this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2025
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The Democratic People's™ Republic of Tankiejerk

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Dunking on Tankies from a leftist, anti-capitalist perspective.

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I know for a lot of people a tankie is just something that they know it when they see it, however I think that it is important to think about the reason that you define something as being tankie vs just a leftist.

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[–] PugJesus 16 points 3 days ago (11 children)

For me, a tankie is someone who plays apologist for fundamentally authoritarian regimes just because those regimes are painted red.

I would say there's a larger Chomskyite-style group of useful idiots who often get lumped in with tankies, but who are not, themselves, actual supporters of authoritarian-style socialism. They just eagerly eat up and regurgitate agitprop from actual tankies. Campist brainrot often runs rampant here, but they aren't actual tankies. I sometimes mock them with similar lines, though, under the old "Nine Nazis at a table" logic - when you're working for fascists, whether you agree, strictly speaking, with their ideology is of less importance.

Basically every leftist who doesn't believe that the path to socialism is by a vanguard party detached from actual democratic processes taking control of the entirety of society and enforcing its will on the populace is not an actual tankie.

[–] FlyingSquid 9 points 3 days ago (8 children)

They're not even painted red. There is nothing whatsoever communist about Russia and Putin would never claim that Russia was a communist country. But they oppose America and Europe, so that doesn't matter to Tankies.

All that matters is that the strongman is against the West.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago

I mean... they are painted red from the blood that they have spilled.

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