this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2023
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I’m a socialist but not a tankie. Criticizing tankies!= criticizing socialists
Norway isn't socialism.
Being an anti-communist leftist still makes you an anti-communist
Being anti-tankie does not make you anti-communist.
"Being anti-woke doesn't mean I'm conservative!"
When people say "anti-woke", they actually mean that they are anti-doing anything about the awareness of systemic inequality that wokeness indicates. By definition, someone who is against change/progress is a conservative, so when someone says they are anti-woke, they are by definition expressing a conservative stance. That is, wanting to do something about systemic inequality is synonymous with having a progressive stance on systemic inequality.
Being a tankie, on the other hand, is not synonymous with being a comunist. Tankies are just one form of communist (militant).
And when people say they are "anti-tankie", they actually mean that they are anti doing anything about the awareness of systematic inequality that tankie indicates. By definition, someone who is against change/progress is a conservative, so when someone says they are anti-tankie, they are by definition expressing a conservative stance. That is, wanting to do something about systemic inequality is synonymous with having a progressive stance on systemic inequality.
Other way around: communists are just one form of tankies, the word is also used to refer to anarchists and some soc-dems.
You're spun around, flipped upside-down, and confused as can be.
Tankie is a term that specifically refers to one particular kind of communism; namely, the kind that supports authoritarian regimes that try to impose communism through the use of force to repress dissent.
You can be a communist and not be a tankie. You cannot be against progress and be a progressive.
Very compelling, but have you considered
spoiler
No, it's used to refer a wide, vague blob of vibes, just like the word woke. The people who use it can can do use it to refer to all kinds of communists, most anarchists, and anything to the left of Elizabeth Warren in general.
As opposed to the kind of communism where you ask nicely for revolution? Have you actually read any Marx? I guarantee he was not a pacifist.
By your own definition you cannot, let alone by a definition of tankie that describes how libs actually use it.
You deliberately misquoted me by cutting off the end of that sentence so you could have a nice soft strawman to swing at. The full sentence said
Forceful revolution by the workers against the capitalist class is a completely different matter from forceful repression of dissent by the state against students and professors.
That doesn't change the context at all. Dissent from the capitalist class is still dissent.
Lol okay, sure, yeah. Only the capitalist class. Got it.
"Marxism is when you capitulate to revolts from a small part of the population, with no concern for protecting the project that the majority supports"
So you're pro tanks against capitalists?
Nope, tankie originally referred specifically to British labor party members supporting the USSR's actions against the coup in Hungary, and today is used to refer to any anti-imperialist leftist, regardless of tendency. Of course all of you claim otherwise, but these claims are provably empty, as nobody who uses the term today, including you in this thread, bothers to check for the actual political views of the people you call tankie, you see something that may go against the state department narratives that are spoonfed to you by V*ush and the reddit front page or whoever else has done this pseudo-leftist brainworming to you and you start yelling tankie at the top of your liberal, western-chauvinist lungs. A good number of the people posting on hexbear are anarchists and DemSocs, but you will label all of them tankie as long as they critically support China or question the narrative on the new forever war in Ukraine, which to you equals "thinking today's Russia is true communism" and similar nonsense. Your understanding of politics is damaged beyond repair by being socialized as a smartass debatelord who has become entirely incapable of forming judgements not based on learned reflex and of engaging in good faith conversations. I would pity you if people like you wouldn't be such a disaster for the Western left and for anybody in the Global South suffering from the continued imperialism you help enable by fighting the last genuine critics of genocidal US policies that are left in the West. You CIA tool, you psyop casualty, you neocon bootlicker.
I don’t call someone a tankie based on where they post, but in what they post. If you don’t want to be called a tankie, then don’t post tankie shit.
If showing solidarity with victims of Amerikan imperialism makes me a tankie, i'll prefer that over being a white supremacist warmonger who justifies the bombing of brown people in "shithole countries" like literally everybody who calls people a tankie online.
No worries, that’s not what makes someone a tankie
So what if i say "China is far from perfect, but the people there are a lot happier with their government than the Amerikans, they are much less of a threat geopolitically, maybe we should leave them alone because it's honestly none of our business how the Chinese govern themselves"? Is it the usual 50 cent wumao genocide denier tinaman square then?
That's not how the world works in the year 2023. Isolationism just isn't a conceivable possibility. All countries are interconnected, and what's happening in one country influences what's happening in other countries in major ways.
Isolationsim isn't "let's not act hostile towards this country" you absolute ghoul.
A ghoul isn’t “an attractive and intelligent person” you absolute pumpkin.
I'll take being a beloved halloween decoration over being a chauvinist warmonger.
What's a tankie and how do you differentiate yourself from them as a socialist
A tankie is someone who blindly supports authoritarian regimes simply because they’re anti-west
How do you differentiate yourself from them as a socialist? What is your theory of power and how it relates to authority, revolutions, and the working class that causes you to make this separation between supporting non-western communist countries and not?
I'm sorry, maybe I'm misunderstanding here. I think the delineation between authoritarian regimes and non-authoritarian governments is pretty clear - are you implying that all socialist and communist influenced governments are necessarily authoritarian?
No, I'm suggesting that authoritarian is a meaningless term unless defined specifically and was asking what theories of power and authority they had for making the delineation they are.
The derogatory term authoritarian is always leveled at socialist or communist countries, and never capitalist ones even though capitalist countries restrict rights for the majority of their populations by the very nature of the inherent power structure in capitalism. Even though communist countries usually enjoy far more decentralised authority, better voting rights, and higher political involvement in the populace, they are labeled as "authoritarian," the implication being that they need "freedom" aka capitalism
What? The term authoritarian is thrown at non-communist/capitalist nations all the time. Syria, Nazi Germany, Libya, Franco's Spain, Modern Russia, and a million other instances. Authoritarian is a clearly defined term and is in no way exclusively applied to communist nations in almost any circles. It also happens to have been applied to most "communist" countries because most of them have been authoritarian
Notice you didn't name the United States which is just as authoritarian as modern Russia by any definition we choose (voting rights? participation in political process? allowed dissent? access to clean water? basic access to healthcare? food desserts? policies meant to keep people in poverty?). That's my point. It's an ethereal term unless properly defined.
We'll have to set Libya aside since after given "freedom," there are now literal slave traders everywhere.
I don't particularly care as that wasn't my point. My point was to disagree with your comment prior which stated that authoritarian as a term was mainly used as a truncheon against communist nations in order to increase support for capitalism, which it isn't.
Yeah, but you doing that is unhelpful. It is confusing people because that is not a reasonable place to find criticism with the argument. Too much precision is not helpful in arguments and the CIA literally ran propaganda programs to get people to try to bog down any discussion of communism with meaningless minutiae. So, do better or something.
It is helpful because it's not about having too much precision, he made a bullshit argument and I found it ridiculous.
Look at the replies? Was it really helpful? No. I am glad you found it emotionally validating but that is not reason enough do to all that.