Communists who glorify murderous regimes or dictators.
“I’m saying that, when a communist does it, it’s not an atrocity.”
If we wanted to mess up scansion for the sake of correctness, “when someone who calls themselves a communist.”
Best way to explain it is to give a link to a really good definition I read. Here it is, and it’s in-depth and gives you a real understanding of them.
Communist philosophy has a lot of really useful analytical tools. It describes and criticizes society, especially capitalist society, in a very sharp and insightful way. People should read and learn it because it’s interesting, useful stuff that is easily applied to modern politics.
Communist philosophy also calls for a (typically violent) revolution involving an authoritarian transition to get rid of capitalist society and usher in the future collective state. When a violent revolution is being called for in (mostly) functional democracies, that should usher in some skepticism from a normal, reasonable person.
The tankies reallllllly seem to like the violence, though, and are extremely supportive of any state that claims to be communist regardless of what atrocities that state commits along the way. They will be intensely defensive against any criticism (criticisms like “maybe Stalin shouldn’t have starved millions of people to death through incompetence and genocidal inclinations”, “maybe Mao shouldn’t have wiped out all the doctors and artists”, “maybe Putin shouldn’t be allowed to try and annex Ukraine”, etc.).
At some point, it becomes hard to properly separate these supposedly “authoritarian left” types from the “authoritarian right” fascists. Political compasses are stupid anyway.
Political compasses are stupid anyway.
It’s a political torus. Walk of one end and you end up in the other
Authoritarian communists. Think Stalinists, and people who support regimes like the CCP. The top left of the political compass.
Does the word Tankie comes from the tanks in tinnamen square?
Tankie refers to the when Russia sent tanks in Hungary to stop them from setting up a communist government that didn’t follow their particular communist ideology.
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 crush the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the 1968 Prague Spring uprising, or who more broadly adhered to pro-Soviet positions.[5][6]
Sort of but the talkie part originated from a Russian invasion of some country
Ironic since they running out of tanks.
So should the opposite faction be called tractorie?
The Hungarian Revolution of 1956, which was crushed by Soviet tanks.
How ironic that Hungary is now Russia’s pawn in the EU.
Another layer of irony, US conservatives love Viktor Orban of Hungary and even I had him speak at CPAC.
A few days ago Hungary’s minister of foreign affairs said that if Trump was president the war in Ukraine never would have happened because Putin feared Trump too much. What a fucking joke, can’t decide which dick to suck.
Except Russia and China aren’t even pretending ti be communist.
Russia is a christo fascist oligarchy.
And China is a corporatist authoritarian state.
This doesn’t stop tankies from being pro-Russia and pro-China. Modern tankies are absolutely happy with oligarchies and gigacorporations running the world, they just hate western society.
In essence, they worship authoritarianism rather than communism itself.
I’d say the difference between a tankie and a socialist is that a socialist wants equality and well-being for everyone and tankies just want people they don’t like to die at the hands of an authoritarian regime, regardless of whether it’s actually a communist regime.
Wikipedia has a good article on this. Basically authoritarian “ends justify the means” leftists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie
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. It is commonly used by libertarian socialists and left communists to criticize Leninists, although the term has seen increasing use by liberals and other non-leftists as well.
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 crush the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the 1968 Prague Spring uprising, or who more broadly adhered to pro-Soviet positions.[5][6]
The term is also used to describe people who endorse, defend, or deny the crimes committed by communist leaders such as Vladimir Lenin,[7][8] Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, and Kim il-Sung. In modern times, the term is used across the political spectrum to describe those who have a bias in favor of authoritarian states with a leftist legacy, such as the People’s Republic of China, the Syrian Arab Republic, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Additionally, tankies have a tendency to support non-socialist states if they are opposed to the United States and the Western world in general, regardless of ideology.[4][9]
Stalinists
Isn’t it really more to do with pro Chinese? The name literally refers to the Tiananmen Square massacre.
It predates Tiananmen square by 3 decades. It comes from the Soviets using tanks in the Hungarian revolution.