"Tankie" is a term referring to authoritarian communists, due to the tendency of authoritarian communist states to use tanks in crushing protesters - such as the Soviet Union crushing Hungarian workers in 1956, or China rolling tanks into Tienanmen Square against student protesters in 1989. "Tankie" is also used for apologists for these regimes.
Tankie is sometimes misused as "Someone to my left I don't like".
the Soviet Union crushing Hungarian workers in 1956
That's where the term comes from. Before that, it was common among the western left to support the Soviet Union and don't allow criticism. When they crushed the Hungarian workers, most western leftist redrew their support, except for tankies. That's where they got their name.
I’d say “often misused” these days. It’s become a common Reddit term to describe anyone left of Obama 🙄
That may be, I haven't been to Reddit in a while. On here, there's some misuse, but a lot of people who it actually does apply to, mostly from .ml anymore; formerly Grad and Hexbear when they were federated. Fuckin' playing apologist for Uyghur genocide, North Korean Juche, saying Hungarian workers were 'fascists' who had to be crushed. Weird stuff. Hate seeing them around.
There was also the 1953 East Germany workers strike
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_German_uprising_of_1953
The current usage refers to people who back dictatorships that call themselves socialist.
Historically, the definition was slightly tighter. A few years after the death of Stalin, the USSR brutally crushed a revolt in Hungary with tanks. The UK's communist party was okay with this. This led to a lot of people leaving the party and calling the people who remained "tankies".
Over time, the term became more broad. A lot of the original users of the term supported Stalin, and would be considered tankies themselves by the modern definition.
It is also sometimes misused. Some people think that dictatorships are the only form that socialism can take. As a consequence, these people call all socialists tankies, including anarchists and demsocs.
Ah ok cool thanks for the clarification, I have been seeing a lot of people calling anyone on the left who is not an anarchist a tankie, and I was getting concerned as a marxist. Like fuck Stalin, and I know plenty of anarchist comrades, but I was worried it was being applied in a too wide brush.
Glad to be of service!
The UK bit makes more sense, I can hear the accent.
I thought it was about the Teineman square tank man with the bags, and Tankie's were on the side of the tanks. I mean it's the same concept but yours goes back further.
I thought similar. I thought these were tankies
Goals
(1) To the extent possible make America the target of criticism. Play down the existence of Taiwan.
(2) Do not directly confront [the idea of] democracy; rather, frame the argument in terms of "what kind of system can truly implement democracy.”
(3) To the extent possible, choose various examples in Western countries of violence and unreasonable circumstances to explain how democracy is not well-suited to capitalism.
(4) Use America's and other countries' interference in international affairs to explain how Western democracy is actually an invasion of other countries and [how the West] is forcibly pushing [on other countries] Western values.
(5) Use the bloody and tear-stained history of a [once] weak people [i.e., China] to stir up pro-Party and patriotic emotions.
(6) Increase the exposure that positive developments inside China receive; further accommodate the work of maintaining social stability.
Try posting a meme critical of Russia's invasion of Ukraine to lemmy.ml's meme community. If it isn't immediately taken down for "rule 1: uncivil", you will catch some people pasting long entries defending Russia in the comments with varying degrees of civility. These will be the ones we call tankies.
It's so goofy that they support modern Russia, a right wing empire that backs fascists worldwide. I get not liking the US or the liberal world order, but Russia trying to build a competing empire is not anti-imperialist. You can't solve imperialism with imperialism. It's like trying to solve capitalism's problems with capitalist solutions.
There isn't even plausible deniability like with the USSR. It's an explicitly ethnocentric government of blood and soil rhetoric 🙄
There isn’t even plausible deniability like with the USSR. It’s an explicitly ethnocentric government of blood and soil rhetoric 🙄
It's insane. Defending Putin's actions even against Putin's own words.
Taken down and banned from a dozen different .ml communities, no less.
I wouldn't assume the long comments defending the Kremlin are coming from actual people.
Sadly, some are. E.g. look at the most downvoted reply in this thread: https://lemmy.world/comment/9919133
It is made by the mod of lemmy.ml comics
And for bonus points, look at the response from the memes community moderator defending him against reports.
I use it to mean any leftist who doesn't think Stalin and Mao were cunts
Not sure about if we should call them left, but I agree with you for the rest.
Tankie is a derogatory used to refer to marxist-leninist specifically because of their belief in the dictatorship of the proletariet. Most people assume this means a single unelected person has complete power over the economy and military but it should not take this form and marxist-leninist "tankies" do not typically advocate for this. The dictatorship of the proletariet only means that the working class both owns the means of production (anything required to produce goods, this can be factories, land, tools, etc.) and dictates the rules/organization of society. This is as opposed to the dictatorship of the bourgeosie (as seen in current liberal democracy) where an unelected minority, the rich, controls the means of production and dictates the rules/organization of society.
As for the origin of the term
'tankie’ emerged in the 1970s as a pejorative term to describe those who supported the Soviet actions in 1968 and was used in internal disputes, especially around the 1977 revamping of the CPGB programme, The British Road to Socialism, where Eurocommunist ideas reached the upper echelons of the party.
Typically though tankie is used to refer to anyone who supports real existing socialism
Okay, it's nice to explain what the difference between a dictatorship of the proletariat and an actual dictatorship is... but a large amount of marxist-leninist countries are literal dictatorships. Xi removed term limits unilaterally. NK is a literal dictatorship, or a absolute monarchy at best. Maduro has run sketchy elections in the past, no comment on the current one yet.
Authoritarian keys to power are incompatible with a fair and just society. Everyone has to steer the ship, or people inevitably get crushed. The less hands steering, the more crushing.
I've been called a tankie for just trying to be clear about what Marxism actually is. I would say I'm sympathetic to Marxists but not one. Having far stronger anarchist sympathies.
But you know, being critical of the usa or saying anything remotely positive about China/the ussr means you are either a Russian bot/op or a tankie.
they're like furries, but for tanks. they make up tanksonas, and wear anthropomorphic tank costumes, got to tankie conventions, and draw lots of art of anthropomorphic tanks. the subculture goes back to the earliest mecha anime, but there are antecedants going back to leonardo da vinci.
I met an antecedent once, it wasn't what I thought it was.
So many tankies in this thread smdh
I don't see a single one? Maybe it's because I blocked the ml instance.
If you can't see the tankie in the room...
Anyone that a Liberal doesn't like (and occasionally anyone a leftist doesn't like)
Tankie is ultimately a distinction from different types of authoritarian fuckwads. I don't call fascists or libs tankies, as while they suck for similar reasons, there are differences. Thankfully, there is a term that encapsulates many of the people I dislike: imperialists.
Bootlicker also works for authoritarians
Different people use it differently so nobody knows anymore. Apparently liberal is bad too now? I've always thought a liberal was the opposite of a conservative. Now it means ... Not sure what it means anymore actually. The left has splintered itself so much recently that nobody is good enough to be left for anyone anymore. If you're even slightly left or right of their opinion, you're a "Trump supporter" even if you hate and never agree with Trump. But since you disagreed with my view slightly, you're a trumper!
No true Scotsman fallacy is happening and nobody is good enough anymore. Even liberals are evil now I guess?
Tankies are people who echo the propaganda Russia and China spew. It originates from members of the Communist Party of Great Britain who slavishly followed the Kremlin line, agreeing with the crushing of revolts in Hungary and later Czechoslovakia by Soviet tanks, being called that.
