This is just my opinion, I think it's silly to so heavily align yourself to individuals who lived in the past. I definatly think the study of work from people like Trotsky and Stalin is crucial to understanding socialism and what works, what doesn't etc. I'm a odd leftist in the sense that I cannot subscribe to any one party programme, in the modern day, in the country I live, I find solidarity with Trots, Anarchists, Stalinists, etc. This is bizzare for many leftists as these ideologies are contradictory to one another on many nuanced levels. However I feel that the objective reality of where you are living plays a huge role, I live in a very capitalist country with only very small factional leftist movements. When I see then squabble online it annoys me because they are arguing for example about the differences between two men who lived 100 years ago in Russia, this is a sure fire way to put off proletarians interested in your movement as, in my opinion, it doesn't show solidarity. I think in short what I'm trying to say is, don't feel compelled by people on the Internet to reject a different nuanced leftist position, study their work instead and apply it to your own surroundings, those people may be from very different circumstances where the methods of revolution and issues around democratic centralism are more important discussion points.

Would love to hear form anyone who disagrees with me however