A tankie is, broadly, someone who wants to effect left-wing ideology using authoritarian methods. It originally referred to those who defended the USSR using tanks to suppress the Hungarian Revolution, but it could be aptly used to describe those who defend China's actions in Tiananmen Square. It's rightfully used as a perjorative, since authoritarian enforcement is antithetical to leftism, particularly communism.

Tankies are hypocrites who didn't understand their self-proclaimed ideologies. If someone's idea of communist praxis is lining up dissenters for the firing squad, you're dealing with a tankie.

[–] go_go_gadget 2 points 5 days ago (2 children)

wants to effect left-wing ideology using authoritarian methods

Odd. I'm getting called a tankie because I just won't vote for Biden (or Trump). Someone must have gotten confused.

[–] TokenBoomer 9 points 5 days ago

By their reasoning:

No vote for Biden is a vote for Trump. Trump is fascist and authoritarian. Tankies are authoritarians. Therefore, you are a tankie. /s

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Lots of people say lots of silly things, nonetheless Trump is worse for the proletariat than Biden, and turning your nose up at the lesser evil endangers real people when the greater evil wins. You don't have to vote for the greater evil to help tip the scales in their favor. Accelerationism is authoritarianism with extra steps and no one in the driver's seat.

[–] go_go_gadget -1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Biden doesn't accept blame for tipping the scales in their favor. Biden's family doesn't accept blame for tipping the scales in their favor. Biden's campaign doesn't accept blame for tipping the scales in their favor. The DNC leadership doesn't accept blame for tipping the scales in their favor. People who voted for Biden in the 2020 primaries don't accept blame for tipping the scale in their favor. Moderaters and political analysts don't accept blame for tipping the scales in their favor. People like you letting those people get away with that and focusing on telling me to be quiet and vote for Biden don't accept blame for tipping the scales in their favor.

I don't accept blame for it either.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

IDGAF who does or doesn't accept blame for whatever. I care about material results; my future, my family's future, my neighbors' futures, the future of the people who live in this country, and this world. IDGAF how ideologically pure a politician is, or who's wrong or right, or who gets away with whatever. I care about the people who are going to suffer if the Federalists, Fascists, and Fundamentalists keep establishing their foothold judge by judge, bill by bill, ruling by ruling.

This isn't grade school, this isn't a game, this isn't about fair. There are real stakes here. People will die. I'm not heartless enough to play the blame game with lives on the line. I'm voting harm reduction because I'm an adult and I play the hand I'm dealt. Righteously losing doesn't help anything but ego-centric deontology.

[–] go_go_gadget 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I care about material results; my future, my family’s future, my neighbors’ futures, the future of the people who live in this country, and this world.

Same bud. And Biden was never the guy who was going to do that for me. Where were you during the 2020 primaries? Where have you been ever since?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

He's actually been surprisingly effective. Your distaste doesn't negate his numerous policy accomplishments with tangible benefits.

Even disregarding that, even if he was ineffective, he's not trying to concentrate power into the hands of Federalists, Fascists, and Fundamentalists, so he is by default the superior choice to those who are. The material results that I care about, that reasonable adults care about, revolve around stopping the Federalists, Fascists, and Fundamentalists. Or are you on their side?

[–] go_go_gadget 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

He’s actually been surprisingly effective

If you like him then you get him re-elected. I won't be voting for him a second time.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

The material results that I care about, that reasonable adults care about, revolve around stopping the Federalists, Fascists, and Fundamentalists. Or are you on their side?

So the answer to that question is "Yes". Got it. I'm not surprised.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

Tankies are hypocrites who didn’t understand their self-proclaimed ideologies.

Tankies are very frequently the only people in the room who've done the reading. If you believe that so called "authoritarian methods" are antithetical to leftism, then I recommend you read the following pamphlet by Engels.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Tankies have read Marx and Engels, yes, but there are many other forms of leftism and even other forms of communism that aren't ML. You are right about ML communists, in particular, but many other leftist movements are anti-authoritarian by their nature, so the point still stands.

Also, it's possible to do the reading and disagree with the methods of implementation. I agree with the economics and the stated goals of communism, but I don't believe authoritarianism is the best way to go about it.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 4 days ago (2 children)

but I don’t believe authoritarianism is the best way to go about it.

Humor me for a moment, which of the following do you consider authoritarian?

asking your boss for better wages
using the power of a union to force your boss to give your coworkers better wages
using the power of the state to force all bosses to pay all workers better wages

[–] Belastend 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

You completely disregard, that the soviet union did number 3 and crushed all unions not falling in line. Or that they ignore the will of the proletariat during the 1917 and 1918 elections numerous times.

The authoritarian way isnt being critized for coming down on Capitalists. Its critized for how it treated every deviation from the party line. And especially, how it turned into a political chess game at the top, which prioritized amassing personal power and wealth over the actual well being of the state.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)

If by "not falling in line" you mean "actively sabotaging the working class for selfish reasons" then I suppose you have a point, but I would argue that in class war those organizations which do not support the working class are fair targets.

the will of the proletariat during the 1917 and 1918 elections

By the time the Bolsheviks were disregarding the results of elections, the People's Soviets were the state power in the former Russian Empire, and they were a hundred times more democratic than the Duma ever was.

amassing personal power and wealth

I'm sorry comrade but the Soviets simply never did this. The benefits enjoyed by even top Party officials paled in comparison to the lavish lifestyles of the former Russian Empire's aristocracy or those of the ruling class of any of their contemporary capitalist rivals - even fucking Stalin lived in a shared apartment!

Objectively speaking the Soviet Union was one of the most democratic and equal societies on this Earth during the time of its existence, and you can very clearly see in the data how their system equalized wealth (not "perfectly", just "better than everyone else has ever done it"), and how the destruction of their system undid all of their progress.

[–] Belastend 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

By your metric Stalin should have been shot for undermining soviet defensive capabilities by purging almost every capable military leader? What did Tukhachevsky, Bukharin, Blyukher or Yegorov do to get executed? What were their sabotages? Their names got dropped by tortured officers and in turn they got shot. Setting the red army back years in experience.

And lets not forget the ethnic targetting: Between 1936 and 1938 nearly all ethnic Baltic People were cleansed put of the upper echelon.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I never said mistakes weren't made. Class war is war and war has collateral damage. The problem here is the total idealistic rejection of "authoritarianism", where every single thing that has ever worked is classed as such and therefore made off-limits.

[–] Belastend 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

"war has collateral damage" mate, Stalins Purges killed 700.000 at least and cost many more people their lives during WW2. Hitler ciuld have been stopped much earloer if Stalin hadnt replaced almost every capable commander with some yes man.

And their purges werent even class war. It was war to uphold the power of a small clique and to satisfy their paranoia.

Just like any other imperialism, the USSR worked out for the imperial core, while the periferal states were fucked over.

I dont want to fucking replace the boot with another one. I want the boot gone.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

And yet the Soviet economy uplifted hundreds of millions from poverty and built the war machine that was critical in stopping the Nazis. People went from working on tenant farms to living in modern cities with all of the amenities of the time in a single generation, and the first man in space was the son of a farmer! The achievements of the Soviet Union - yes, even the Soviet Union under Stalin - far outstrip its failures and mistakes. I'm partial to Mao's overall critique of Stalin, that he was 70% good and 30% bad (which also applies to Mao as it turns out), and I feel that Mark Twain's quote about the French Revolution equally applies to the Russian one.

THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.

one last thing

I dont want to fucking replace the boot with another one. I want the boot gone.

Me too, brother. But the bourgeoisie aren't going to lift the boot from anyone's neck willingly, and we have to be willing to stomp on their neck when we have the chance, otherwise a world without class is and will remain completely impossible.

[–] Belastend 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Once again, i am willing to resort tp violence. but not for party elites. I am still getting the impression that you deem the great Terror to have been necessary. It wasnt. It didnt stomp out the "bourgeoisie". It murdered old comrades fpr not bowing deep enough. It was the establishment of a cult of personality, in which noone was to critize the dear Leader. Which is eerily similar to Maos switch from "Please critize me and the party, for this is the only way of improving" to "Everyone who ever wrote something bad about the Party, the State or me is a despicable wrecker and needs to be dispatched" within one year.

I believe, that Millions of Non-Russian and Non-Georgians within the Sovietunion would have lived a better life, if the despotism within the Soviet Power Clique had been curbed. Stalins "30%" bad is more than just the Great Terror. Its the deportations and the ethnic cleansing of the new ruling class.

The Fall of the Soviet Union was a tragedy to the imperial russian core and its subsequent plundering remains one of the greatest failures of the 20th century, i grant you that.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

you deem the great Terror to have been necessary

Repression of the previous ruling class was absolutely necessary, the fact that it went overboard and also targeted comrades is the mistake. If it were possible to have a revolution that made absolutely no mistakes I would sign onto it no question, but I believe that such a thing is idealistic nonsense - and that forswearing all repression of the previous ruling class in order to not accidentally target comrades is far worse, because it takes an essential tool out of the revolutionary's belt and replaces it with nothing.

[–] Belastend 1 points 2 days ago

Previous Ruling class? The Great Terror almost exclusively killed old comrades. Once again, the 1936 purges did not target the bourgeosie.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I hop off the train at the part where the top-down dictatorship comes into play. Probably a bit before the level of authoritarianism where the Joseph Stalin type starts killing people for having a dissenting opinion, and what not.

Using the state to enforce good wages and end the terribleness of the stock market/landlord culture does not need to involve a top down dictatorship and a lack of democracy.

I know about the "dictatorship of the proletariat" and all that, and in my opinion, it should involve all of the workers, not one person or a small group of people. A top down dictatorship just makes it all that easier for the party to be infiltrated and controlled by bourgeois interests. If said dictatorship is a true democracy, with each worker having an equal say, it makes it pretty hard to control the proles.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 days ago (1 children)

So you wouldn't accept any system that's not a direct democracy? Where every single person is involved in every single vote? It's a coherent position I suppose, but IMO totally impractical and idealistic.

[–] Gigasser 4 points 4 days ago

I don't think it's realistic or pragmatic to expect a perfect direct democracy system. Trying to get as close to one as feasibly possible can be a goal though, and once we're at that point, try to continually and slowly improve that direct democracy system until it's even closer and closer and closer, ad infinitum.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

There's a difference between someone-needs-to-coordinate-and-manage-complex-undertakings "authoritarian" and line-the-dissidents-up-against-the-wall "authoritarian". Tankies are the latter.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago (2 children)

We have class war waged against us by the bourgeoisie, and thousands of people are casualties of that war every single day. Expecting to turn the tide against them without getting our hands dirty in turn is useless idealism.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

Uh huh, and historically violent authoritarian transitional regimes are always so willing to step aside after the transition.

[–] Belastend 1 points 3 days ago

Getting our hands dirty means shooting comrades who carried the revolutionary wars for being a bit yucky.