• oatscoop@midwest.social
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        1 year ago

        The term originates from Soviet and aligned regimes sending in tanks to brutally crush protests and rebellions. E.g. The Hungarian Revolution, The Prague Spring Uprising, Tiananmen Square, etc. Some communists were disgusted at their fellows for cheering on said oppression (“Send in the tanks!”) and started calling them Tankies.

        Tankies fellate oppressive regimes and dictators. They’re the smooth-brained “communists” that live in a binary world where anything “their side” does is good and anything the west does is “evil”. They’ll claim any criticism of historically “communist” countries like China and Russia is a CIA talking point … because they’re idiots.

        TL;DR – they’re the MAGAts of the left.

        • Zuzak [fae/faer, she/her]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          Random observation but I find it kind of interesting how the talking points anti-tankies tend to bring up are things that, even if the worst allegations are accepted, are relatively minor compared to some other events you could bring up. I’ve heard so much about Tienanmen Square under Deng, but much less about the Cultural Revolution under Mao. And the Hungarian Revolution and the Prague Spring happened under Khrushchev and Brezhnev respectively, when there’s much worse stuff you could bring up about Stalin.

          I can’t help but think that this conflicts with the supposed definition of tankie of just knee-jerk defending anything someone does if they wave a red flag. If that were actually true, wouldn’t you focus on the most extreme examples by the most extreme leaders? The fact that there’s so much focus on people like Khrushchev and Deng, who were both more moderate than their predecessors, seems more like the point of the word is specifically to attack people who might have a more favorable view of those more moderate figures, while being critical of their predecessors’ actions.

          Which is to say, tankie isn’t actually meant to be directed towards someone who knee-jerk defends anyone with a red flag, but rather, it’s meant to be directed towards someone who defends anything at all about anyone at all with a red flag, by accusing them of being the former. In other words, it’s a word that demands the exact kind of knee-jerk response it’s supposedly criticizing, just in the other direction.

          In fact, it’s particularly interesting that these accusations of ideological rigidity and blind loyalty are in reference to Khrushchev, who did nothing but criticize Stalin, and Deng who controversially said that Mao was “70% good, 30% bad.” I don’t think it’s even possible for someone to defend everything done by both Stalin and Khrushchev

          • BeamBrain [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            “An actual communist is someone who hates any communist movement that has actually managed to successfully overthrow its country’s ruling class and take power,” I say without a hint of irony

    • carl_marks_1312 [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Too bad instances can’t defederate HB.

      Can you please elaborate?

      They seem to not understand that they’re tankies.

      Tankie is a social construct and is used to lazily discredit everyone to the left of bernie. It functions to libs the same way as “woke” functions for chuds. As a term it’s basically meaningless to anyone outside of the internet.

      • BigNote@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I love how you guys have decided that your definitions are the only correct ones. It’s your primary weapon here, for obvious reasons.

        • carl_marks_1312 [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          I love how you guys have decided that your definitions are the only correct ones.

          You’re strawmaning hard here, because I never said it’s a definition or that it’s the only one. It’s just my understanding of the term. What part of it is wrong in your opinion? I want to consider it

          It’s your primary weapon here, for obvious reasons.

          Because it’s obvious that when you’re challenged on your understanding of words you have nothing to say?

      • FluffyPotato@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I have only seen it used in reference to people who support dictatorial regimes with socialist aesthetics, mostly MLs. I have yet to see an anarchist be called a tankie. Also you can hear it IRL, not commonly though since most MLs are on twitter and the like and not IRL.

        • Annakah69 [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          Based on your answer, I’ve discovered what tankie means: Tankie = Marxist.

          Successful Marxist movement results in a dictatorship of the proletariat. Dictator = tankie.

          Hence tankie is a term used to describe any Marxist.

          Thanks for contributing to this scientific breakthrough!

          • FluffyPotato@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            Nah, first premise is false in more than one way. You are conflating the ideology Stalin made with Marxism.

            The second error is that there has never been a dictatorship of the proletariat, every time it has been a political party that seizes power for themselves and not the workers. In doing so they become the ruling class with differing class interests than the workers.

            Marx must be rotating in his grave with the speed to power the whole globe at this point.

            • WideningGyro [any]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              Yeah, clearly the Soviet, Chinese and Cuban workers had completely different interests than being raised out of poverty and squalor. Damn those dastardly political parties and their… diligent work towards eradictaing poverty while promoting actual, decentralized democracy.

              • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                Well, Cubans still live in pretty close proximity to squalor. They can’t even afford to maintain their own buildings, don’t have a functional transportation system, and people live on what, $20 a month? The one saving grace is out there health care system is decent. And by that, I mean much more equitable than in the United States.

              • FluffyPotato@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                Do you believe capitalism is good because it helped some people? The whole point of socialism is to put the means of production into the hands of the workers and not a vanguard party. Yea, the USSR did quite a lot of imperialism which it used to reduce income inequality of the Russian people but it was never socialist.

            • Annakah69 [she/her]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              You didn’t do the reading :(. Dictatorship of the proletariat is a concept Marx and Engles adopted. Stalin didn’t create it.

              I don’t know what you think the proletariat taking control of the state is suppose to look like, but there will always be a communist party involved. The mechanisms of power exist to be ruled by a party.

              Communist parties should be judged by what they do for their poorest citizens. With that in mind, AES countries are doing a decent job. Things get better when they are in power, and get way worse if they are overthrown

              • FluffyPotato@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                You’re wrong, what Marx talked about was the whole class of workers being in power. Stalin perverted that idea to a vanguard party. Stalin’s system has always resulted in a ruling class composed of a class that was no longer the proletariat (if they even were to begin with). That system is not socialist, it is in fact no better than a capitalist system, as the hierarchies at work are equally unjust.

        • carl_marks_1312 [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          I have only seen it used in reference to people who support dictatorial regimes with socialist aesthetics, mostly MLs.

          yet to see an anarchist be called a tankie

          https://hexbear.net/post/214901

          https://hexbear.net/post/374789

          https://hexbear.net/post/126901

          There’s more in the_dunk_tank if you’re willing to dig

          https://hexbear.net/c/the_dunk_tank

          Pro Tip: Sort by Top All. Anarchists getting called tankie tends to get a lot of upbears because we have anarchist comrades on our instance. We’re a left unity instance

          https://hexbear.net/search?q=tankie&type=All&listingType=All&communityId=31&page=1&sort=TopAll

          • FluffyPotato@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            No idea what the first link is even about, seems incomprehensible. The second link seems true but I have no idea what was said prior. The third link is about programming. Seems there is one potential example of an anarchist being called a tankie. Seems like the vast majority of times it’s being used in reference to MLs still.

            In all seriousness there are plenty of people who misuse words but tankie seems to have a very clear and easily defined definition, it has even remained the same historically. Comparing it to the crazies using ‘woke’ is dishonest at best.

            • Nakoichi [they/them]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              it has even remained the same historically

              lmao no it hasn’t. It originally referred specifically to people that supported the USSR putting down the Hungarian anti-communist protests. By the time “tankie” became a word (that only really ever had relevance in the UK) Stalin was long dead.

              • FluffyPotato@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                Yea, people that supported a dictatorial regime with socialist aesthetics as in the USSR. What part of that has changed?

                  • FluffyPotato@lemm.ee
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                    1 year ago

                    It really depends on which bourgeois democracy. I may agree if compared to the US (I’m not too educated on the US so I could be wrong) but few others.

                    Though I fail to understand how that has anything to do with the topic of tankie having a consistent definition.

    • Annakah69 [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Have fun worshipping the machinery of enslavement and death. As it crushes you, I hope it comforts you knowing at least you weren’t a tankie.