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
Yes.
Just go ask the 196 mods.
No. I had no idea about this instance’s reputation when I joined Lemmy but it’s nothing like the other instance you mentioned.
It gets very tiring trying to have a conversation with contrarians who think everything Western is bad and anything Chinese/USSR is good. Or worse, that their highly suspicious news sources (some random blog usually) are telling you the real truth, while using any mainstream news media source makes you a deluded Lib
Yes, I imagine it would be tiring if anyone actually argued that. Since it’s a ridiculous strawman though, I think you’re in the clear
everything Western is bad
This one simple trick does get you 99% of correct though
It gets very tiring trying to have a conversation with contrarians who think everything Western is bad and anything Chinese/USSR is good.
Why do outsiders keep making shit up about lemmygrad and hexbear?
Or worse, that their highly suspicious news sources (some random blog usually) are telling you the real truth, while using any mainstream news media source makes you a deluded Lib
I use this instance regularly and more often than not, the articles posted on the news coms are from mainstream sites. And even the “random blogs” (not really, it’s a few relatively well known blogs) use mainstream news to get basic facts. As proof, [email protected] is a link to the world news com. Out of the 20 articles on the front page (as of writing this comment), 9 are from the typical mainstream sites (like reuters) and 5 are from sites that may be mainstream, but I don’t know them. Only 6 are from sources like FT or things like a youtube video (which again, may be from some mainstream author).
I don’t consider myself a tankie, because I’m an anarcho-syndicalist.
I’ve been called a tankie for suggesting that workers should organize tenant unions to kill the apartment bidding wars in NYC. I’ve been called a tankie for pointing out that their image of a tankie needs to almost have power to be any kind of threat worth warning against, and there are no tankies anywhere near power with the global rise of fascism. I’ve been called a tankie for asking someone to clarify what they meant by tankie. I’ve been told that scientific socialism both is and is not tankie behavior. The term is utterly meaningless. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s part of a 3rd red scare in an effort to sow division amongst the anticapitalist left.
Seriously speaking, YES.
“The modern revisionists and reactionaries call us Tankies, thinking that they insult us and, in fact, that is their aim. On the contrary, however, they glorify us with this epithet: it is an honour for us to be Tankies, because, since we were Tankies, the enemy could not conquer us, and never will conquer us as long as we remain Tankies.”
–Enver Hoxha, paraphrased.
(As far as Hungary is concerned, I don’t advocate for anything that Khrushchev did)
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.
The only part of this I cannot parse is “shrimp salad is racist” that’s the only thing I don’t get the reference for and it always drives me nuts.
The fuck is a tankie? Outside of Lemmy, I’ve never seen nor H6eard the word. I assume it’s Lemmy slang for some group of people.
NO
I reject the label because it’s meaningless. I’m a Marxist-Leninist who has nothing to do with the USSR and frankly does not have an opinion on what happened in Hungary because I don’t know enough about the specific event. I acknowledge that Soviet Russia, like all countries, had positives and negatives. I believe that socialism can only be achieved and maintained using centralized planning and authority (which is the not same as a dictatorship) because they exist in a world dominated by capitalist forces that want to see them destroyed (see the ongoing US sanctions on Cuba and the many budding socialist governments the US has toppled).
As a citizen of the United States, I also recognize that my country very frequently lies about its own actions and their justifications (see the Iraq War) to the detriment of people in other countries. Frequently to protect the interests of capital. Thus, I express skepticism when my government tries to tell me that another country is unilaterally ‘bad’, as is constantly the case with places like China, which I’ve visited several times and study academically. So when other countries take action to separate themselves from us, get out from under historical US domination, and practice an economic and social system that is not US-style liberal democracy, I applaud their successes and try to understand their failures. This is true even if those success harm me, usually economically, as I do not want my existence to be predicated on the suffering of others.
To anyone on .world, which is obnoxiously in line with the United States status quo, I am a ‘tankie’ because I do not believe that China is evil, that Russians are ‘orcs’, that the Cuban people deserve to be starved by our sanctions, that Joe Biden has to support Palestinian genocide and continue Trump’s border policy because ‘its complicated’, and anything else that is critical of my own country and its actions that continue to harm people not as fortunate to be born in my same geographical location.
I will also be accused of ‘whataboutism’ for this post unless I also say something like modern Russia is a capitalist hellscape and that the Cultural Revolution and most of Mao’s later career after the Jiangxi Soviet was a mistake due his own incompetence as a large-scale political leader instead of a guerilla fighter. But that’s a level of nuance the people crying ‘tankie’ won’t usually care about anyway.
deleted by creator
Well… i wouldn’t say i am full authoritarian, but i definitely identify on the left. I have maybe false ideas of tankies, but i just want that the world change without going full revolution, so i would say NO.
but i just want that the world change without going full revolution
Nobody wants a violent and bloody revolution. It is a position we will be forced into as a matter of self defense as we see throughout history.
A great example is Salvatore Allende in Chile and the 1973 CIA backed coup against him. He did everything the proper peaceful democratic socialist way and they still had him murdered because he was not friendly with US business interests in the region.
YES
No.
Granted, I’m not on lemmy.ml either.
Maybe just yes or no isn’t enough either. Maybe have someone post a picture of tanks in tienniemen square to prove they aren’t a tanker.
I havent figured out yet what a tankie is.
The original definition comes the crushing of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 to describe communists who supported the crushing of the uprising.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie
A lot of people who use that term to describe other tankies seem to be using it the correct way while people who are tankies seem to want to change it to something else because of the implications of that definition.
it’s what people who are literally demanding that the west sends tanks to the proxy war in Ukraine are calling people who want to end the war right now
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.
No.
This isn’t my standard instance but I do take a look at it sometimes. I’m definitely very far left leaning, I don’t have a label that clearly fits me but I’m probably close enough to anarcho-communism or syndicalism. I live in the UK so it’s pretty common for my views to fall further left of the USA.
I’m not particularly good at actually adhering to my own views, infact I don’t think I’ve ever done e anything substantial to bringing my ideals into reality. My dream would be for small federated housing / workers co-ops and unions to get a good handle in my area, and then have the stability to grow.
The crucial reason I’m not a tankie is that I actively oppose top down leadership structures, and I’m actually more against authoritarianism than I am against the right, but I feel that in my country, conservatism and authoritarianism are deeply linked, and a bottom up power structure would do more to actively oppose facism and power consolidation than a far left authoritarian regime.
In short, No. My principles may make me a commie, but I’m an anarchist first.
NO. Communism is interesting, but I’m heavily anti-authoritarian.
When does Communism become authoritarian? Like, where in the process?
I never said that Communism necessarily becomes authoritarian. But, as someone who has a strong dislike for authoritarianism, I’m not interested in Communism which involves it.
Sure, but I mean at what point, right?
To cut to the chase, I’m asking what specifically separates Tankies from Communists. Where is the line drawn? I see a lot of people (myself included) labeled a tankie for recommending people read Marx, or saying that Lenin was a Marxist, regardless of if you agree with him or not.
At what point would a Communist be considered a tankie?
The hard part of politics is drawing hard lines. But I think many would say it’s authoritarian at the point when a government is enforcing a specific ideology with force and violence, and limiting personal freedoms.
I personally don’t understand how someone can be authoritarian and communist when communism is classless, but to be authoritarian there must essentially be an authority in a separate hierarchical class. But I also likely have more to learn so feel free to correct me
I thought that the line was that one supports owning the means of production and the other supports authoritarian governments, am I confused?
My understanding is that tankies believe that groups that have partially or completely followed far-left principles should be exempt from all criticism. I disagree. As long as it is honest criticism, it should not only be allowed but encouraged.
I’ve also heard that tankies are historic revisionists to an extreme. While I agree Western history is not telling us the real version of things, I don’t think other countries are either. I won’t say that an event happened one way or the other just because country A or country B says so. If historians and other experts are still debating an event and its details, I prefer to watch from a distance as I have no way to contribute to those debates.
So… no.
