this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2025
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Tankie doesn't really mean anything to me anymore. Even self-proclaimed tankies often have trouble defining it in a way that is consistent among leftist groups.
A tankie is anyone to the left of whoever is using the pejorative. Usually because they expressed a critique of imperialism or aren't sufficiently racist towards the Chinese.
This seems to be how I see it used most. I usually stick to calling people tankies when they walk around explicitly talking about how proud they are to be one.
Anyone you see self identifying as a tankie is just fucking around because of how meaningless the term is. If you want to insult a Marxist try directly engaging with whatever it is they're saying that annoys you. You might even learn something along the way.
If you want to insult a Marxist ~~try directly engaging~~ call them a lib.
Knowing Marxists, we also will never shut up lol
Yeah I'm a tankie
I believe in reclaiming "tankie" in the same way as "queer." Schoolyard bullies don't really care to distinguish between the many different labels encompassed by LGBT+, and so they inadvertently invented a term that could be very inclusive and all encompassing, even if you're still figuring out who you are, you call always fall back on "queer" to give the general idea.
In the same way, the term "tankie" gets applied to people of all sorts of different left ideologies. There are significant differences between different leftist ideologies, but our critics don't care to understand or distinguish between them, so I consider tankie to be a similarly inclusive term. Do you support anything that any socialist government has ever done? Do you think Cuba had an effective literacy program? Congratulations, you're a tankie, welcome to the club.
Note that my identifying with the term isn't really an invitation for people to use it. But, you know, if people want to keep using it as this broad, meaningless term that lumps a bunch of people together, as I see it, it only works to our advantage as "tankies," it pushes people towards us and helps us remember what we have in common instead of fighting over our differences. So I'm not exactly going to fight the label particularly hard.
Tankie = derogatory term for Marxist. It's that easy
No, and never was.
Yes, and always was
generally it vaguely means "communists" as well as "anti-imperialists", with the caveat that left communists are excluded as a separate thing
I thought it had to include the pro authoritarian and often pro war aspect of it. So a Marxist/communist or what not wouldn't fall into tankies without the call for an authoritarian leader like Stalin.
Nope, you will get called a tankie if you support Palestine. Tankies are generally anti imperialist war while the squishier social Democrat types are pro-war. Tankie authoritarians were against WW1 while the “lib left” all voted along nationalist lines
This is why I don't think this term will ever really leave usage on the internet moving forward.(not talking about historical use in GB and such). It seems many people believe it means something different. Not that I want it to be a mainstream media term.
Not that stack exchange users are the end all be all of what one should believe is correct, but this was what they showed as their agreed definition.
The parts about supporting the aggressive putting down of a rebellion with tanks is what usually has people tie in the supporting authoritarian violence. If you look at it from the other side one would would argue the ends justified the means which was to stop an escalation and thus a possible war as well. So really all sides of the term were going to be tied to aggression and supporting one mindedness ruling over another.
I don't see anyone using it as a compliment for anyone anytime soon
That “authoritarian putting down of a revolution” was the squashing of anti-Semitic rightwing pogroms and mobs. Good riddance.
Every nation state in existence is authoritarian, the different is towards who. You are still deep in Liberal dogma
I didn't say what I believed, I was discussing the usage of the term tankie in mainstream media. If it were used, I would assume western media would voice it with the red scare propaganda that is always pushed. With the media conglomerates jostling to find a way to fall in line with Trump's administration I figure they'd label anything left of them a violent communistic extremest group.
The average lib who uses tankie has no idea of its origins, and it’s origins are now so irrelevant as it has nothing to do with the groups that are labeled. Only liberals bring up the Hungary thing instead of discussing how the term is used in modern context
So you think it will just never be used in mainstream media like I was saying?
probably not, it's too online and embarrassing an they've already built up enough propaganda around "communist" and "authoritarian" to drop those terms. Mainstream Liberals love being taken seriously. It's only online they will lower themselves.
They are spewing false claim after false claim when they are easily verified as being incorrect. It's hard to take such seriously, but at the same time so long as they repeat it over and over confidently, their base eat it up. I suppose that happens with everything though. I hope you have a good day Z. I need to find something constructive around the house to throw myself into.
I have some news about Stalin courtesy of, no shit, the CIA
I was under the impression it was the intersection of the venn diagram of communists and imperialists, as long as imperialist means imperialist (defined as using economic, military, diplomatic and cultural power to influence countries around you in a way that is beneficial to you, and may be either beneficial, inconsequential or detrimental to them) and not just "western and capitalist"
That's generally a disagreement over what "Imperialism" even means. "Anti-Imperialists" are talking about Lenin's identification of modern Monopoly Capitalism as it brutally expropriates wealth from the Global South through outsourcing and debt traps with the IMF, like Coke and the Columbian death squads.
Tankie always meant a fan of authoritarianism but not of the nazi variety. And hand to hand with that goes hate for America, but hate for America isn't enough on it's own, it should be paired with love of Strong Hand Of The East.
Tankie thinks China, Russia, North Korea are just swell, and not because of some underlying ideology, but because they have an authoritarian model of governance and generally in opposition to the west to some degree.
And that's the reason why it's so hard to define for some people, boiled down to it's definition, it's very hard to spin into something universally good, so talking to a general public they have to do what authoritarian lovers from the other side of the spectrum call "hiding the power lever", which muddies the water.
Conveniently all enemies of the US State Department. Don't those tankies know that these countries are bad because checks notes they do the authoritarianisms.
Countries that do authitarianism become bad, yes. That's exactly how it works, glad you're getting it.
On some level when you're doing sophistry like this do you understand you're acting real stupid?
I can't believe anyone would enforce class interests with violence, instead of debating tenants out of houses they're in arrears for. Smh
What's authoritarianism, and how does a country do it?
Seriously?
Yes, seriously. Liberals love vaguely coded moralisms and ideals, but they never specify what they mean systematically. America is more "authoritarian" by any definition I can conceive due to its hundreds year history of slavery, imperialist war and mass incarceration than any other country on earth
Seriously.
America is the most authoritarian nation in human history
They have the highest incarceration rate of all time, and have destroyed the sovereignty of billions of people
I always just thought it meant leftists who are actively advocating violence.
No marxist does this, and the painting of communists as inherently violent is pure capitalist projection. But we do disagree with pacifism.
https://redphoenixnews.com/2011/08/11/pacifism-how-to-do-the-enemys-job-for-them/
its the one with the.. and they have ttank, with.. the one with ehe tan, you takn. rhe tanker. tabker is the with the