Tankie means someone who sometimes defends socialist authoritarian governments because they oppose the capitalist authoritarian governments.
They(we, sometimes, it’s complicated) have a tendency to forgive the crimes of those socialist governments. Sometimes this is justified, because the accusations are false, invented by capitalist media as propaganda.
However, sometimes it’s because we want to believe that the opposition to capitalism is always good and decent, when the truth is muddy and rather unpleasant: both sides suck in their own special ways, and you shouldn’t put anyone on a pedestal.
Here in the fediverse, anarchist leftists or left-libs are the norm, so we tankies get dogpiled pretty often. A pox on all hierarchical governments seems to be the way here.
Thank you for sharing the wikipedia article. I hadn’t read it. A lot of people find Wikipedia controversial for various reasons. But it is one of the most precise encyclopedias on the planet. And you can check out editing history etc. What I am most interested in, is the use here ofcourse. Because it seems to me people use it as a vaguely defined slur to slander people they deem to leftist.
Yeah, there’s all sorts of crazy political purity tests on Lemmy, and associated misuse of slurs.
And on Wikipedia:
On one side, my MAGA-adjacent family is starting to question it as “liberal biased”… as they leave Fox News blasting in the background.
On the other, tankies and some different leftist extremist leftists dismiss it as propaganda.
That’s a good sign, to me. Its never been perfect and has problems, but extremists trying to tear its credibility down is a sign of just how valuable it is.
how about one of the original creators of wikipedia no longer using his own software and encouraging everyone to also not use it? he claims that the cia have been using it as a tool of information warfare since 2007
I will admit that for shallow questions like ‘did this thing happen in this year’? wikipedia can sometimes be more useful than a plain search engine, also sometimes from wikipedia you can find links to real sources which can also be useful.
Since Sanger’s departure from Wikipedia, he has been critical of the project, describing it in 2007 as being “broken beyond repair”.[8] He has argued that, despite its merits, Wikipedia lacks credibility and accuracy due to a lack of respect for expertise. Since 2020, he has also accused Wikipedia of having a left-wing and liberal ideological bias in its articles.[9][10] Sanger’s effort to change Wikipedia was seen by some as part of a right-wing attack on Wikipedia.[11][12]
Of course Wikipedia is biased (probably western/liberal biased), astroturfed, and such. I was taught that in middle school. But calling it something like a CIA misinformation op falls into “perfect is the enemy of good” at best, and sounds more like the efforts of bad actors trying to tear down information sources they can’t control.
I really don’t like that.
For all its flaws, Wikipedia is one of the last “free” information oases on Earth. It’s critical to humanity’s survival. It should improve, yes, but we don’t need any more conspiracies undermining it.
They don’t have any actual values or morals and will happily support the most disgusting and heinous people that opress people, are racists wexist homophobic, that murder civilians and even commit genocide as long as they say they hate capitalism, and western imperialism.
“Tankie” was originally a British slang term from the 50s.
In 1956, when the Soviet Union invaded Hungary, the British Communist movement was split over whether this action was cool, or sucked.
The people who thought it sucked derided their opponents who thought its cool, as “Tankies”, because the images in the newspapers featured lots of photos of Soviet tanks rolling into Budapest.
After this, it stops being used for the most part, until it started being reclaimed by socialists online as a tongue-in-cheeck insult to throw at each other. Because, let’s be real, it’s a silly sounding word that’s fun to say, and silly words are among the UK’s biggest cultural exports.
Eventually though, Tankie breached containment and started to be used by people who had zero connection to any kind of socialist movement or history, and its meaning began to warp.
I’ve seen Marxists, even those think the Soviet invasion of Hungary was bad, called tankies. I’ve seen Anarchists called Tankies, I’ve seen right wing guys who love trad russian Orthodox Christianity called Tankies.
It’s a word that doesn’t mean much anymore. It’s like when your grandpa calls Joe Biden “Pinko Scum”
So people are “tankies” if they define “tankie” as slur meaning “left of poster”? That once again sounds like the way MAGA use “woke” about stuff they don’t like.
Not at all, and you’re not the first that tries to denaturate or change the definition of the word tankie.
A tankie is pro authoritarian, but instead of being pro fascism its being pro those who called themselves left like stalin lenin etc
So it describes the “left” Maga if you want.
I sure do understand why tankies would want to make believe the “tankie” is just like “woke” but it isn’t, it’s calling them out, showing that they are not leftists but authoritarians (so again, basically fascists).
It’s basically a term people on the left use for people on the extreme outer-reaches of the left, typically unthinking, uncritical, and unreasonable supporters of bolshevism and authoritarian communism, and pretty much any oppressive regime that considers itself “anti-west.”
They love putin, jinping, kim, assad, khamenei, etc.
They stylize themselves as “Marxist-Leninists” and your instance is full of them, so if you signed up unknowingly and aren’t a tankie, people might just assume based on the “.ml”
But yeah, most people on lemmy are tired of arguing in circles with tankies, who typically rely on ad hominems, strawmen, sealioning, and other bad faith or uncharitable arguments to bully you into exhaustion. Some of them have to be bots or russian trolls, cause no one can honestly be so dense. It can feel like arguing with someone from r/conservative, just with the opposite opinions.
That is a pretty vague definition, and that is probably what irks me about the term. It can be used as a slur for anything you don’t like. Like “woke” for conservatives. I switched home when I found out .world blocks instances they don’t like. Lemmy.ml seemed the to be the broadest, left accepting instance and they block out porn by default, win-win in my book. Infact I like the fact that I can be an anti-imperialist in places like hexbear, without being called a tankie. Being against killing school children does not mean I support the iranian goverment. I hope you take this answer in good faith. It is written in honesty.
It’s not that vague if you’ve ever encountered one in the wild. You would know exactly what it’s referring to. And it’s nothing like conservatives using “woke.” They use “woke” to describe anything mildly progressive. Tankies aren’t progressives, they’re accelerationist armchair militants. They call democratic socialists fascists.
Even if your opinion aligns with them on most things, it doesn’t automatically make you a tankie. If you’re not an auth-comm intent on bullying everyone who disagrees with you the slightest bit and labeling all nuance and critical reasoning as capitalist imperialist propaganda, then you’re probably not a tankie.
That’s also different from critiquing actual imperialism and capitalism. But tankies’ overuse of those terms and others like “fascist” waters down the meanings and obfuscates the terms, making it harder for good-faith communicators to actually discuss these topics critically.
You can be anti-imperialist all you want, but tankies use western imperialism as an excuse to justify supporting imperialist regimes like Russia. They’re full of cognitive dissonance.
Go ahead and disagree with someone slightly on .ml or hexbear and see what kind of response you get.
I’ve yet to try those kinds of response, when I discuss with people. Then again I haven’t been going into discussion about Yemen for instance. Mainly because my actual knowledge is simply to small to contribute. I do support anti-imperialist struggles, even by regimes I don’t like. But that does not mean I waiver my right to call out they in turn tyrannize their populations.
And yeah, I have a feeling we have a lot of online cosplayers here in the fediverse, but I will keep treating people as if they are real, when I interact. That however also mean I will keep asking people for definitions. I.e. what do you mean when you say “fash”, “tankie”, “lib” and so on. People use the slurs to hide behind and everyone loves if we can make everything black and white.
But I am a socialist and I have been called a tankie several times and I’ve even been banned for a couple of sub because I asked about that definition. I don’t mind people not liking what I say, but I will not take being slurred without questioning it. If that means a ban, well I am happy for getting out of another echo chamber.
Mainly because my actual knowledge is simply to small to contribute
See, an actual tankie would never admit to having limitations on their own personal knowledge and understanding.
But I am a socialist and I have been called a tankie several times
I’m a socialist too and tankies have called me a fascist because I believe in democratic-socialism instead of bolshevism. They clearly don’t know what fascism is.
Which is funny because this was just the main instance when I (and many others) learned about Lemmy. I’ve been called a tankie because of my instance when I’m pretty sure tankies would call me MAGA as I’m somewhere between a leftist, a liberal, and libertarian
That’s the thing, how would I know if I am tankie, if I don’t have a clear definition. If it is defined by wether or not I am oppossed to military moving into Budapest 70 years ago. I am probably not a tankie, but I say probably, because everyone writing about seem so biased I find it difficult to see the truth of it. But my moral compass tells me it is always wrong to use military against civilians. Always.
At the end of the day the deeds define the word, not the other way around. Not everyone will use the word correctly or appropriately. It’s why only you yourself can truly categorize as such, but at that point you must come to terms with what that means, positively or negatively.
The bias thing is a real problem, but also sometimes not. It all depends on the context. Some people with unreasonable opinions will absolutely waste your time by never accepting difficult realities and talking around it, so identifying a mindset that’s immune to self reflection can be useful. But similarly if a label is all that’s needed to dismiss an opinion also is not very reasonable. But it’s how some people operate. So sometimes not standing behind a label can be more fruitful as not to entice those presuppositions.
There is another problem. People use slurs to derail the discussions. Calling people “libs” or “tankies” left, right and center removes focus from whatever is discussed and make people crawl into their foxholes. It is an easy way to devalue people’s opinions or simply derail discussions. I think I will keep on questioning when people use the word “tankie”, because once the word is on the table, the discussion has already been derailed one way or another. And maybe one day it will lead to better discourse.
Oh, because we all know that the entire event was caught on video and it was so easy to smuggle film out of china at the time.
(Context: the video of tank man was hidden in a toilet while the authorities searched the man’s apartment after he was spotted filming from his window).
But denying massacres of civilians is so in character for someone from .ml, so nobody is surprised, really…
So if you’ve watched the full ‘tankman’ footage you would know that he wasn’t killed by a tank or by anything else in that video. You can believe decades and decades of breathless propaganda coming directly out of the NED and the other usual characters, or you can believe your own lying eyes.
It’s sufficient to assume that if this one important image was essentially a lie, then many other aspects of the story are also manufactured. For example did you know that many dozens of police officers (who were unarmed) were burnt to death by the student protestors? did you know that the leaders of the student protests were coordinating with and were paid by western intelligence agencies? Did you know that literally nancy pelosi was on the ground during those protests?
do you know anything other than what imperialist propaganda has directed you to ‘know’?
So because tank man wasn’t killed on camera, you’re claiming the entire massacre was a lie?
Does anyone even claim that he was killed? That was never the point of that video. The point was that an unnamed, ordinary, everyday person can be a hero during difficult times, even on his way back from the grocery store. He didn’t go out that day planning to be a hero, but the circumstances aligned and he chose courage over complacency.
For example did you know that many dozens of police officers (who were unarmed) were burnt to death by the student protestors?
Is that on video? Cause it sounds like you won’t believe the protesters were murdered unless it’s on video. So do you have video evidence corroborating this claim that it was actually the protesters who were killing cops?
I never thought I would hear a tankie with a pro-police argument. I guess “ACAB” comes with a footnote that says “except for the PLA”? How fast they turn around and lick boots when the dictators are anti-west…
did you know that the leaders of the student protests were coordinating with and were paid by western intelligence agencies?
You’re gonna need some evidence to back that up. Maga claims the anti-ICE protestors are paid by foreign influence, but the truth is people simply don’t like being oppressed by violent dictators.
Did you know that literally nancy pelosi was on the ground during those protests?
I don’t give a shit what nancy pelosi was doing. She’s a political opportunist and saw a moment to extort for clout. It’s not that deep.
do you know anything other than what imperialist propaganda has directed you to ‘know’?
Do you “know” anything other than imperialist propaganda has directed you to “know”? Tankies are a cult like maga, you reject reality as “propaganda” because it doesn’t align with your worldview, which is largely composed of actual propaganda.
I’d rather be a tankie than a normie
I’m definitely no normie, but thank fuck there are more than two options (sorry not sorry that conflicts with your campist worldview, but life isn’t sportsball team).
It is routinely claimed that the ‘tankman’ was killed by the tank right after the clip that is usually shown ends. The full video shows that he left along with others who convinced him to leave. You might not be making that claim, but that was what the anti-chinese propaganda claimed for decades.
The burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that the massacre in fact happened. What exists in video form is a man standing in front of a tank and then NOT being killed. Despite many many lies sugfesting otherwise. It seems like you don’t participate in that particular lie, while still uncritically accepting the rest of the narrative. Perhaps if one major detail of the story is false other details of the story are also false? i guess we’ll just have to trust that the same three-letter agencies who have every reason and motive to undermine chinese sovereignty are in this particular case trustworthy.
I mention the burning to death of unarmed police to illustrate to you which side was the more violent and unrestrained. Violence which is characteristic of foreign regime-change operations and hybrid warfare.
I want to defund the police and reform the organisation to serve the people, there’s enough room within this worldview to not be burning cops alive (and i must stress again that they were not armed with lethal force).
You say that you aren’t a normie but then uncritically accept an obviously distorted version of history which has been constructed to serve western imperial interests.
Maybe you’re an operator who does actually know the truth but lies about it professionally. In that case i’m sorry for inaccurately describing you as a normie, when really you would be a glowie.
but just in case you are actually just a normie in denial here’s a thing to read
The number of Chinese Marxist-Leninists alone vastly outnumbers us Western tankies. The vast majority of “tankies” live in various countries outside of the imperial core.
Even in the US, the most prominent and successful “tankie” organization was the Black Panther Party.
Because I sometimes get curious and find out who they are. Either americans are less privacy conscious, or most tankies are american college kids, often with some neuropsychological disability kids like to flaunt nowadays.
From my understanding, a vatnik is specifically someone who is shilling for the russian government. Not necessarily under a veneer of leftism (because the kremlin is far-right-wing).
A tankie may or may not be directly shilling for the kremlin, but it’s always an auth-comm under a guise of leftism.
Tankie vatniks exist of course, but they’re just the center of the venn diagram.
I find it very interesting that you get downvotes for this comment. My experience is that this is the way most people use the term and they get so angry, when you point that out.
Not even a little bit, but typical tankie rhetoric is to call anyone who isn’t at least as far to the left as them (read: approaching infinity) a fascist, so I’m not surprised to hear this from an .ml account
You can see from the very question that poster asked that, whatever clear definition about authoritarianism or whatever you think it has, that’s just not how people are actually using it. Centrists will use it for Mamdani supporters, DSA-types will use it for Marxist-Leninists, and anarchists will use it for almost literally anyone.
No one calls Mamdani a tankie, but I have seen tankies calling Mamdani a fascist. They clearly don’t know what fascism is.
Centrists also don’t use the term “tankie.” If anything they call everyone on the left a socialist (as if it’s a bad thing) or a communist or a radical leftist.
“Tankie” is specifically a word people on the left use to refer to auth-comms.
Tankies are apologists for “communist” leaders such as Stalin, Mao and Kim. They love Russia, China and North Korea and will swear those countries can do no wrong. “Left” authoritarians… bootlickers.
He literally was respected by people in Iran, not everyone there is against the government and the biggest problems with the government were not him specifically it is the sprawling layers of republican bureaucracy that runs Iran and does a bad job. The Supreme Leader there isn’t really like an absolutist dictator, the Ayatollahs are like the Supreme Court of the Islamic Republic and he was like the Chief Justice.
It is wild seeing USAmericans with no information talking about a topic they only received messaging about from their government. Before you call me an apologist please understand my family had to escape Iran in the back of a van and get dumped on the border of Turkey with nothing to get out, I’m not making excuses for them.
Now watch all the tankies praise him as a honorary socialist
I am trying to get someone to explain what tankie means. People call me tankie from time to time, but I have no love for the iranian goverment.
Tankie means someone who sometimes defends socialist authoritarian governments because they oppose the capitalist authoritarian governments.
They(we, sometimes, it’s complicated) have a tendency to forgive the crimes of those socialist governments. Sometimes this is justified, because the accusations are false, invented by capitalist media as propaganda.
However, sometimes it’s because we want to believe that the opposition to capitalism is always good and decent, when the truth is muddy and rather unpleasant: both sides suck in their own special ways, and you shouldn’t put anyone on a pedestal.
Here in the fediverse, anarchist leftists or left-libs are the norm, so we tankies get dogpiled pretty often. A pox on all hierarchical governments seems to be the way here.
You’re probably being called a tankie because you’re from lemmy.ml .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie
And if one points out Wikipedia (while very imperfect, yes) is just Western Propaganda, well, that’s a pretty good indicator, too.
Thank you for sharing the wikipedia article. I hadn’t read it. A lot of people find Wikipedia controversial for various reasons. But it is one of the most precise encyclopedias on the planet. And you can check out editing history etc. What I am most interested in, is the use here ofcourse. Because it seems to me people use it as a vaguely defined slur to slander people they deem to leftist.
Yeah, there’s all sorts of crazy political purity tests on Lemmy, and associated misuse of slurs.
And on Wikipedia:
On one side, my MAGA-adjacent family is starting to question it as “liberal biased”… as they leave Fox News blasting in the background.
On the other, tankies and some different leftist extremist leftists dismiss it as propaganda.
That’s a good sign, to me. Its never been perfect and has problems, but extremists trying to tear its credibility down is a sign of just how valuable it is.
how about one of the original creators of wikipedia no longer using his own software and encouraging everyone to also not use it? he claims that the cia have been using it as a tool of information warfare since 2007
I will admit that for shallow questions like ‘did this thing happen in this year’? wikipedia can sometimes be more useful than a plain search engine, also sometimes from wikipedia you can find links to real sources which can also be useful.
On the contrary, to quote Wikipedia’s article on him:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Sanger
Which lines up with external articles written by him that I’m reading, including his take on Grokipedia: https://larrysanger.org/2025/10/grokipedia-a-first-look/
Of course Wikipedia is biased (probably western/liberal biased), astroturfed, and such. I was taught that in middle school. But calling it something like a CIA misinformation op falls into “perfect is the enemy of good” at best, and sounds more like the efforts of bad actors trying to tear down information sources they can’t control.
I really don’t like that.
For all its flaws, Wikipedia is one of the last “free” information oases on Earth. It’s critical to humanity’s survival. It should improve, yes, but we don’t need any more conspiracies undermining it.
it’s more than simple bias, larry sanger knows that and i suspect that you do as well.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/pro-israel-activists-blacklist-mintpress-wikipedia/261022/
Tankies are basically maga but for “socialism”
They don’t have any actual values or morals and will happily support the most disgusting and heinous people that opress people, are racists wexist homophobic, that murder civilians and even commit genocide as long as they say they hate capitalism, and western imperialism.
Supporting Putin in the name of communism is the funniest thing tankies do, imo.
“Tankie” was originally a British slang term from the 50s.
In 1956, when the Soviet Union invaded Hungary, the British Communist movement was split over whether this action was cool, or sucked.
The people who thought it sucked derided their opponents who thought its cool, as “Tankies”, because the images in the newspapers featured lots of photos of Soviet tanks rolling into Budapest.
After this, it stops being used for the most part, until it started being reclaimed by socialists online as a tongue-in-cheeck insult to throw at each other. Because, let’s be real, it’s a silly sounding word that’s fun to say, and silly words are among the UK’s biggest cultural exports.
Eventually though, Tankie breached containment and started to be used by people who had zero connection to any kind of socialist movement or history, and its meaning began to warp.
I’ve seen Marxists, even those think the Soviet invasion of Hungary was bad, called tankies. I’ve seen Anarchists called Tankies, I’ve seen right wing guys who love trad russian Orthodox Christianity called Tankies.
It’s a word that doesn’t mean much anymore. It’s like when your grandpa calls Joe Biden “Pinko Scum”
Thank you. I had an idea, that it was something like that. It seems that on lemmy it means everyone left of poster (or OP), the poster disagree with.
That’s usually how the tankies try to convey it, but otherwise I haven’t seen that argument.
So people are “tankies” if they define “tankie” as slur meaning “left of poster”? That once again sounds like the way MAGA use “woke” about stuff they don’t like.
Not at all, and you’re not the first that tries to denaturate or change the definition of the word tankie.
A tankie is pro authoritarian, but instead of being pro fascism its being pro those who called themselves left like stalin lenin etc
So it describes the “left” Maga if you want.
I sure do understand why tankies would want to make believe the “tankie” is just like “woke” but it isn’t, it’s calling them out, showing that they are not leftists but authoritarians (so again, basically fascists).
You have a child’s understanding of the world
You have like 1/20 in rhetoric. What a lame thing to say lol.
It’s basically a term people on the left use for people on the extreme outer-reaches of the left, typically unthinking, uncritical, and unreasonable supporters of bolshevism and authoritarian communism, and pretty much any oppressive regime that considers itself “anti-west.”
They love putin, jinping, kim, assad, khamenei, etc.
They stylize themselves as “Marxist-Leninists” and your instance is full of them, so if you signed up unknowingly and aren’t a tankie, people might just assume based on the “.ml”
But yeah, most people on lemmy are tired of arguing in circles with tankies, who typically rely on ad hominems, strawmen, sealioning, and other bad faith or uncharitable arguments to bully you into exhaustion. Some of them have to be bots or russian trolls, cause no one can honestly be so dense. It can feel like arguing with someone from r/conservative, just with the opposite opinions.
That is a pretty vague definition, and that is probably what irks me about the term. It can be used as a slur for anything you don’t like. Like “woke” for conservatives. I switched home when I found out .world blocks instances they don’t like. Lemmy.ml seemed the to be the broadest, left accepting instance and they block out porn by default, win-win in my book. Infact I like the fact that I can be an anti-imperialist in places like hexbear, without being called a tankie. Being against killing school children does not mean I support the iranian goverment. I hope you take this answer in good faith. It is written in honesty.
It’s not that vague if you’ve ever encountered one in the wild. You would know exactly what it’s referring to. And it’s nothing like conservatives using “woke.” They use “woke” to describe anything mildly progressive. Tankies aren’t progressives, they’re accelerationist armchair militants. They call democratic socialists fascists.
Even if your opinion aligns with them on most things, it doesn’t automatically make you a tankie. If you’re not an auth-comm intent on bullying everyone who disagrees with you the slightest bit and labeling all nuance and critical reasoning as capitalist imperialist propaganda, then you’re probably not a tankie.
That’s also different from critiquing actual imperialism and capitalism. But tankies’ overuse of those terms and others like “fascist” waters down the meanings and obfuscates the terms, making it harder for good-faith communicators to actually discuss these topics critically.
You can be anti-imperialist all you want, but tankies use western imperialism as an excuse to justify supporting imperialist regimes like Russia. They’re full of cognitive dissonance.
Go ahead and disagree with someone slightly on .ml or hexbear and see what kind of response you get.
I’ve yet to try those kinds of response, when I discuss with people. Then again I haven’t been going into discussion about Yemen for instance. Mainly because my actual knowledge is simply to small to contribute. I do support anti-imperialist struggles, even by regimes I don’t like. But that does not mean I waiver my right to call out they in turn tyrannize their populations.
And yeah, I have a feeling we have a lot of online cosplayers here in the fediverse, but I will keep treating people as if they are real, when I interact. That however also mean I will keep asking people for definitions. I.e. what do you mean when you say “fash”, “tankie”, “lib” and so on. People use the slurs to hide behind and everyone loves if we can make everything black and white.
But I am a socialist and I have been called a tankie several times and I’ve even been banned for a couple of sub because I asked about that definition. I don’t mind people not liking what I say, but I will not take being slurred without questioning it. If that means a ban, well I am happy for getting out of another echo chamber.
See, an actual tankie would never admit to having limitations on their own personal knowledge and understanding.
I’m a socialist too and tankies have called me a fascist because I believe in democratic-socialism instead of bolshevism. They clearly don’t know what fascism is.
Lol you’re not a socialist, you’re a liberal.
You don’t know shit about me, so you aren’t in a position to decide what I am.
Assuming you’re not a tankie, I would guess it’s your instance, which is the main one where all the tankies hang out lol
Which is funny because this was just the main instance when I (and many others) learned about Lemmy. I’ve been called a tankie because of my instance when I’m pretty sure tankies would call me MAGA as I’m somewhere between a leftist, a liberal, and libertarian
That’s the thing, how would I know if I am tankie, if I don’t have a clear definition. If it is defined by wether or not I am oppossed to military moving into Budapest 70 years ago. I am probably not a tankie, but I say probably, because everyone writing about seem so biased I find it difficult to see the truth of it. But my moral compass tells me it is always wrong to use military against civilians. Always.
At the end of the day the deeds define the word, not the other way around. Not everyone will use the word correctly or appropriately. It’s why only you yourself can truly categorize as such, but at that point you must come to terms with what that means, positively or negatively.
The bias thing is a real problem, but also sometimes not. It all depends on the context. Some people with unreasonable opinions will absolutely waste your time by never accepting difficult realities and talking around it, so identifying a mindset that’s immune to self reflection can be useful. But similarly if a label is all that’s needed to dismiss an opinion also is not very reasonable. But it’s how some people operate. So sometimes not standing behind a label can be more fruitful as not to entice those presuppositions.
There is another problem. People use slurs to derail the discussions. Calling people “libs” or “tankies” left, right and center removes focus from whatever is discussed and make people crawl into their foxholes. It is an easy way to devalue people’s opinions or simply derail discussions. I think I will keep on questioning when people use the word “tankie”, because once the word is on the table, the discussion has already been derailed one way or another. And maybe one day it will lead to better discourse.
Are you in some way pro Putin, Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Kim ? Then you might be a tankie.
If you think they are/were despicable mass-murderous dictators then you’re not.
Doesn’t the term come from the Tiananmen Square massacre when the army drove tanks over students?
Laughing at all the tankies getting butthurt in the comments
this isn’t 1995 man, you can just watch the full video of that not happening anytime you like
Oh, because we all know that the entire event was caught on video and it was so easy to smuggle film out of china at the time.
(Context: the video of tank man was hidden in a toilet while the authorities searched the man’s apartment after he was spotted filming from his window).
But denying massacres of civilians is so in character for someone from .ml, so nobody is surprised, really…
So if you’ve watched the full ‘tankman’ footage you would know that he wasn’t killed by a tank or by anything else in that video. You can believe decades and decades of breathless propaganda coming directly out of the NED and the other usual characters, or you can believe your own lying eyes.
It’s sufficient to assume that if this one important image was essentially a lie, then many other aspects of the story are also manufactured. For example did you know that many dozens of police officers (who were unarmed) were burnt to death by the student protestors? did you know that the leaders of the student protests were coordinating with and were paid by western intelligence agencies? Did you know that literally nancy pelosi was on the ground during those protests?
do you know anything other than what imperialist propaganda has directed you to ‘know’?
I’d rather be a tankie than a normie
So because tank man wasn’t killed on camera, you’re claiming the entire massacre was a lie?
Does anyone even claim that he was killed? That was never the point of that video. The point was that an unnamed, ordinary, everyday person can be a hero during difficult times, even on his way back from the grocery store. He didn’t go out that day planning to be a hero, but the circumstances aligned and he chose courage over complacency.
Is that on video? Cause it sounds like you won’t believe the protesters were murdered unless it’s on video. So do you have video evidence corroborating this claim that it was actually the protesters who were killing cops?
I never thought I would hear a tankie with a pro-police argument. I guess “ACAB” comes with a footnote that says “except for the PLA”? How fast they turn around and lick boots when the dictators are anti-west…
You’re gonna need some evidence to back that up. Maga claims the anti-ICE protestors are paid by foreign influence, but the truth is people simply don’t like being oppressed by violent dictators.
I don’t give a shit what nancy pelosi was doing. She’s a political opportunist and saw a moment to extort for clout. It’s not that deep.
Do you “know” anything other than imperialist propaganda has directed you to “know”? Tankies are a cult like maga, you reject reality as “propaganda” because it doesn’t align with your worldview, which is largely composed of actual propaganda.
I’m definitely no normie, but thank fuck there are more than two options (sorry not sorry that conflicts with your campist worldview, but life isn’t sportsball team).
It is routinely claimed that the ‘tankman’ was killed by the tank right after the clip that is usually shown ends. The full video shows that he left along with others who convinced him to leave. You might not be making that claim, but that was what the anti-chinese propaganda claimed for decades.
The burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that the massacre in fact happened. What exists in video form is a man standing in front of a tank and then NOT being killed. Despite many many lies sugfesting otherwise. It seems like you don’t participate in that particular lie, while still uncritically accepting the rest of the narrative. Perhaps if one major detail of the story is false other details of the story are also false? i guess we’ll just have to trust that the same three-letter agencies who have every reason and motive to undermine chinese sovereignty are in this particular case trustworthy.
I mention the burning to death of unarmed police to illustrate to you which side was the more violent and unrestrained. Violence which is characteristic of foreign regime-change operations and hybrid warfare.
I want to defund the police and reform the organisation to serve the people, there’s enough room within this worldview to not be burning cops alive (and i must stress again that they were not armed with lethal force).
You say that you aren’t a normie but then uncritically accept an obviously distorted version of history which has been constructed to serve western imperial interests.
Maybe you’re an operator who does actually know the truth but lies about it professionally. In that case i’m sorry for inaccurately describing you as a normie, when really you would be a glowie.
but just in case you are actually just a normie in denial here’s a thing to read
Somebody shared this link. It helped me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie
Mostly cringe american kids who confuse authoritarianism for socialism.
The number of Chinese Marxist-Leninists alone vastly outnumbers us Western tankies. The vast majority of “tankies” live in various countries outside of the imperial core.
Even in the US, the most prominent and successful “tankie” organization was the Black Panther Party.
Tankies exist around the world, I don’t know why you’re making it an american thing. It’s not limited to just americans.
Because I sometimes get curious and find out who they are. Either americans are less privacy conscious, or most tankies are american college kids, often with some neuropsychological disability kids like to flaunt nowadays.
A decade ago, it was “as a black man in america…” Now I suppose it’s “as an autistic person in america…”
Still the same troll farms operating out of russia.
Yeah but closer to the eastern bloc you’re likely to hear the term “vatnik” used instead.
Tankies and vatniks have a lot of overlap.
From my understanding, a vatnik is specifically someone who is shilling for the russian government. Not necessarily under a veneer of leftism (because the kremlin is far-right-wing).
A tankie may or may not be directly shilling for the kremlin, but it’s always an auth-comm under a guise of leftism.
Tankie vatniks exist of course, but they’re just the center of the venn diagram.
“Tankie” is just a derogatory term for anyone to the left of the person saying it
I find it very interesting that you get downvotes for this comment. My experience is that this is the way most people use the term and they get so angry, when you point that out.
Exhibit A:
Not even a little bit, but typical tankie rhetoric is to call anyone who isn’t at least as far to the left as them (read: approaching infinity) a fascist, so I’m not surprised to hear this from an .ml account
Oh, come on now, they’d never call Putin a fascist.
Oh true, I forgot to add that they’ll complain about literally anyone except for actual fascists…
There!
You guys are easy to spot these days.
You can see from the very question that poster asked that, whatever clear definition about authoritarianism or whatever you think it has, that’s just not how people are actually using it. Centrists will use it for Mamdani supporters, DSA-types will use it for Marxist-Leninists, and anarchists will use it for almost literally anyone.
I mean, yeah? Like the most basic understanding of anarchy is that hierarchy is a bad thing, so it applies to a lot of political philosophies
“If they don’t lick bolshevik boots, they’re a fascist” -average tankie
No one calls Mamdani a tankie, but I have seen tankies calling Mamdani a fascist. They clearly don’t know what fascism is.
Centrists also don’t use the term “tankie.” If anything they call everyone on the left a socialist (as if it’s a bad thing) or a communist or a radical leftist.
“Tankie” is specifically a word people on the left use to refer to auth-comms.
Can you show an example of people calling Mamdani supporters tankies please?
Can’t, because it didn’t happen.
Sorry, I don’t save links to random stupid internet comments
You should probably start doing that if you’re going to use them as core components of your online arguments.
Nah lol
Great logic. Almost as if you’re speaking shite, unless anarchists are on the right now…
No, I’m just accusing them of throwing around words that mean nothing and thinking everyone is authoritarian. Just a little joke.
Kinda like how tankies think everyone is a fascist (except for other tankies, of course)?
Tankies are apologists for “communist” leaders such as Stalin, Mao and Kim. They love Russia, China and North Korea and will swear those countries can do no wrong. “Left” authoritarians… bootlickers.
They do already. “Respected leader” one post over there said.
He literally was respected by people in Iran, not everyone there is against the government and the biggest problems with the government were not him specifically it is the sprawling layers of republican bureaucracy that runs Iran and does a bad job. The Supreme Leader there isn’t really like an absolutist dictator, the Ayatollahs are like the Supreme Court of the Islamic Republic and he was like the Chief Justice.
It is wild seeing USAmericans with no information talking about a topic they only received messaging about from their government. Before you call me an apologist please understand my family had to escape Iran in the back of a van and get dumped on the border of Turkey with nothing to get out, I’m not making excuses for them.
Was he respected by the up to thirty thousand protesters he had massacred?
All dictators have support, otherwise they wouldn’t exist. The majority of Iranians did not/do not like the current regime.