when the other person brings up so much random wild stuff that you don’t know how to start to refute it.
What are some strategies for the next time?
Stalin wasn’t ethnic Russian
That doesn’t matter for people like him
Oh my, so so tiresome.
but it’s harder when the other person brings up so much random wild stuff
This is the thing. How can you possibly be prepared for some obscure non-falsifiable crap like this plucked from a point in history? Even if you were, do you think this ranter is open to being talked down and reasoned with? They’ve decided a priori what club they’re in and everything will be reasoned to justify that decision. They haven’t built up an opinion from first principles.
He said that this proves that Russia is imperialist
If you’re not communicating with a shared vocabulary then the conversation is already doomed. This leaves you with the option of arguing your definition and explaining why the characterisation doesn’t apply, which is time consuming, tiring and unlikely to succeed. Or asking them to explain their definition… but anyway, why? Even if we’re using Trotsky’s simplistic idea of “imperialism”, so what? Nobody was ever holding Russia up as the apotheosis of socialism. The slurs are irrelevant. The point of critical support of Russia is with its existence as a massive thorn in the side of western imperialism, an ally of socialist China (oh great here’s another leg of the fractal to descend)… etc.
Isn’t it always funny that no existing socialism is ever good enough?
While I don’t recommend taking part in these conversations in real life, if you must, one simple thing you can try is to make sure you don’t accept any homework. They’re the one doing the ranting, let them do all the heavy lifting and then reductio ad the inevitable absurdum.
“Hold up, what do you mean by ‘imperialism’ there? Uh huh, okay. So the USA and Russia, they’re… uh… the same thing to you. Okaay.”
“So a dictatorship? Do you think they should let the USA take them over so they can have the democracy?”
Okay mr random history expert. “Is there a Trotskyist state in history we should all aspire to match then? No, that’s a shame. So we just have ideal theoretical concepts that we have to live up to. Okay. Why do you think it’s never worked out. Ah Stalin again, I see. He’s been gone a long time though…”
In my experience Trots just tend to try to weaponise leftist terms to use them as mindless angry slurs. These are all denial of service attacks on your mind. The old Brandolini’s law applies.
The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it.
This is usually different than anarchists who will just repeat a cheesy thought terminating cliché that they think is profound, but doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. At least Trots have some kind of theory, even if it’s a cargo cult.
Trying to beat these people with facts and logic will drain and frustrate you. And if you get angry you lose. You need to go in with very low expectations. You may just need to remind yourself why you have any camaraderie with these people at all. If there’s some value in it, then steer everything towards that, don’t try to convert, it’s very unlikely to succeed. You can just let them blow off steam and then, do a “Okay, so anyway, about the thing we’re all here for…” on them.
Online in text form is a place where honest discussion of these things can be reasonably had, even then it’s rare. Real life conversations are just a game of who’s the best at berating and interrupting and appealing to the crowd.
This right here is the answer OP.
He then said that this is a holdover from Stalin who kept the colonial system from the Tsar […]. He said that Soviet Union was a colonial nation as well
First off, if the Tsarist system was kept it wouldn’t have been (only) Stalin who kept it, it would be Lenin and the other Bolsheviks who founded the Soviet Union and who decided what should be done about the national question in regards to the nationalities of the Russian empire. In this context it is useful to read Stalin’s “Marxism and the National Question” to see how the Bolsheviks thought about this issue and whether they had a colonial or anti-colonial mentality (spoiler alert: it’s the latter).
Secondly, i would suggest that whoever says things like this should look into how the Soviet political system and the Soviet economy functioned in practice. Politically the smaller republics were over-represented compared to the larger ones like Russia through the Soviet of Nationalities. Economically the minority republics often received priority supply of goods and preferential investment in their development and infrastructure, much more so per capita than the RSFSR did.
Due to this the Soviet Union has been labeled by liberal academics who seriously studied the Soviet policy toward nationalities an “Affirmative Action Empire”. This means that they effectively practiced reverse imperialism, they were an anti-empire. Where empires siphon off wealth from the periphery to enrich the core, the SU did the opposite, sometimes to such a degree that it created resentment among the Russian majority. This is a point frequently brought up by modern day anti-communist Russians to criticize the Bolsheviks and their policies.
In addition to these economic policies, the political and cultural policies of the Bolsheviks were also heavily biased in favor of promoting minority nationalities and their cultures, their literature, teaching their language, etc. it is not unlike what China does today but perhaps to an even greater degree. Again this is also something that Russian nationalists nowadays heavily criticize. They point for instance to the extensive and sometimes over-zealous policies of Ukrainization that occurred throughout the 1920s.
No matter which side of this you stand on (communists of course are pro-decolonization), it cannot be denied that the Bolsheviks were very serious about undoing the colonial legacy of the Russian empire. This is something they wrote extensively about, and when you study the history of the Soviet Union that you them see again and again make serious efforts to implement in their policies.
Reading this made me remember how much I do not miss being a party leader.
There are two good ways to can try to handle this situation, and both may look like hostility if egos are at play.
The first is to simply talk to the Trot directly in private and try to direct them towards better historians and convince them to read ML theory. If they’re receptive, they might shift their ideological position and stop being a nuisance. If it fails, they could claim that you’re trying to “bully” them into being a “Stalinist”.
The second is to talk to either party leadership or fellow party members and try to get them to agree on more rigid party lines. If successful, it’ll become easier to keep conversations on track and productive, as most of your party members will agree that tirades against the USSR aren’t helpful. You can pair this with readings or studies of the USSR to help the less informed members of the party come to a mutual understanding. If it fails, they could accuse you of trying to co-opt the party and get you kicked out.
These are the kinds of murky waters I had to try to navigate daily within my party when it existed, inner-party politics is a hard game to play, and it usually results in battles of egos.
moving to a reply for a similar story (really it’s a rant) of my own.
My party had a few anarchists in it, they made up something like 10% of the party at a point. A small enough percentage that you can simply ignore them during votes or party motions, but a big enough number that you couldn’t ignore them during discussions.
There was one Anarchist who would volunteer themself to speak on behalf of all Anarchists at every discussion, taking personal issue with anything that could possibly upset an Anarchist. A member of the party might want to simply talk about the great technological innovations that happened in the USSR, and that Anarchist would find a way to steer the discussion towards “USSR bad”. A member might want to discuss the guerrilla fighting in the Cuban revolution, the Anarchist would go on and on about how Cuba is “an authoritarian dictatorship”. This goes so on, and so forth. And every time we tried to bring up the issues that were created by them doing that, the 29 other Anarchists would stand up with them and claim we were trying to make them leave.
Leadership thought it would be a good idea to make them their own wing within the party, so they could be autonomous and have their own discussions apart from the main party discussions. They treated it like we were moving them to the “kiddie’s table” and threatened to start disrupting other party functions. A few members of leadership decided, without consulting all of leadership, to appoint that very vocal Anarchist to a seat within leadership to keep them from complaining as much.
Nobody abused the power of leadership in our party like they did. They would make unilateral decisions without asking anyone else.
Later on, we would find out that the whole thing was an ego trip for them. They liked feeling like they were at odds against any authority, so they’d put themself into positions to be at odds with party leadership. When they were put into leadership, they had no idea how difficult the position actually was, so they simply refused to act within the guidelines.
…and that Gorbachev was the first one who tried to correct it.
This guy can’t be a serious socialist. This has lib written all over it.
What are some strategies for the next time?
This seems like a topic a group could spend a lot of time on without it making any difference in the immediate issues around them.
To the extent it’s necessary for your group to have a detailed position on, say, the Russia-Ukraine war, it might be best to table the discussion until the next meeting and then have a structured one people can prepare for. Anything else is going to involve a lot of off-the-cuff takes from people who may not have investigated the situation at all.
For next time I suggest laughing at them when they say they’re a Trotskyist and exiting the conversation. And if they don’t like it, they can print it in their newspaper.
Seconded.
The amount of lingering bullshit myths about Stalin that were spread by Trotsky and Khrushchev alone is overwhelming. I don’t know how anyone can be a Trot if they just look into Trotsky’s history and the shit he repeatedly pulled.
At least do a little research so you aren’t parroting the same propaganda that the liberals blindly latch onto. If you want to inform yourself on Stalin, read what he wrote and read Domenico Losurdo’s “Stalin - History and Critique of a Black Legend.” This is a great start to being able to have an informed conversation about Stalin.
Even if you don’t like Stalin and you disagree with his writings and decisions, I don’t know how you can’t at least respect his accomplishments unless you’re just approaching him from a place of pure ignorance.
He’s a Trotskyist
Sadly it doesn’t say a lot. In fact, it has the same meaning as when you say “He’s a Marxist” or whatever. Important are the talking points.
Look, his takes are just liberal poinst, there is nothing from Trotsky itself there. Reminds of the “Marxistische-Leninistische-Partei” in Germany. They talk something about Mao and Stalin, but are just reactionaries. Only the name is there.
You should rather ask if he things, if the SU was state capitalist. Because this is a good starting point. If he says yes, then it is a easy game.
It would be nice to know from where they were, if you want to understand their art of thinking.
You won’t believe it but I am someone myself.
Read histories of the USSR so you can dunk on him with specifics. If one is to defend the first socialist state against liberal attacks, they must understand it, its good sides and bad.
