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

    • EchoCT@lemmy.ml
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      7 months ago

      100 percent agreed. They’ll group anything too far left of them under the same name. Don’t care anymore. If they want to whine then fuck it, I’ll wear the term.

    • davel [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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      7 months ago

      Fredrich Engels, 1872: On authority

      Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is. It is the act by which one part of the population imposes its will on the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannons — by the most authoritarian means possible; and the victors, if they do not want to have fought in vain, must maintain this rule by means of the terror which their arms inspire in the reactionaries. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if the communards had not used the authority of the armed people against the bourgeoisie? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach them for not having used it enough?

      Therefore, we must conclude one of two things: either the anti-authoritarians don’t know what they’re talking about, in which case they are only sowing confusion; or they do know, in which case they are betraying the proletarian movement. In either case, they serve reaction.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      7 months ago

      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?

      • pelletbucket@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        I mean that’s a good question but there’s no reason to apply it just to leftist governments

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          7 months ago

          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.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          7 months ago

          So Cuba, China, Vietnam, and the DPRK are by your definition not authoritarian, got it.

          Does that make you a tankie?

  • Fondots@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    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

    1. Communism- not all communists are tankies, but all tankies at least claim to subscribe to some sort of communist ideology.

    2. 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.

  • Nakoichi [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    7 months ago

    No.

    That said most MLs are my comrades anyway left-unity-3

    Also liberals still always call me a tankie anyway so idk it doesn’t mean anything anymore.

    • SturgiesYrFase@lemmy.ml
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      7 months ago

      Also no

      I land somewhere on the anarcho side of politics, but I’m certainly not a tankie. Still get called one though.

      • Nakoichi [they/them]@hexbear.net
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        7 months ago

        A better world is possible and none of us can accurately predict how we will get there but if we don’t quit rehashing hundred year old ideological beefs that occurred within very different material conditions we’re all fucked anyway.

        The tankies aren’t gonna murder the anarchists and at this juncture there is no revolution to speak of for anarchists to have a hand in betraying (for reasons that I have never heard a compelling case for its inevitability). If we don’t get our shit together the billionaires are gonna kill us all and who knows maybe it’s already too late but we have to at least try.

        • SturgiesYrFase@lemmy.ml
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          7 months ago

          We’re all fighting for basically the same thing. Various flavours, but essentially the same. I personally wouldn’t betray the revolution should it come.
          1000% agree, we need to collectively get our shit together, get over the little differences between what our end goals are, that can be sorted out later, and anyone who isn’t a fucking fascist would be willing to see other collectives have their own system and still work in harmony.

        • OpenStars@discuss.online
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          7 months ago

          I wonder if part of it is that climate change might mean the death of modern human civilization, so could the slim hope of life as a slave seem more preferable than the greater certainty of death as a free agent?

          I cannot fathom that, but then again that’s why I am on the Fediverse rather than on Reddit. :-P

  • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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    7 months ago

    YES

    They would have burned me as a heretic in the middle ages.

    • Carl Jung

    Just like calling someone a “witch” or heretic in the middle ages, a “barbarian”, or “savage”, or “commie” or “pinko” in the 20th century, these terms are less about the actual meaning, and more about a demonization, scapegoating, or a power relation between the dominant class, and a group they seek to malign and rally their people around.

    Creating a useful enemy promotes group bonding, unity, a sense of strengthened identity, and self worth.

    “Tankie” had a meaning that generally referred to non-pacifist leftists (or those that agreed with using violence to defend socialist projects), but now it just means, “any leftist I don’t like”.

    It functions in the exact same way that “commie” did in the the McCarthy era, as a xenophobic and western-supremacist scapegoating of socialist countries, and an internal purging of the working-class communist movement.

    It’s additionally useful because it deters people from reading or engaging with the worldwide communist / socialist movement.

    If someone uses this term, this is what they’re doing without realizing it:

    • Kabe@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      now it just means, “any leftist I don’t like”.

      With respect, there’s a bit more to it than that.

      The way political discussions are often policed on ML instances (This one, Lemmygrad, and Hexbear) is not conducive to helping new people see your point of view. If a, let’s say, social democrat says something critical of the CCP and then is immediately censured or banned, they are going to be left with a very negative impression that feeds into the stereotypes that already exist about these instances.

      Creating a useful enemy promotes group bonding, unity, a sense of strengthened identity, and self worth.

      Aren’t people on ML instances also doing the exact same thing when they shout down and decry the wretched “liberals” (which seems to refer to anyone left-of-centre who doesn’t support communist party rule)? Whether it’s “tankie” or “liberal”, it only further entrenches the us vs them mindset.

      It’s a shame that leftist infighting exists to such a degree when we often share about 95% of the same views, compared to the general public.

      • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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        7 months ago

        The way political discussions are often policed on ML instances (This one, Lemmygrad, and Hexbear) is not conducive to helping new people see your point of view.

        If you ask in earnest, you’ll get good responses. A good number of people ask questions not to learn a different point of view, but to reinforce their own existing biases, which naturally becomes exhausting. Kind of like how POC get tired of justifying their existence to white supremacists, communists often for good reason get tired of trying to justify the existence of countries who choose to follow their own path, outside of the model of bourgeois democracy.

        Aren’t people on ML instances also doing the exact same thing when they shout down and decry the wretched “liberals” (which seems to refer to anyone left-of-centre who doesn’t support communist party rule)? Whether it’s “tankie” or “liberal”, it only further entrenches the us vs them mindset.

        Liberal, unlike tankie, has a fairly precise meaning in political discourse. It can be used too loosely IMO, but it generally means pro-capitalism, pro-individual freedom (including to exploit labor power to earn surplus value), pro free-market, pro-free speech (for all including reactionaries), pro wage-slavery, as well as specific limitations imposed on those considered outside of the “community of the free”. Its important to realize that even the US mis-definition of liberal (as vaguely socially progressive) includes all of the above, and the internationally accepted definition of liberal, is right wing (for example, the right wing party in Australia is the liberal party). The best book I can recommend here, is Losurdo’s Liberalism - A counter-history.

        Not only that, but liberals rule most of the world, and especially most of the economies and governments of anglo-speaking countries, extracting a surplus from the sale of their labor power (who are mostly extremely poorly paid proletarians in the global south), and are responsible for most of the suffering of working-class people worldwide.

        • Kabe@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          If you ask in earnest, you’ll get good responses. A good number of people ask questions not to learn a different point of view, but to reinforce their own existing biases, which naturally becomes exhausting.

          That is understandable, however I was more talking about good-faith attempts to express views that are contrary to ML orthodoxy being dogpiled, removed, and banned. I have personal direct experience with this, as do many others who have attempted to engage in political discussions in ML communities. Perhaps users of the ML persuasion are used to being attacked and this why contrarian views are so heavily moderated on ML instances, but quite often this defensive response only leads to alienating other leftists who could be sympathetic to your point of view.

          Also, I already understand quite well the differences between classical, social, and neo-liberalism, and how the term is used in the US; I have a degree in political science. My point was that users on ML instances weaponize the term in the same way that other users utilize the term “tankie” in order to dismiss people who disagree with them, ad hominem.

        • rah@feddit.uk
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          7 months ago

          If you ask in earnest, you’ll get good responses.

          This is not the case. Every time I’ve asked in earnest, I’ve faced mobs of lunatics.

  • CloutAtlas [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    7 months ago

    “Tankie” in the traditional sense of someone who uncritically supports the USSR in the handling of 1956’s uprising? Probably not.

    While Kruschev’s use of tanks in 1956 was heavy handed, the Hungarian alliance with the Axis in WWII and participation of Operation Barbarossa, lingering fascist sympathisers and nationalists remained in Hungary.

    This coupled with the Communist Party of Hungary’s less than equitable redistribution of land/castles/other properties earlier in the 1950’s (favouring giving properties to ranking CPH members instead of distributing it to the proletariat equally). This created resentment for the Party, and an image of the Communists as no better than the Monarchy that came before or the Fascists that came after.

    The Hungarian uprising had elements of fascist sympathisers, monarchists, bourgeoisie, etc but also legitimate critics of the handling of the situation. It never should have come to that, and a more educated/self critical Communist Party in Hungary could have prevented things from getting that far. The people should have benefitted a lot more from a better redistribution of wealth.

    The above issues coupled with Soviet distrust of Hungarians (since they did invade the Soviet Union in the 40’s) led to a swift and harsh reaction towards the uprising, seeing it as just a reactionary revolt.

    Now, am I a tankie in the Reddit redefinition, of anyone that critically supports Cuba, China, Vietnam and their style of government? Yeah, I suppose I am. This is no more radical a position than Malcolm X or the Black Panthers who also supported the late USSR, China and Cuba.

    • Valmond@lemmy.mindoki.com
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      7 months ago

      Serious question, I mean I feel you dislike the “west” or jow it is governed (I guess) and to each their own but are you against democracy? And if so, how do you get rid of dictators like Putin if needed?

      Cheers

        • Shyfer@ttrpg.network
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          7 months ago

          You have to imagine other people have no idea about Marxism but what they’ve heard from US propaganda. When they hear you support China, Cuba, and Vietnam, they just hear you supporting dictator for life Xi Jinping and one party state Cuba and Vietnam. You guys need better answers than this.

          The other person’s answer was pretty good, though.

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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            7 months ago

            My point is to get them to do some questioning on their own, and challenge the pretenses. Sometimes this approach works better as the other person comes to a new conclusion on their own.

        • Valmond@lemmy.mindoki.com
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          7 months ago

          Okay you don’t want democracy, but how do you deal with dictators like putin always creeps into the system and takes over if you can’t vote them out?

  • Lad@reddthat.com
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    7 months ago

    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.

    • LinkOpensChest.wav@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      7 months ago

      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.”

  • Tabitha ☢️[she/her]@hexbear.net
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    7 months ago

    I wish stalin drove tanks straight into west berlin, then france, then the UK, then atlantis, then NYC, then chicago, then seattle, then anchorage, then Tokyo, then Seoul, then Beijing, then KFC/tacobell.

  • Palacegalleryratio [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    7 months ago

    NO

    Tankie is a meaningless word. If you point out China has undeniably made progress under communism, you’re a tankie. If you point out Stalin wasn’t the evil dictator westerners make him out to be (even though it’s disproven by the literal CIA itself) you’re a tankie, if you think capitalism is causing problems in the USA you’re a tankie. If you criticise US or NATO foreign policy you’re a tankie. If you criticise the Republicans you’re a Tankie. If you criticise the Dems, guess what also a tankie. If you think that the USSR and the PRC are/were perfect little angels that never made any mistakes or did anything wrong ever then you’re also a Tankie.

    It’s just too broad a term for me or anyone to identify with any way. It’s not an ideology. It’s a dumb insult to dismiss the opinions of others you disagree with without having to engage with their point at all or critically analyse your own beliefs in any meaningful way.

  • HakFoo@lemmy.sdf.org
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    7 months ago

    Yes, although I personally prefer “central planning enthusiast”.

    I think we’re approaching the point where the word gets taken back by the community it was used to malign, if not there already. "

  • frippa@lemmy.ml
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    7 months ago

    YES

    Everybody to the left of biden is considered a tankie nowdays, and I’m proud of being to the left of (and opposed to) genocide enablers.

    • Kabe@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Not so. There are many progressives who stand with Marxists on issues like social justice, LGBTQ issues, and Palestine but who do not feel welcome on instances like Hexbear because they also criticize the CCP.

      • frippa@lemmy.ml
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        7 months ago

        And they sometimes get called “tankies” too by people to the right of them. That’s why I both think it’s a useless term (if everybody is a tankie, then nobody is) and why I think I fall in the definition (as most leftists do, I’ve seen pretty mild social democrats being called “tankies” by liberals)

        Plus ultimately these blanket descriptions are pretty useless IMO, you’ll find extremely heated debates between “tankies” themselves on many topics, there’s no consensus, and there are many different ideologies “tankies” subscribe to. It would be like saying that Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians and Greens are all the same thing. We could call them “dronies” maybe.

        • Kabe@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Oh, I agree - calling people Tankies/Liberals/Dronies, especially ad hominem, is reductive and generally unhelpful.

            • Kabe@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              ML people often tend not to apply ‘liberal’ correctly either, so it goes both ways.

              • davel [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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                7 months ago

                Actually we do tend to apply “liberal” correctly.

                It is liberals themselves who tend to not have even a Wikipedia-level understanding of liberalismtheir own ideology!—or of socialism. And that’s how a centrist liberal like Bernie Sanders can get away with calling himself a socialist despite never calling for the abolition of private ownership of the means of production, because Burgerlanders don’t know their asses from their elbows politically thanks to over a century of red scares and cold wars, which are still ongoing[1][2].

                • Kabe@lemmy.world
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                  7 months ago

                  Hang on, so you’re telling me you guys lump social liberals in with classical liberals and neoliberals? That’s definitely not common, but then I suppose if you’re a communist then it kinda makes sense.

                  Also, while I wouldn’t call Sanders a socialist either, he is not a centrist by any standard measure. I presume you don’t consider anyone a leftist if they don’t advocate for collective ownership and a centrally planned economy?

    • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
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      7 months ago

      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 wouldn’t call you a tankie for that. The closest thing may be the Russian orc thing, but that is more a statement that Russians are still human while fighting an immoral war.

      That the Cuban sanctions are still going on are stupid and support for Palestine is consistent with general leftist theory regarding freedom.

  • Sleepless One@lemmy.ml
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    7 months ago

    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.