When a leftist, or progressive says “tankie” it is different from what the mainstream media perceives. It (tankie) indicates someone who is overzealously supportive of non-Western imperialist countries such as Russia and China and denies their atrocities.
Also, the term developed from the tanks deplored by the user to invade Hungary and denote people who supported such action.
Usually people who advocate military communism, such as defending tiananmen square, Stalin, and more. Basically it’s usually the belief that anything a government professing to be communist does must be good.
I should emphasize that a lot of pro-Western outlets and commentators have recently weaponised the term to discredit any diverging points of view re-the Ukraine War. So someone like Cornel West would be a “tankie” by this point of view, which is actually kind of disgusting in how dishonest it is.
No one is suggesting that the states the authoritarian communists replaced were good or functional, just that they failed to actually uplift and make people’s lives better. There’s nothing to admire about one oppressive state being replaced by another.
196 is a shitpost sub where you must post something when you vist
a tankie is a authoritarian that believes they’re a communist. they support the imperialist invasion of Ukraine, and they deny the tianaman square massacre, where the CCP ran tanks over college students protesting the authoritarian government. they deny a bunch of other atrocities as well, these are the only two i can think of right now.
a lot of tankies are going to be posting an essay by Engles that defends authoritarianism, asserting that authoritarianism is compatible with communism. which, while sure, isn’t ideal because one person having power always ends in genocide. well, it doesn’t end in genocide, genocide just… happens under authoritarianism.
Tankie is a pejorative label for communists, particularly Stalinists, who support the authoritarian tendencies of Marxism–Leninism or, more generally, authoritarian states associated with Marxism–Leninism in history. The term was originally used by dissident Marxist–Leninists to describe members of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) who followed the party line of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Specifically, it was used to distinguish party members who spoke out in defense of the Soviet use of tanks to crush the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the 1968 Prague Spring uprising, or who more broadly adhered to pro-Soviet positions.
Honest question - what’s a tankie? I feel like I’ve seen them mentioned a ton on Lemmy but I’d never heard the term prior to a few days ago. From the image it looks like a maga/skinhead combo?
They’re communists, but not your every day “people should hold the power” communists. More like “tianenmen never happened, and if it did it wasn’t that bad” type
Tankie was first used for that kind of communist supporter who kept singing Russia’s praises/defending Russia even when Russia was sent 5000 tanks to crush a popular uprising in Czechoslovakia (the “Prague Spring”) on August 20, 1968. Some people just couldn’t accept that a communist country could do something bad, so defended the action.
Nowadays, it’s used to refer to those that are strongly supportive of Russia, completely ignoring the awful things they do. Often these days there’s a lot of anti American bent to it. Like, anything anti America and American “imperialism” must be good - even blatant and awful Russian Imperialism.
These days they calmly explain how Ukraine just needs to come to the table and discuss peace (ignoring that Ukraine wouldn’t exist if they did so) and blame America for the war in Ukraine for… well… they’re America. The people who want war, or are causing the war, are those giving Ukraine weapons - not the country that is literally invading it.
It’s not entirely the same though. Some of the “tankies” in the West seem to be Maoists more than Stalinists, as far as I can tell. Besides, some (many?) Stalinists also consider the term “Stalinist” derogatory, and prefer to call themselves “Marxist-Leninists”.
Agree with you in general, but I think a lot if people here are not really informed what differences there are materialistic ideologies.
Yes, Stalin bad.
But Guevara is not Stalin.
Marx is not che
Engels is not Marx
China is not communist.
Marxism is not materialism
Socialism is not communism
Also the amount of people bringing the “the 3 times people tried socialism were bad, so the whole ideology must be bad” argument are way to high IMHO.
How many times was capitalism tried? How many times it worked out? Is the USA a “functioning” state with all the oppression, racism, greed, invading other countries out of monetarian interest and environment destruction?
While I agree with you, that oppression is bad, no matter what the oppressor calls himself, we should talk about policies without resorting to dogmas and generalising people in favor of fear the hegemonic class is propagating to stay in power.
Not to say they’re a perfect country but to pretend that anyone in the West can critique them when their material conditions are dictated by the actions of the West is just comical.
If you aren’t a materialist, what are you even doing? As if history happens in the realm of pure thought…
Something something worlds largest prison population?
Again, it’s not like North Korea is some shining example or anything, but to pretend that the west has the moral high ground here is laughable.
Again, listen to Blowback Season 3, recognize that their country was basically bombed to the stone age Curtis le may style and then maybe reevaluate, just a little, the chauvinist attitude.
DPRK is not a great country but it’s not as if they were ever given a chance either.
When a liberal says “tankie” they mean anything remotely communist-looking. When a leftist says “tankie”, they mean authoritarians who like red flags and self-proclaimed communists who nonetheless support hierarchies and have no plan or intention to bring them down. I think the vast majority of people here knows this already.
Is the USA a “functioning” state with all the oppression, racism, greed, invading other countries out of monetarian interest and environment destruction?
I hope you realize that this is an incredibly privileged take. The US is rife with issues, but the hardships experienced by the average western citizen doesn’t even compare to the suffering that you would find in, say, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, or (to a less extreme extent) Maduro’s Venezuela. To compare what a US citizen deals with on a daily basis due to capitalism to what a citizen of any of those countries had to go through is very reductive and may be perceived as disrespectful to many who had to live those experiences.
The US is rife with issues, but the hardships experienced by the average western citizen doesn’t even compare to the suffering that you would find in, say, Pol Pot’s Cambodia
I have some fellas from Detroit that would disagree.
Killing millions and being dysfunctional are in a different realm of terrible. I’m sorry, but how did you come to the conclusion that they are even comparable?
oh dear here we go. off the top of my head, there is of course, canada, usa (native americans), israel (palestinians), nazi germany (jewish people, PoC, queer people, communists, and a whole bunch of others)(it mightve called itself socialist but was still very much capitalist), china (uyghur people) (also might call itself communist but they literally have billionaires and a fucking stock market, cmon)
I view nazi germany and china quite a bit different from real capitalist societies. Simply having a stock market doesn’t mean the markets are free to function as they please.
I also tend to disagree with canada and usa being genocidial at this point in time. For sure they did horrific things, but comparing usa to nazi germany or current day china is delusional, as the US country’s government is not actively killing a part of their own population.
What rubs me the wrong way in these conversations is mentioning capitalism as a system that commits the genocide. Both germany and china are/were state driven, and as such the markets didn’t really have anything to do with the actions. Instead the genocide is driven by the government that is/was authoritarian, and as such the markets aren’t driving the killing.
The one country I agree with being a free market and genocidial is Israel.
The United States, for all it’s faults, is the pretty side of capitalism.you don’t even need to look to the most poor countries to see a standard of living that makes even directly post ww2 soviet union look like a great place.
Well of course the standard of living in the imperial core is higher than the countries it has exploited or destabilized. A lot of American wealth is the fruit of imperialism.
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