Of course this isn’t the only time he denigrates misnagdim in his memoirs. IT’s part of his purpose in writing the book!
If you’ll notice, the Frierdiker Rebbe doesn’t deingrate all misnagdim. If you’d have read his Sichos carefully, you’ll notice that he never denigrated the Gra[1], for example, and neither did he denigrate the Nodah BeYehuda, Reb Chaim Volozhiner, the Shaagas Arye, the Toras Yekusiel, and all the more so the latter Frum non-Chassidic Rabbonim (Where does the Frierdiker talk bad about Reb Chaim Brisker or the Chofetz Chaim? Where does he bad mouth the Beis Heilivi or Reb Chaim Ozer?) To the best of my knowledge, almost none of the Misnagdim there were named!!
But the main thing is that among the “Misnagdim” (which just means “those opposed to Chassidim[2]”) there were two camps:
1. There were the Frum Misnagdim. People like the Gra, who opposed Chassidus because he was scared that what the Baal Shem Tov started was a way to get people OTD.
2. There were the Maskilish Misnagdim – around the time of the Alter Rebbe and the Gra the Haskala movement was getting started in Russia, and while at that time they were still technically and culturally frum, they were holding on by a thread. Really, all they had in common with the Frum Misnagdim was that they kept the same Nusach, learned Gemara studiously, and were against “Pnimiyus HaTorah for the masses”. But since they externally looked frum, they ended up getting lumped together with the “Frum Misnagdim” into one basket called “Misnagdim”.
So though they did the same things, they had diametrically opposed goals:
Frum Misnagdim davened Nusach Ashkenaz because of Minhag Avoseinu. Maskilim davened Nusach Ashkenaz because “why not”. Frum Misnagdim learned Gemara because “Talmud Torah Keneged Kulam” while the Maskilim learned Gemara because it’s intellectually much more stimulating than the Zohar. Frum Misnagdim held that Kabbalah should be learned after one is full of Shas and Poskim, while the Maskillim felt that there’s no point learning it anyways, as it’s all (Ch V”sh) nonsense.
So if you’ll notice the people the Frierdiker Rebbe had issues with, it’s the Maskilim and the proto-Maskilim. People who didn’t care to Daven and were just being Yotzei Zain and people who were learning hard so they’d be able to find the biggest Kullos. That doesn’t sound like the Brisker Derech to me.
Within a few decades (around the time of the Tzemach Tzedek), the Maskilim went public, and it’s interesting that right after that the Charomim ended and the Frum Litvishers started working with Chassidim (including Lubavitch).
But the truth is, I don’t remember ever seeing him say anything about those who had a machlokes on him. He just never brought it up.
And you know what, I think that quite impressive.
[1]. If anything, we say that he was a tremendous Gaon and the Tzemach Tzedek quotes his works on Niglah. The only thing is that he made a mistake[3] about what Chassidus was.
[2]. They didn’t just oppose the Alter Rebbe, by the way. The Charomim started in the Baal Shem Tov and Mezritcher Maggid’s times.
[3]. Considering that you’re a Chossid, I’d assume that you’d agree that your Rebbe’s Rebbe’s Rebbe wasn’t a Koifer and a Min.
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