this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2025
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The most common problematic behavior I've seen with western Maoists is how much effort and stress they impose on themselves and each other through internal criticism that is more about attacking each other than being constructive. It breeds a "everyone is in my business so I'm going to be in theirs" mentality and disunity, which is ironic because they speak in terms of criticizing each other to avoid disunity.
But I've also seen Trots and MLs do this. Especially Trots though. If a Trot ever offers to mentor you, run.
So basically, they give demcen a bad name and act like gossipy shame-each-other church ladies. Yeah, that sounds like what I know about 'em. Tbf, the only Maoist I actually know... I put up with him for the cuddles, he's lucky he's cute.
(His name is Comrade Cuddles. Complete crank. Won't shut up about Mao's tactics. Ask him any political question, get a Mao quote. He's lucky he gives good hugs. But honestly, you'd be silly to expect anything else from a ๐ผ.)
Yeah, MLs totally can do most of the same crankish stuff, but Maoists and Trots have a well earned reputation for it.
Don't need to tell me that, every leftist I've ever run into who felt "off" and not worth my time, was a Trot. I'm unlikely to get much out of spending time with a fellow leftist who thinks Stalin made worse mistakes than stopping in Berlin, and I know that and try to avoid Trots in general. They don't like the USSR, so I don't like them. (That's all aside from the general cultishness and crank magnetism of Trot parties, of course, that's yet another reason to avoid them. Mormon missionaries in red shirts with "comrade" on their name tags, trying to sell you a newspaper. It's surreal.)
Critical support for Comrade Cuddles even though he just called me a revisionist.
He calls me a revisionist about five times an hour, join the club. Usually because he doesn't like my cuddling technique. He says I "suck in bed" meaning that a night's worth of cuddling is less enjoyable than he'd hoped, and I have to stifle a laugh, he's so innocent and adorable. He calls everyone a revisionist. He sharpens his claws on my Soviet flag because he's still mad about the Sino-Soviet Split. He eats my bamboo kitchen implements. He throws me out of the bed so he can hold a party meeting with all the other teddy bears. He's the worst comrade ever. And a really bad roommate, for a teddy bear.
But the hugs are really good, okay? He can call me a revisionist and chew up my cutting board all he wants if I get those sweet panda bear hugs. And a ๐ผ who's a stereotypical Maoist is funny and very cute. At least he knows who Lenin was. Unlike another stuffed bear in a red shirt who I only ever get as far as "peace, land, hunny!" with.