Good read, gives me a lot of hope for this project.
I look forward to an exciting future with all of you.
(Also- hopefully this wasn’t posted already)
https://join-lemmy.org/news/2023-06-17_-_Update_from_Lemmy_after_the_Reddit_blackout
This was written by the Lemmy devs.
Another phrase for Tankie ideology is Red Fascism.
I’d specifically like to highlight that someone who was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp - so has firsthand experience with a fascist regime - described the Soviets as the following, emphasis mine:
So in what ways exactly is a tankie not a fascist?
“We did not hesitate to shoot thousands of people, and we shall not hesitate, and we shall save the country.” - Vladimir Lenin
https://www.britannica.com/event/Holodomor
The State
Lenin;Stalin
Five year plan
Cheka secret police.
If Tankies are not fascists - then neither were Nazi’s.
Communism is on the left, Fascism or on the right. Purely from an academic perspective talking about Red Fascists is like debating virginity of a prostitute lol
If we’re going to get academic about it, the political compass is an imprecise tool and it’s a fool’s errand to take an absolutist approach to assigning political ideologies on the spectrum. :P Just because an ideology is generally in the authoritarian-socialist quadrant doesn’t mean it can’t crib notes from a philosophy in a different quadrant. The authoritarian axis is more anchoring here than socialist/conservative.
“Tankies” are not communists, they are fascists with red masks on
This is like a small child’s understanding of politics
I mean if you want to get academic about it - I suggest you talk to some people in academia. Nearly all of those who say “Fascism is different.” self-describe themselves as Marxists or are Stalinist apologists - such as Michael Parenti or Sheila Fitzpatrick. Gee, I wonder why Marxists would want to distance Communism (and more specifically - Stalinism) from being compared with other fascists regimes like the Nazis. Maybe they don’t like how it makes them look bad?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Nazism_and_Stalinism
No really - read the above link and anyone who is cited as saying Stalinism isn’t fascism check their wiki profile. Without a doubt they’re a self-described Marxist. They’re quite literally the only people who deny that Stalinism was a form of fascism and play apologists for all the atrocities that took place.
A disturbing amount of Communists see attacks on Stalinism as an attack on Communism and so make all sorts of mental gymnastics to defend Stalinism.
Edit:
I much prefer the “That wasn’t real Communism!” brand of Communists over the “That was real Communism and here’s why the mass murder they did was justified or never happened (despite being well-documented by the Stalinists/Maoists themselves)!” brand of Communists.
Man, I really appreciate this post and I think tankies are absolutely authoritarian turd burglars. Calling them red fascists is fine and maybe that’s how history will know them.
I know there’s a lot of diverse thought on what makes a fascist and many definitions try to distinguish it from run of the mill genocidal authoritarianism.
That’s why I chose to distinguish tankies and fascists. I broadly think they have different goals, beliefs and methodologies, though the damage they’ve wrought is remarkably similar. At the end of the day, if we look at results, it’s probably just as fair to lump them in together.
I don’t like lumping them together because in my experience current tankies tend to be people who want good things, but are wrong about large chunks of history and current events. Fascists just want power and to enforce oppression so go with whatever story or lie they think will get them there as truth is immaterial to them.
That also describes civilians living in Germany during Hitler’s reign. They were swept along with the populist zeal until they found their children passively picking up racial slurs and their neighbors competing to report on each other. This is why it’s important to focus not just on the end result of Nazi fascism (the Holocaust), but the path that led there and the parallels that can be found in modern day societies. (both western and eastern)
Tankies isn’t a cute catch-all term for Communists who do have various goals, beliefs, and methodologies of how to transition to, create, and maintain a Communist state. They’re Stalinists and/or Maoists who deny well-documented genocides and claim that everything against their ideology is a Western conspiracy theory and the only correct sources of information come from Russia and/or China. In a similar way that Neo-Nazi’s claim everything is a Jewish conspiracy theory and the only correct sources of information come from their biased as all hell Alt-Right/Neo-Nazi sources like Stormfront.
This is the exact type of ignorance that I’m talking about when I say people defend Tankies because they were taught the Holocaust in school but never taught about the Holodomor.
E: “The US government is evil so the people the US says are the bad guys must actually be the good guys and are undoubtedly correct about everything. There is no such thing as CCP or Soviet propaganda - that’s propaganda from the CIA. Read this article from the CCP explaining it all.”