edit: this is now closed future comments won’t be counted
I keep seeing this instance is overrun with tankies so hey, lets do an informal survey like I’ve seen on hexbear
respond with YES or NO in the first line of your comment and i’ll tally everything in a couple of days, lets say I’ll try and collect everything on the sunday the 9th (10+gmt sorry)
not sure thisll work, be nice, have fun
no. I’m probably a communist but authoritarianism can fucking shove it
At what point does a leftist system become authoritarian? Where is the line? Is it just a vibe check, or is there a definitive metric we can check?
I mean that’s a good question but there’s no reason to apply it just to leftist governments
There is, for the purpose of this question.
You have separated “Authoritarians” from the rest of “Communists.” At what point does Communism become authoritarian?
I’m framing this question in this manner to try to understand what you believe Communism should look like in a manner that goes against what people often described as tankies want it to look like.
The line is when the communist system collapses as usual and a dictatorship seizes power.
So Cuba, China, Vietnam, and the DPRK are by your definition not authoritarian, got it.
Does that make you a tankie?
I’m not from this instance, so probably not totally relevant to this poll, that said
NO, I’m not a tankie.
I think, however, it’s worth considering that a lot of people that could be considered tankies probably wouldn’t apply the term to themselves, and that could skew the results of your poll. First of all, tankie is sort of a pejorative term, and many wouldn’t want to apply it to themselves for that reason alone. Secondly a lot of people just may not consider themselves to be a tankie, and genuinely do not recognize their own tankieness.
I don’t think I’m the guy to come up with a definitive checklist of what does or does not make someone a tankie, but for the sake of getting the conversation going (and feel free to disagree with me here, I welcome the discussion) I think two of the biggest hallmarks of being a tankie are
-
Communism- not all communists are tankies, but all tankies at least claim to subscribe to some sort of communist ideology.
-
Authoritarianism- tankies either are authoritarians themselves, or are willing to support or overlook authoritarians as long as they see them as being in some way opposed to “the west”/capitalism/etc.
I think the authoritarianism aspect is going to trip some people up trying to answer this truthfully. A lot of authoritarians probably wouldn’t consider themselves authoritarians, most people like to think they’re standing for freedom, justice, liberty, equality, etc. even if their actual actions tell another story. Don’t get me wrong, there are people out there who are openly authoritarian and proud of it, but a lot of authoritarians are a little brainwashed to the point they’ve lost sight of what they’re actually supporting (take a look at the MAGA crowd, they think they’re about free speech and anti-censorship but want to keep books they don’t like out of libraries, they think they’re about small government but want to regulate what kind of medical care you can get, they think they stand for law and order but also proudly proclaim that they are all domestic terrorists and have a convicted felon as their poster boy)
And politics are messy, full of moral grey areas and times where you have to choose between the lesser of two evils, make uncomfortable alliances, difficult choices, and kick some cans further down the road to deal with later while you tackle the current crisis. It’s not always easy or feasible to draw a crisp line in the sand and say “we will not ally with/support/turn a blind eye to these authoritarian regimes,” sometimes you have to play a little bit of the “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” game if you want to actually make any progress against that enemy, or you may have to prioritize and deal with something else before you deal with them. There is a whole lot of grey area to explore about when, why, how, how long, and how much you can support or ignore them before you’re advancing their cause as much or more than your own.
I think there’s probably some tankies who have been taken for a ride on the propaganda wagon and don’t truly realize how authoritarian they are, and there’s others who have justified it, thinking that they’re only going to be/support authoritarians temporarily to achieve a specific goal and will pivot away from that later, but have gone too far or keep moving the goalposts.
Couple last thoughts from me.
There can always be bad actors who are falsely claiming to be (or not to be) tankies for their own purposes. Not really much you can do about that.
Personally, a lot of the criticism I’ve seen about tankies here has been directed towards the mods and admins, not necessarily the rank average users.
-
What’s the definition of tankie ?
It originally meant someone who supported the USSR’s intervention in the 1956 Hungarian revolution. Now it means whatever the labeler wants it to mean, usually as a means of punching left.
Dealers choice, no wait thats me, colour me surprised, it feels like one of those words that basically means whatever you want it to mean ay this point, answer the question bub ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Removed by mod
beep beep beep
Salty takie calling others Nazi… Cope harder 😏
If you don’t want to be called a nazi, simply don’t have the same opinion of communists as adolf eichmann. it’s that easy!
Lmao
If you are commie then you must love sending people to gulags, right ?
it’s that easy!
Cool, face the wall lib.
Ahhh, only tankie haters are libs ??
I must have forgoten the memo 🙄
deleted by creator
Explained in this post to !nostupidquestions@lemmy.world.
Supposedly it is a pejorative label applied to authoritarian communists, particularly Marxist–Leninist socialists. I presume it is the “pejorative” part that people do not like, b/c many of the places labelled as tankies by others unabashedly do precisely that!
I’ve only used the term twice myself, both kinda self-questioning what it even means, but if it is truly pejorative, then I should stop regardless.
I wouldn’t feel bad using a pejorative for fascists. Neither do I feel bad using a pejorative for other authoritarians. Their disrespect for human dignity, liberty, and worth disqualifies them for protection against such a minor indignity.
Tankies is fine for anyone on the side of the tanks at Tiananmen Square.
That’s not even where the term originates. Come on, if you’re going to use the term at least do the 10 second Google search.
People who root for the tanks when pictures of tiananmen square are posted.
“The term ‘tankie’ 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 suppress the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the 1968 Prague Spring, or who more broadly adhered to pro-Soviet positions.”
See: Tankie - Wikipedia
Anarchist. I look forward to being kill by tankies moments after the revolution.
No. I’m a non-tendency leftist. But I disagree with tankies being labelled as “fascists”. They’re not. They’re just Marxist-Leninists/Stalinists and I find their views pretty consistent with orthodox ML-ism.
I agree with this. I see a lot of people erroneously label tankies “fascist,” but fascism is an entirely distinct ideology with different end goals.
I also wouldn’t call myself a tankie, although I’ve received some nasty DMs calling me one, which is somewhat humorous to me since I identify most with anarchism. I feel like some people think a tankie is defined as “anyone to the left of Ronald Reagan.”
yes
but no in the way you mean
No
To clear definitions, at least for me"tankies" are a subset of communists, who praises/defends the actions of all/most communist states far more than similar actions from capitalist states. The difference between communists and tankies is a bias in favor of communist states when looking at things like human rights violations. Very few people will self identify as a tankie, since it’s hard to see your own bias.
So Tankies are just Communists sympathetic towards other Communists? What would a non-tankie Communist look like?
Supporting communism’s ideas, while still fairly condemning terrible things done by historical attempts at implementing it.
What constitutes “fairly?” Maybe because I am on Lemmy.ml and thus can see Hexbear and Lemmygrad, I don’t think I’ve seen many people genuinely refusing to condemn horrible or tragic events within Communist countries or by Communists. Perhaps a vast minority, but at that point, why is this even an issue in the first place?
Are there examples of “good” Communists that aren’t tankies that you can point me to?
NO. Not a fan of the current or former CCP or the former Soviet Union
i am a meat popsicle
Wrong answer
I have a new favorite description for human that I hear today: terrified electric meat. Perfectly sums up the human experience
NO
I like having no boots on my neck, not just changing out what demographic is wearing it
Idk. I’m really bad at history and such cause I never pay attention. I used to take everything I saw on the internet at face value, so I decided to slow down on current news. Doesn’t help that I like programming and video games a lot, so I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about world events.
I just like communities that are tolerant and won’t let people bully the lgbt or the disabled. It feels less tiring.
Believe it or not, some people would call you a tankie for that.
I never got called a tankie, so idk about that.
Then again, I rarely participate in political discussions that I don’t know about. I try to read as much as possible to get an idea, but I never go in dept, like read sources.
I’m going to go to uni soon. I’ll try to spend more time into learning history properly.
Good!
Let me know if you want some basic Marxist recommendations.
I was thinking of diving head first into das kapital. I’m not sure if 3 courses of philosophy are enough. I was going to ask my philosophy teacher about it, but I’m a bit scared to ask haha.
I would be glad to get some recommendations though.
I def recommend against starting with das kapital, at least until the advanced / intermediate stages. Its a slog, and not really the best introduction.
Here’s a Marxism study plan, with a good number of audiobooks / audiobook torrents for them.
Ok. Thanks a lot for the audio books aswell!
No probs!
You can absolutely do that, but it may be extremely difficult.
I would personally recommend starting with The Principles of Communism and then following it up with How Marxism Works. Then, you can dive into Wage Labor and Capital and Value, Price, and Profit.
With the easy overviews of Marxism as a whole, and the Marxist critique of Capitalism out of the way, I would go to Socialism: Utopian and Scientific for philosophy, and Critique of the Gotha Programme for Marx’s vision of what Socialism may look like. Read the Communist Manifesto now, where you have the background knowledge to fully understand the text and appreciate its fire.
Optionally, add Lenin here. Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism explains how Capitalism has grown since Marx, using ideas laid out by Marx but not fully observable until Lenin. I would say this is actually the most important work for understanding Modern Capitalism, but since it builds on Marx, it’s important to read this one after Marx. The State and Revolution is Lenin’s other major work, and it goes over the strategy used during the Russian Revolution. Important for historical context, even if you disagree with Lenin here.
All of this combined is, I believe, shorter than 1 full volume of Capital.
Hope that helps!
Thanks a lot for taking your time to send me all of that. It always shocks me how much all of you know so much about several texts and all.
I’ll try my best to read through all of this.
Imma be honest chief, I’m just a nerd for Socialism and Communism. That’s really it, haha.
Let me know if you have any questions!
Yes.
The last time I smiled was on August 19th, 1991. I wear a dirty ushanka at all times, do not shave, and only take cold sponge baths because hot running water is bourgeoisie decadence. Every day at exactly noon I have the same meal of an expired Maoist MRE I store in a pit covered in old issues of a revolutionary newspaper. I sleep in a bed made of flags from every failed revolution so that they are never forgotten. In the evenings I stare at a picture of vodka by candlelight, but I do not allow myself to drink because there is nothing to celebrate. Every local org has banned me after I attempted to split it by assassinating the leadership. There is no plumbing in my house I shit in a brass bucket with a picture of Gonzalo and Deng french kissing in the bottom of it. My house is actually an overturned T34 in an abandoned junkyard in Wisconsin. I have a single friend in this world and it is a tapeworm named Bordiga that I met after ingesting spoiled borscht on 9/11 in the ruins of building 7 (I blew it up after finding that a nominally leftist NGO inside of it wasn’t sufficiently anti-imperialist, the attacks on the world trade center were a perfect revolutionary moment for me to enact direct praxis against liberalism). My source of income is various MLM schemes in the former soviet bloc that have been running for so long no one remembers who I am, they just keep sending money. I have not paid taxes since McGovern lost the Democratic nomination for president and my faith in electoralism died more brutally than my childhood dog after it got into an entire jar of tylenol. I own 29 fully automatic rusted kalashnikovs and three crates of ammunition entirely incompatible with them or any other firearms I own. My double PHD in marxist economics and 18th century Swiss philosophy (required to understand Engels) sits over the fireplace of my home, my fireplace is a salvaged drum from a 1950s washing machine that was recalled for locking children inside of it. I chose that washing machine model on purpose because I am anti-natalist. During the latest BLM protests I firebombed a Nikes outlet in the middle of a peaceful candlelit vigil. William F Buckley and I wrote hatemail to one another for 47 years until my final letter gave him an aneurysm. The only water I drink is from puddles. George Lucas and I dropped acid together during an MKULTRA southern baptist summer camp and he went on to write the movie Willow about our time together. The best way to test whether an electrical wire is live is to drool on it and shrimp salad is racist. You can make an IED out of potassium and the instructions are online thanks to Timothy McVey, who was actually a committed antifascist communist slandered by the deep state as part of operation condor. Every time a liberal files a restraining order against me, I carve a mark into the wall. I am running out of walls. When Amerika finally collapses I will be ready to lead the revolution. I am very smart and people like being around me.
A ridiculous question. “Tankie” isn’t a term anyone self-identifies with, it’s mostly a term used by liberals to hurl at anyone to the left of them or anyone who agrees with western foreign policy. The survey results will be as meaningless as the term “tankie” itself.
NO
When the current government is not doing a very good job at maximizing the happiness of its citizens, it’s a natural reaction to look for answers from a different type of government. America has some enormous problems with capitalism as it currently operates, and communism offers solutions to many of those problems. The issue is the top-down power structure. Democracy keeps the most power in the hands of the general population, and i will always oppose giving that up. Beyond that, I’m open to any solutions for modern problems, public or private.
I really recommend asking this question on lemmygrad or hexbear, bc you’ll get really good in-depth answers about the nature and differences between what’s labelled as “democracy” in capitalist countries, vs the reality of whether citizens of a capitalist dictatorship have anything resembling democracy.
American democracy definitely needs to be improved (ranked 36 in the world), but do you think I have less of a voice in the election process than I would under communism?
Ask these questions over on lemmygrad or hexbear, you’ll get good answers.
If you oppose top-down structures, then why do you support Capitalism over Communism?
I support democracy and oppose authoritarianism. Capitalism needs better regulations today, but I don’t believe that the government controlling all business would lead to anything besides more authoritarianism.
Why? Capitalism can’t be democratic.
No it can’t because it’s not a form of government, it’s just an economic system. Communism is both a type of government and an economic system. That means concentrated power.
Capitalism has liberal democracy.
Are you saying that because Workers have absolutely no economic control in Capitalism, it’s more democratic than when they do? Are you genuinely making that argument?
