So a bit of context, the EFF is a prominent pan-African, ostensibly ML leftist party in South Africa. This is an FAQ from early 2024, that same year the country had an election in late May. Personally, I don't think the EFF arrived at these sentiments wanting to appeal to western liberals or whatever. If you know anything about Malema or the EFF, you'd know that they are not concerned with playing soft with right-wingers, much to the chagrin of the compromised ANC and white supremacist "Democratic" Alliance. Not sure who wrote it, but from the writing style I think it might have been written by either Shivambu or Malema himself.
Some quotes for those who don't want to read:
Stalin and Mao were NOT Marxists, they were actually quite anti-Marxist in that they led regimes based not on democratic control of the state by the workers, but rather based on totalitarian control by an elite stratum of bureaucrats who were a parasite on the workers' state.
The Stalinists were terrified of any potential opposition, and especially the intellectuals that they could not control. They were snuffed out, in many cases quite literally. Individual expression was portrayed as counter-revolutionary, even culture was subjugated to the "collective will" - not of society but of a handful of bureaucrats desperate to cling on to their power and privilege.
Had the Communist International remained firm on the positions of Lenin and Trotsky, the victory of the world revolution would have been ensured. Unfortunately, the Comintern's formative years coincided with the Stalinist counter-revolution in Russia, which had a disastrous effect on the Communist Parties of the entire world.
I know your comment touches on his insubordination at Brest-Litovsk, but this thread is reminding me of another Trotsky tidbit from the Russian Civil War.
The context has to do with the formation of the Red Army to defend from counterrevolution in 1919. A faction of the party congress known as the "Military Opposition" erroneously supported keeping the Red Army as a group of guerilla fighters instead of a regular army, but they had some legitimate gripes with one of the largest proponents of the latter and correct course. I speak, of course, of Trotsky.
Considering how many Trotskyite screeds are distortions about what Stalin did to muh Old Bolsheviks in the 1930s, I had whiplash the first time I read that paragraph.
oh yeah, there's apparently a picture of the cadre laughing with each other when the motion to expel trotsky from the party passed, but I'm not sure if someone just made the backstory up lol. By that time he was pretty widely hated, huge individualist and did not feel party procedure applied to him. this is not someone you can have in any important positions - imagine making him party secretary. he would have been what trotskyists say stalin was.