Re: searching for someone

["Macdonald Stainsby" <mstainsby@xxxxxxxxxx>]

> From: Jim Skillman
> Sent: Tuesday, April 11, 2000 10:16 PM
>
> Tom Grunfeld wrote:
> >
> > I wonder if anyone on this list can help me concerning an American
> > Troskyite named BLUESTONE who was in Spain.
>
> I'm not sure if anyone on this list would complain, but the activists I
> have encountered who were of the Trotskyist persuasion consider
> "Trotskyite" and "Trot" to be derogatory expressions.
>
> --jim         jimskill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Perhaps this is all silly, but "Trotskyite", to clarify, is the deragatory
term coined by Stalinists during the time of Stalin. In other words, using
the term Trotskyite is to make yourself a clear opponent of the followers of
Trotsky and/or the fourth international (whichever Fourth International that
might be this week). "Trot", on the other hand, I have often used and have
never found it to be insulting. I am not a "Trot", never have been, but have
steered clear of "Trotskyite" for just the sectarian reasons referred to by
Jim.

Macdonald