this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2024
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Tankiejerk

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Dunking on Tankies from a leftist perspective.

A tankie is someone who defends/supports authoritarian or even totalitarian regimes who call themselves "socialist". The term originated from people supporting the 1956 invasion of Hungary by the Soviet Union. Nowadays they are just terminally online, denying genocides, and falling for totalitarian propaganda and calling such regimes "true democracies". remember to censor usernames when necessary.

Please be sure to obscure usernames on posts to prevent doxxing.

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[–] takeda 92 points 7 months ago (36 children)

This is my experience as well. It's also laughable that they call themselves communists and love China and Russia. Those people aren't communists, they are authoritarians.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

That's why I too am not a believer in horseshoe theory and actually agree that communism hasn't been practiced properly before. A peaceful emancipation of the common person is still unpracticed. If this is all tankies said, I'd be fine with it. But they say communism has never been practiced before along side arguments that the Soviet Union and China are communist. They are parroting real modern communists without understanding them and mixing in their revisionist history to create a paradox they don't seem too concerned about.

I think it's more about rebelling against their Reagan loving, USSR hating dads than sound political theory.

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[–] Maggoty 62 points 7 months ago (33 children)

To be fair. "that wasn't true Communism" is true. The problem is dictatorships keep getting sold with its name. Ironically proving how hard it would be to actually achieve a world or country of communes.

[–] ZILtoid1991 20 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Except those people prefer the Chinese and USSR style of social autocracies to actual socialist projects. Some of them even trash worker coops, although that was more true to the InfraHaz style lolcows than the tankies of lemmy...

[–] Maggoty 10 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Social Autocracy, oh wow that's a new one on me. They're just brutal dictatorships with a shiny veneer.

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[–] Roflmasterbigpimp 11 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

The only kind of Communism I'm willing to accept is the Star Trek Communism. Until then I'm pro Team "Social market economy"!

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 7 months ago (14 children)

Oh good, this seems like a good place to ask something that's been bothering me for a while.

I see the posts from Hexbear and Lemmygrad. I can understand why they are in favour of theoretically communist regimes like China. What I can't for the life of me see is why they seem to unconditionally support modern Russia which is surely as far away from communism as you can get.

I must be missing something but not sure what?

[–] Apollo42 52 points 7 months ago (9 children)

"I hate the US"

"Oh Russia and Iran hate the US. I love Russia and Iran!"

Unfortunately sometimes people are actually as stupid as they make themselves out to be.

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Because they’re anti-west not pro-communist.

Anything critical of Russia is obvs western propaganda and as Russia is an enemy of the west, they will support them.

They see the enemy of their enemy as their friend, instead of realising it’s just another enemy.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 7 months ago

They're not actually communists, it's just a facade for Kremlin and CCP propaganda.

[–] Roflmasterbigpimp 15 points 7 months ago (5 children)

Noo you don't ._. Their train of thought is more often than not "USSR=Good. USSR hates USA. USA=Bad. Modern Russia hates USA. So Russia = Good."

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 7 months ago (3 children)

It is a weird world where the Tankies align with Moscow Marjorie

[–] [email protected] 27 points 7 months ago

It's not surprising at all, they're working for the same people.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 7 months ago

"Russian special military operation in Ukraine is an anti-imperialist project."

"US military aid to Ukraine is an imperialist act."

Statements made by the utterly deranged.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

My additions:

  • “Sealioning”
  • That’s all a bunch of lies, you’re just blindly linking to a mouthpiece for US imperialism like Washington Post / BBC / Wikipedia
  • Links to rt.com
  • The answers you seek are in this 90 minute YouTube video
  • You’ve unwittingly EXACTLY PROVEN MY POINT (refuses to elaborate)

I am sure there are more

Edit: More

  • (this comment has been removed by the moderator)
  • If Russia isn’t fantastic how are they winning so hard in Ukraine
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[–] Roflmasterbigpimp 28 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

Needs an "EU BAD" square

[–] Lemminary 19 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

>thread about cakes

Tankie: This is US propaganda!

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

Welcome to fight night

in this corner is a poster who brought a lot* of links from sites you've never heard of! He thinks browbeating liberals with theory will help them "escape the mind prison of Western propaganda", his special power: pigshit!

Heeeeereee's TANKIE BROWN!!

crowd noises

Aaaaand in this corner!

Hailing from the mean streets of forums everywhere! He doesn't like criticism of Dems, and has the links and the time to disprove you! Special power... Derision!

IiiiiiiiiiiiiIIIIT's LIB-MASTER J!!

crowd: raaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Tonight, they'll be performing, front and center, in your thread! Whether you like it or not! Taking up all the air! Watch with horror and wonder as the same arguments are trotted out and no one learns anything! Whose ego will be bruised? Who will get "owned"? Find out tonight (and every night) on lemmy.ml!

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[–] pyre 17 points 7 months ago (2 children)

i don't think "that wasn't true communism" belongs with the rest. saying Russia good , USSR good and China good requires you to pretend they are true communism, isn't that what tankies do?

i think this is more what actual leftie/communist people say about those countries because they think the authoritarian regimes don't reflect communism, not to mention the fact that Russia and China are capitalist countries in everything but name.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil 11 points 7 months ago (1 children)

saying Russia good , USSR good and China good requires you to pretend they are true communism

Russia hasn't been anything resembling Communist since perestroika and the subsequent dismantling of the USSR. Might as well call France a monarchy or complain about Japanese Imperialism.

The long struggle session over "Is China Communist?" has been tilting back in the "Enthusiastic Yes!" column for years, as Xi's abandoned the Dengist market integration strategy and increasingly put his chips on a new Third-World Export model for Chinese aid and trade (incidentally, much more in line with the USSR peace dividend strategy circa 1950s/60s). If nothing else, Xi's proposal to have a housing sector that is 30% public (up from the current 5%) would be the AES guy's wet dream.

Russia and China are capitalist countries in everything but name.

Russia after '91 spend a solid decade under the Shock Doctrine mass sell off of domestic assets. Its rapid transition to capitalism had more in common with a pillaging than any economic reform. The Russian state was never fully integrated into the European trade model. And it was always held at arms length by NATO military advisers, limiting the possibility of fully internationalized markets. After the second failed "Russian Reset" under Obama, the state has begun re-nationalized a host of traditionally private assets as multi-national industries abandoned the country.

Chinese single-party state administered economic policy - the Five Year Plan model that's been building steam since the 1950s - is about as far away from the Western Laisse-Faire model of capitalism as you can get and still plausibly cling to the name. If China is capitalist, it is doing capitalism in a way wholly alien to any Chicago School economics professor or McKinsey consultant.

You might be able to shoehorn their economies into the broad definition of profit-seeking private ownership. But in both form and function, they look radically different from a US, German, or Japanese private economy.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago (15 children)

You forgot a square for circle-jerking over reading theory.

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[–] TheControlled 12 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Does enemys have to be misspelled to get bingo?

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (22 children)

Yeah i like communism and all but can't for the life of me figure out why they like russia and china . Is it because there used to be (a kind of) communism there ? I stand for the idea of communism not the people or places that are (kinda) associated with them .

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago

You forgot “a meme response that is barely relevant to the discussion.”

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago
[–] Thcdenton 11 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I'm quick to ban communities from my feed that are political. I'm just here for the memes and tits - Not to doomscroll or argue about shit I don't understand.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago (3 children)

What’s a good privacy respecting instance besides lemmy.ml? I don’t wanna be blocked from seeing content for being on .ml :(

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You can see more content on .ml, because .ml is federated with Hexbear, Lemmygrad, and the other instances like shit just works, lemmy.world, and so forth.

If you want to see a lot of content, it's a good instance for that.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

If you want to post what you want to post, it is not a good instance for that, though. They'll straight up delete your comments for expressing certain views, and there's a bot that will edit your comments to remove certain curse words from them.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago (6 children)

I have never had a problem, personally. If free speech is an absolute concern, then db0 is probably a better spot, or maybe Lemm.ee.

The swearing has never really been something I care about.

As for Lemmy.ml itself, I enjoy scrolling by local and I like that scrolling by all shows me far more content than if I had a Lemmy.world account or similar.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

My instance owner was bemoaning being blocked by lemmy.ml and literally all the comments are like "so? Lemmy.ml sucks dude. Don't worry about it." lol

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