Memes

Nothing eliminates more nuance than viewing some of the broadest and most substantial social upheavals in world history through the lens of Great Man Theory. To write off the struggles and sacrifice of millions of people, their successes and their failures, and lay them at the feet of one man. To treat history like this is to believe that the vast majority of its participants are unthinking, uncritical beats of burden with a predisposition to subservience. (The same applies to contemporary "hate the government, not the people" discourse, in which we are to assume the majority of Chinese citizens are helpless, brainwashed victims of totalitarianism)

When you treat history like this, you open up a lot of convenient shortcuts for yourself. You can claim that the October revolution was a much needed intervention, but then drop it immediately after the honeymoon period is over with some hamstrung claim that Stalin was too stupid or too selfish to understand what Lenin was trying to accomplish, or maybe Lenin himself was too stupid to understand Marx and the whole project was doomed. Or that we would be living in fully automated luxury communism right now if Trotsky had taken power.

None of this discourse delves into the actual social or economic conditions involved, nor the theory and practices which emerged from the crucible of revolution. Most importantly, it never makes any attempt to LEARN from this history, so previous mistakes can be avoided, and so proven effective strategies can be developed further and incorporated into contemporary struggles. It is navel gazing bullshit which conveniently discards the whole thing. The only lesson you learn from this treatment of history is that revolution leads to dystopia and that we shouldn't even bother. The takeaway we end up with is that the people who disintegrated the Third Reich and put the first humans into space were better off when they were a backwards feudal monarchy.

And today, among the English-speaking online left, any time somebody comes along and argues "You know what, maybe we shouldn't stick the entire history of the USSR or the PRC into a furnace. There are some valuable lessons in here." they get derided as a Tankie by some vote blue no matter who sicko. Lots of people throwing the word "authoritarian" around who have never had to confront the sharp end of the US state once in their lives.

nuance

I'm going to take this point in good faith, even though I disagree with it. The people that scream "tankie" often use the word in exactly the same meaningless way that the people who scream "woke" do, then they claim it has a specific meaning but clearly apply it very very broadly to basically anyone who is a marxist and waves a red flag.

But, since you suggest you're willing to get into nuance. I'm going to throw reel off a few groups, people and countries. Would you mind telling me which ones you consider tankie and evil, vs which ones you consider good?

The Black Panthers

Fred Hampton

Huey Newton

Albert Einstein

Nelson Mandela

Che Guevara

Fidel Castro

Thomas Sankara

Chavez

Cuba

Venezuela

Bolivia

Vietnam

Laos

Nepal

Nicaragua

Angola

Kerala district of India (governed by the Communist Party of India)

It's ok to not know one way or another too btw, I'm just interested in a "tankie" "not tankie" "never heard of them" response on each of them.

Why say "discuss your position" and then not actually engage in any discussion with people that take you up on that?

I’m an anarchist, and this meme is shit.

Tankies are the fuckers who start trying to murder us the second they get power. Authoritarianism has no space.

The point is the word "tankie" is quickly becoming as vague and useless as "woke". Mearsheimer and Chomsky get called tankie nowadays for crying out loud. In three years when the USA Gulf of Tonkins itself in the Taiwan Strait, people are going to call you a tankie for dodging the draft!

What's your opinion of Nelson Mandela? The man wrote a book(although a revision of another book) called "How to be a good communist" and the very first line of that book is:

A Communist is a member of the Communist Party who understands and accepts the theory and practice of Marxism-Leninism as explained by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin , and who subjects himself to the discipline of the Party. (See notes 1, 2, 3 & 4)

If you are critical of western nations then you should stop uncritically swallowing their propaganda about their geopolitical enemies

I think communism is a fantastic idea but don't think it's truly workable in practice, regrettably. True democratic socialism seems more realistic, but also has problems. But being a communist and then just defending all communists regardless of what they're doing is problematic.

Me on my way to commit genocide, oppress the LGBTQ+ community, forcefully resettle minorities, and engage in authority.

Fun fact Cuba is currently the best for LGBT rights, and the reunification of Germany dragged east germany decades back in LGBT progress... just some food for thought

Hey, would you mind telling me how many homeless people there are in, Sweden raw number or pecentage of population your choice. When we are done, I will post Cuba's rate and we can compare

"Name two social housing projects built by the Democrats in the past ten years."- A lemmygrad user who replied to you but you cannot see.

Name two social housing projects built by the Democrats in the past ten years.

I believe the point is that they’re equally vague knee jerk reactions to seeing trigger phrases and relevant social signifiers, as opposed to legitimate and useful political categories