It's both. Popular fronts are a thing, and Spanish Republican style coalitions are incredibly powerful tools. Political pluralism within leftist movements is healthy when we let it be healthy. The CIA, FBI, and various governments and reactionary groups have engaged in psyops against this for decades.

But these divisions are real and they come from real ideological differences and hurt. The CIA didn't force the red army to fire on the black armies, it didn't force the blunder of ideology at Kronstadt, it didn't force the betrayal in Spain. And it also didn't force anarchists to have issues controlling their people or implementing their goals. It didn't force the syndicalists to fuck up in South America and Berlin. And it didn't force the USSR and CCP to nearly go to war with each other.

What they did do however is project Gladius, COINTELPRO, operation condor, and various other anti left programs. They made damn sure Fred Hampton died and they made sure the Black Panthers couldn't trust each other enough to be effective. They also made sure the inner cities were filled with crack to destroy black anti capitalist organizing.

And here's where you get the mix. Anarchists already don't trust MLs, because of the aforementioned betrayals and disorganization, then you get government campaigns working to ensure that trust remains broken and that the culture becomes one in which cooperation is anathema. And the trots are kept distrustful of the MLs and the anarchists. MLs are encouraged to keep thinking of themselves as the only real socialists except MLMs. It's similar to the Russian campaigns between democrats and republicans, both already didn't like each other and the goal is to keep picking at the wounds and encouraging off putting behaviors.

Speaking at least in the context of the US, any revolutionary minded leftists (or "leftists", if you prefer) have goals that diverge so far from the present day as to be irrelevant.

My general observation:

Yankistanis on their capitalists raining in on societal failures causing division:

Chinese 50 cent army, Russian Bot farms, Tankies. Russian Trolls. We see you, comrade. They're trying to divide us. Reeeeee

Yankistanis when a recorded history of CIA interference, coup, embargo, wars, propaganda where most yankistanis shrieks at the mention of the words and country trying a different economic system:

It's not the CIA. Trust me bro!

How can you be certain either way?

3.2k over 2 months is numbers I generally attribute to bots/shills. Is that a normal level of online in your spaces?

There are real problems in organizing, and I too have seen things like you're describing. I just try not to take part in such petty squabbles. If a group is too wound up with internal politics to get anything done, I just find somewhere else to put my energy.

bonk

I get it. I'm just saying, keep some perspective on the current stakes.

And prefer it over doing anything.

And that's a weakness that the elites target in us. We need to target their weaknesses, like their soft bellies, or their flimsy neck vertebra.

Sure. Wrecking absolutely exploits existing vulnerabilities. Resist exacerbating such vulnerabilities.

Cited the Simple Sabotage Field Manual and mentioned how it was used against civil rights organizers, anti-war demonstrators, and labor organizers.

Got called a Tankie.

Crazy how the term seems to shut down the higher brain functions for certain people.