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this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2023
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This was posted in 2021, since then the white supremacists have figured out that they can just double down instead of giving up and not being racist pieces of shit.
As for tankies... those fuckers are real, and are also pretty gross. But do note that a tankie is a specific type of authoritarian loving communist, who is perfectly happy to watch a communist country use literal tanks to crush any attempt at free speech or democracy.
After all, the original tankies cheered on the Soviet crushing of the Hungarian revolution, a revolution led by the local communists who wanted to remain a communist country, just not a soviet country.
I say that you cannot have a true communist country unless it's also a true democracy. Having a single party with all others made illegal doesn't count.
You also cannot have a true democracy under unchecked capitalism. But everyone knows that one.
Hungarians: "Actually, our interim government consists of a supermajority of socialist parties and we intend to-"
Tankies today: "F A S C I S T S"
I can honestly afford tankies back then a little more leeway - at least some of them were simply ignorant and giving the Sovs the benefit of the doubt given the limited ability to filter through information across the Iron Curtain reliably - but now we have so much information at our fingertips that it's hard to believe people still repeat long-discredited propaganda.
Ignore the Sea Lion below me. He's just JAQing off, as tankies love to do. I have him blocked, but I still get notifications lmao.
To be fair, Viktor Orbán is pretty fascist, and has kind of made himself Prime Minister for life. The current Hungarian Parliament is made up of Conservative and Far right ideologies, so not very socialist at all.
But yeah, the Soviets killed a lot of good communist leaders back in 1956. And the Tankies cheered (which was how they were named.)
Way to throw the baby out with the bath water. Because a bad thing happened in 1956, all communists today are evil?
Are tankies worse than white supremacist? Why are they gross?
Tankies believe that communism is only possible with a super strict authoritarian state to enforce it. No dissent against the communist ideals of that state are allowed. And in their view, out right murder of those dissenting voices is 100% justified.
Tankies are almost 100% pro-CCP, and will either try to justify the ongoing genocide of the Uyghurs, or they deny that it's happening at all.
Now, the next category of tankie is particularly gross, the ones who are pro-Putin. They might acknowledge that Russia isn't communist anymore, but still see it as "Taking on the evil capitalists of the west".
Which, to you, is worse, Putin or Capitalist America?
Putin is a greater threat to world stability. The fucker has threatened to use nukes repeatedly.
He's also a fucking capitalist as well. Russia is fully capitalist. Russian ascendancy is just more capitalism, but with an added dash of authoritarianism.
So you’re okay with American imperialism/ NATO? I believe that is what the tankies see as more of a threat. Would you call yourself a liberal? A Social Democrat? Just trying to learn.
As opposed to Russian Imperialism?
Tankies don't acknowledge that Russia is a capitalist, imperialist hellhole as well.
The CCP is also a capitalist imperialist hellhole. (Yes, they adopted a form of capitalism, and are speed running the hellscape)
While American capitalism is actively killing the planet, Russia and China are actively helping that effort.
A tankie thinks that Russia and the CCP are somehow good, a realist says, no they aren't, they're actively committing genocide on their own people, and might start WW3 by invading Taiwan, a mostly functional democracy that really is a separate country, and has been since the early 50s.
No country on earth is the "good one".
All reality has, is differing levels of shit. Russia has an unstable capitalist autocrat at the helm. Putin has absolute power in Russia, and is actively in a war that he started as a land grab. A war he started with no justification at all. Just lies.
Now, the US also did that one two decades ago, but at least Saddam was a murderous psychopath dictator. And the US never threatened to use nukes in Iraq. It was a war based on lies, but the only good part was that nukes were never on the table.
Putin invaded a functional democracy, and has repeatedly threatened to use nukes. That alone is more of a threat to world stability than anything the US has done since McArthur tried to nuke Korea and was slapped down by Truman.
The use of Nukes would kick off the end of the world. An instant WW3.
Every nation is imperialist to some degree, it’s what capitalism requires. That includes Russia and China. It’s just that after WW2 America did it really well and spread “democracy” all over the world. So, if all companies are capitalist hellholes, you have to at least understand why tankies hate the biggest hellhole the most. Once you look at the history of the US and see what it has done to maintain control. You can understand why tankies feel the way they do. Never forget that America is the only country that has ever used a nuke on another country. I don’t like the Russia and China apologetics that tankies do. But when contrasted with the crimes of America, I understand. You are doing a bit of American apologetics yourself. If you are sincere about overthrowing capitalism, as I am, then you should see tankies as allies in the class struggle. Call them Marxist-Leninist. Using the pejorative “tankie” is immature and anachronistic. You can still dislike some of their ideals and still work with them.
Tankies are no one's allies, because authoritarianism pretending to be communism is a stark betrayal of communist ideals.
Read Animal Farm, it tells the story of how the communist ideal is cop-opted and poisoned by those who would later become tankies. Orwell knew what he was talking about, dude went to Spain and fought fascists before it was the cool thing to do.
In fact, stop with the Marxist-Leninist shit, Lenin started down the wrong path. His path led directly to Stalin.
Which is another flavor of tankie, those who really like Stalin as well. Because some tankies just want a dictator to come in and tell them who to hate, so that the dictator can then kill those people.
That's what Xi is doing right now, telling Chinese tankies who to hate, so that he can genocide Uyghurs.
I will say it again for the slow kids in the back, communism is impossible without a true democracy. The countries closest to the actual communist ideal, are European socialist democracies.
Those are the countries to cheer on, not fucking Russia or China, both of which betrayed the communist ideals a very long time ago.
One can have issues with Stalinism/Leninism without resorting to name calling. I don’t disagree with much of your reply. My issue is with the hate. Lenin and Stalin were trying to advance socialism as best they could. You can disagree with how they did it, but we have to acknowledge their efforts. No departure from capitalism will be perfect. Marxist Leninists are trying to break from capitalism. They are allys. The hate I see for them from centrists, liberals and socdems is counterproductive. It cuts a huge group out of the discussion on how to achieve post-capitalism. Infighting only furthers capitalist hegemony. Surely you are not a slow kid and can see that. What if Anarchists called you, a SocDem, a “Revisionist.” Or if the SocDems called Trotskyists “utopian.” IT’s immature to resort to name calling. Attack their ideas with substantial arguments instead.
Stalin was a drunken ass who was fucking insane, and oversaw the murder of anyone smarter than himself.
He did nothing to advance communism, he only advanced his own power, and his liquor bill.
The man was no one's ally, and worked hand in hand with Hitler to split Europe, until Hitler betrayed him.
Lenin was a murder happy fool, who may have started in a good place, but consolidated power to himself in a way antithetical to true communism. He set himself up as a fuck lord over his people and then died so that Stalin could move in. He also oversaw the death of a true communist movement, the anarchist communists of Ukraine. He had his Red Army kill everyone involved.
Just like Stalin did in Hungary a few decades later.
And that's the problem with you tankies, you worship monsters who betrayed the dream, and then cheer on the people who are still betraying it.
Because the tankies will never support a true communist country with a functional democracy, they would rather burn that to the ground so that their authoritarian masters can pretend to be communist, because some animals are more equal than others.
You make some good arguments against Leninism. Maybe use those instead of “tankie.” I’m not a Marxist Leninist.