• Dr. Bob@lemmy.ca
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    1 month ago

    I still have no idea what a Tankie is. As far as I can tell it only exists here on Lemmy and I might be one.

    • thethunderwolf@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 month ago

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie

      Tankie is a pejorative label generally applied to authoritarian communists, especially those who support or defend acts of repression by such regimes, their allies, or deny the occurrence of the events thereof. More specifically, the term has been applied to those who express support for one-party Marxist–Leninist socialist republics, whether contemporary or historical. It is commonly used by anti-authoritarian leftists, anarchists, libertarian socialists, left communists, social democrats, democratic socialists, and reformists to criticise Leninism, although the term has seen increasing use by liberal and right‐wing factions as well.[5][4]

    • Blisterexe@lemmy.zip
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      1 month ago

      As an example, I recently had someone unironically claim that china has more free speech than france, from a server hosted in france 🤦

    • greenbit@lemmy.zip
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      1 month ago

      It’s just a variety of fascist, pretending to belong with ideologies and principles that are not compatible

      • neidu3@sh.itjust.worksM
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        1 month ago

        By skimming the front page I don’t see many tankie-traits. Loads of communism and socialism, sure, but not much tankie stuff. But I’m sure there’s a lot of them in the comments with “interesting” takes on the cultural revolution and the holodomor.

        • chunes@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          You’re right. It seems to be mostly anarchists and such. There might have been more tankies back in the day, or maybe I just misremembered.

        • grte@lemmy.ca
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          1 month ago

          In practice, liberals and anarchists call anyone who defines themselves as a communist a tankie. Liberals will frequently use it for anyone who claims to be any sort of socialist.

          • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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            1 month ago

            Maybe sometimes. I don’t think this is generally true. Though I’ve also met tankies who think you’re not a real communist unless you’re a tankie. Are you one of those people?

            To me you’re not a tankie unless you consistently apologize for, minimize, or dismiss oppression under so-called socialist countries. There are a decent number of communists who don’t do this but they’re not the majority from what I’ve seen.