I would say that in the context of political categories like this, they're not always completely separate
What I was thinking of when I said values based vs strategy based disagreement was a scenario where I'd agree with someone on what we care about (workers liberation or anti-imperialism for instance) but perhaps disagree on if we should do rallies or civil disobedience or some other political action. Or you mentioned in that other ask how some democratic socialists support ML states but they think reform is a viable way of achieving socialism. Someone like that I can work with, because we agree on our goal, and we care about the same things, but we have different ideas about how to get there. I don't actually think that always applies though
If I'm organising with a different kind of communist and if we share common goals and values in a specific situation, then I can tolerate strategic or tactical differences. But when it comes to the whole of a person's politics, I don't actually think you can always separate their values and strategy. I didn't communicate that well enough in my first post but I think that when you're active in politics, your values have a very heavy influence on your strategy and vice versa
Let's take anarchists as an example. Most anarchists would think that the state is a system of oppression. They see dismantling the state as the solution to oppression of workers. Marxist-Leninist theory also says that the state is a system of oppression, but that it is based on class rule and the only way to dismantle the state and liberate workers is to have a transitional state with the proletariat organised as the ruling class, the dictatorship of the proletariat. You might think that because we have the same basic value (capitalist state oppressive to workers), that our disagreements are only strategic. And sure maybe sometimes that's the case, I have an anarchist friend who supports Marxism-Leninism after all, but generally speaking that's not how it ends up
Anarchists criticise Marxist-Leninists, and vice versa, all the time. I've seen MLs be called red fascists, tankies, authoritarian, bootlickers for dictators, etc etc. Not just from anarchists but I do see the "red fascist" thing A LOT from them. Stalin is called fascist all the time, I've even seen someone call Fidel a fascist. It's pretty clear that that isn't just strategy based, right?
I should have specified this earlier, but principles and strategy in this context seem to have a dialectical relationship. The way you strategise will lead you to make decisions about what is acceptable, what is not, and what even is justice and liberation. As a Marxist-Leninist I have critical support for anti-imperialist countries even when they have reactionary policies like criminalising homosexuality. Does that mean I support homophobia and the oppression of queer people? No. But someone who doesn't see the strategic necessity of supporting anti-imperialist countries is likely to interpret that as apologia for state persecution of gay people
So when it comes to a label defining someone's values vs their strategy, that does depend on the individual and the label. Labels themselves are flexible and varying. And as I said, I know people I agree with on principle but have different strategy to and thus we label ourselves differently. But the relationship between the two is very influential as well
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