this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2025
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generally it vaguely means "communists" as well as "anti-imperialists", with the caveat that left communists are excluded as a separate thing
I thought it had to include the pro authoritarian and often pro war aspect of it. So a Marxist/communist or what not wouldn't fall into tankies without the call for an authoritarian leader like Stalin.
Nope, you will get called a tankie if you support Palestine. Tankies are generally anti imperialist war while the squishier social Democrat types are pro-war. Tankie authoritarians were against WW1 while the “lib left” all voted along nationalist lines
This is why I don't think this term will ever really leave usage on the internet moving forward.(not talking about historical use in GB and such). It seems many people believe it means something different. Not that I want it to be a mainstream media term.
Not that stack exchange users are the end all be all of what one should believe is correct, but this was what they showed as their agreed definition.
The parts about supporting the aggressive putting down of a rebellion with tanks is what usually has people tie in the supporting authoritarian violence. If you look at it from the other side one would would argue the ends justified the means which was to stop an escalation and thus a possible war as well. So really all sides of the term were going to be tied to aggression and supporting one mindedness ruling over another.
I don't see anyone using it as a compliment for anyone anytime soon
That “authoritarian putting down of a revolution” was the squashing of anti-Semitic rightwing pogroms and mobs. Good riddance.
Every nation state in existence is authoritarian, the different is towards who. You are still deep in Liberal dogma
I didn't say what I believed, I was discussing the usage of the term tankie in mainstream media. If it were used, I would assume western media would voice it with the red scare propaganda that is always pushed. With the media conglomerates jostling to find a way to fall in line with Trump's administration I figure they'd label anything left of them a violent communistic extremest group.
The average lib who uses tankie has no idea of its origins, and it’s origins are now so irrelevant as it has nothing to do with the groups that are labeled. Only liberals bring up the Hungary thing instead of discussing how the term is used in modern context
So you think it will just never be used in mainstream media like I was saying?
probably not, it's too online and embarrassing an they've already built up enough propaganda around "communist" and "authoritarian" to drop those terms. Mainstream Liberals love being taken seriously. It's only online they will lower themselves.
They are spewing false claim after false claim when they are easily verified as being incorrect. It's hard to take such seriously, but at the same time so long as they repeat it over and over confidently, their base eat it up. I suppose that happens with everything though. I hope you have a good day Z. I need to find something constructive around the house to throw myself into.
I have some news about Stalin courtesy of, no shit, the CIA
I was under the impression it was the intersection of the venn diagram of communists and imperialists, as long as imperialist means imperialist (defined as using economic, military, diplomatic and cultural power to influence countries around you in a way that is beneficial to you, and may be either beneficial, inconsequential or detrimental to them) and not just "western and capitalist"
What an amazing definition. Hand crafted to be as all encompassing as possible so you can label anyone as an imperialist.
That's generally a disagreement over what "Imperialism" even means. "Anti-Imperialists" are talking about Lenin's identification of modern Monopoly Capitalism as it brutally expropriates wealth from the Global South through outsourcing and debt traps with the IMF, like Coke and the Columbian death squads.