this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2023

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"Tanky" and the perception of Lemmy. (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

136 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I've been trying to make people aware of Lemmy on discord and Mastodon, but it's always met with resistance citing "the devs are pro authoritarianism tankies." Kbin seems to be picking up steam because of the developer baggage.

Do you feel like this negative perception will hamstring Lemmy's growth?

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago (6 children)

I've suddenly started seeing the word "Tankie" around. WTF does it mean?

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Same thing "woke" means to conservatives, except it's used by liberals instead - absolutely anything they want it to mean in any given situation.

It's deployed by people generally referring to any kind of marxists that have anti-imperialist politics, but I frequently see it used by liberals against even anarchists if they're not pro-nato.

It is complete garbage, should be ignored, and the people using the word derided as cranks. Once you start to realise that their behaviour is exactly the same as the people that scream about the "woke" all the time you realise how ridiculous it is, they filter EVERYTHING through hating the "tankies" (which can mean anything in different situations remember) in exactly the same way.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 years ago

A tankie is a leftist who doesn't agree with mainstream geopolitical opinions or shows any interest in nuance

Tankies [1] don’t usually believe that Stalin or Mao “did nothing wrong,” although many do use that phrase for effect (this is the internet, remember). We believe that Stalin and Mao were committed socialists who, despite their mistakes, did much more for humanity than most of the bourgeois politicians who are typically put forward as role models (Washington? Jefferson? JFK? Jimmy Carter?), and that they haven’t been judged according to the same standard as those bourgeois politicians. People call this “whataboutism” [2], but the claim “Stalin was a monster” is implicitly a comparative claim meaning “Stalin was qualitatively different from and worse than e.g. Churchill,” and I think the opposite is the case. If people are going to make veiled comparisons, us tankies have the right to answer with open ones.

The reason we “defend authoritarian dictators” is because we want to defend the accomplishments of really existing socialism, and other people’s false or exaggerated beliefs about those “dictators” almost always get in the way — it’s not tankies but normies [4] who commit the synecdoche of reducing all of really existing socialism to Stalin and Mao. Those accomplishments include raising standards of living, achieving unprecedented income equality, massive gains in women’s rights and the position of women vis-a-vis men, defeating the Nazis, raising life expectancy, ending illiteracy, putting an end to periodic famines, inspiring and providing material aid to decolonizing movements (e.g. Vietnam, China, South Africa, Burkina Faso, Indonesia), which scared the West into conceding civil rights and the welfare state. These were greater strides in the direction of abolishing capitalism than any other society has ever made. These are the gains that are so important to insist on, against the CIA/Trotskyist/ultraleft consensus that the Soviet Union was basically an evil empire and Stalin a deranged butcher.

https://redsails.org/tankies/

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago

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

[–] [email protected] -3 points 2 years ago

https://lemmy.world/comment/114872

[+] [email protected] -6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It originally was used to describe Leftists supporting authoritarianism while claiming to be leftist. It was used originally to describe Marxist-Leninist members of the Communist Great Party in Britain who supported the use of tanks by Soviets to quell a couple of uprisings in the late 50s and late 70s. It has since evolved as a term since then to include Leftists (or maybe not even leftists anymore, it's getting thrown around a lot now) who support similar actions in China and Russia. Usually they have an obsession with Mao and/or Stalin and China can do no wrong in their mind while claiming the western world is evil.

The term has an interesting history (to me as I'd describe myself as leftist, but I look at is as we all suck and can all improve) and Wikipedia has a decent article on it that I pulled most of this info from to double check my memory. Unfortunately they tend to be the most vocal part of leftist communities so I just tend to ignore any of them...

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

It originally was used to describe Leftists supporting authoritarianism while claiming to be leftist. It was used originally to describe Marxist-Leninist members of the Communist Great Party in Britain who supported the use of tanks by Soviets to quell a couple of uprisings in the late 50s and late 70s.

And history proved that support to be 100% correct given what those uprisings were. Have you ever actually looked at who was riling it up (gladio implanted fascists), who backed them and who was coordinating it? The US and CIA played a huge role.

It's fucking weird that this gets brought up as some huge gotcha thing by people when the supporters have been shown to have been historically correct in their decision. It was unpopular and split a lot of parties but they were on the right side ffs read a book.

[+] [email protected] -17 points 2 years ago (1 children)

And now it's used to describe people who ignore things like the genocide Uighur Muslims while saying things like China is so great. I actually never even mentioned the US in my brief (very brief) history of the term as it was just about why the term was there and why people are using it.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I mean, you used that reference because you are implying that shutting down those pro-capitalist counter-revolutions by literal fascists using force was a bad thing, that's why you said "leftists supporting authoritarianism while claiming to be leftist".

You're just demonstrating that you have never actually engaged with learning about any of these events. You have the vagueist knowledge about them and only understand them within the lens of "tankies bad" instead of what actually happened during those events, why certain decisions were made, and what we have learned in the decades since they occurred that proved the supporters to be on the right side of the decisions.

[+] [email protected] -6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

No I never implied that at all (that'd be like linking the history of the word Yankee would imply that I support the British rule of the American colonies), I said here is the history of the word, which does have that history. I'm not a fan of all the shit the US does, especially the CIA. I actually never implied one thing or another besides saying where the word came from and what it's evolved into today. I honestly have no opinion on the origin of the word, but what it's used for today is perfect. It even fits perfectly to evoke images of the Tiananmen Square protests, which when I heard it originally is what I would have assumed it meant. Honestly getting so bent out of shape about this word is just odd to me, if you support this stuff wear it. Quit picking teams in your politics, seriously the whole "but actually the killing of those people was good because my favorite government did it" gets old whether it comes from the US or China

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Of course you implied that - you WROTE IT.

You are now backtracking instead of admitting wrong, what you should be saying "you know what, you're right I actually don't know anything about it but I regurgitate this because I've seen other anti-communists regurgitate a thousand times with literally no opposition so I've never taken any time to properly examine events, learn about them, or critically analyse whether the accusations have weight or not"... A response that would be mature, laudable, and the sign of a person who actually wants to grow as a human being. Instead what you seem to be doing is deflecting from this and trying to segue into something else. I am asking you to properly learn about this specific event first, if you want to talk about other events then I am fine with doing that.... But one at a time. This practice of bombarding people with dozens of different things at once is called Gish Gallop as is a tactic used in bad-faith to avoid any real critical engagement with the events.

[+] [email protected] -12 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

And this is why people hate talking to tankies on the internet, you constantly rely on whataboutism and twisting everyone's words. I've never even said I'm anti-communist ever, literally just said that I don't support the actions taken by China and Russia when it comes to killing innocent people. I even said in my first comment I'm leftist, it's fine though, you really should read that Gish Gallop article you linked better.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

I have done no whataboutism. What are you on about? Can you stick to the fucking topic?

If you don't want to engage that's on you. I told you I'm willing to, one at a time. That way we can get into each topic individually and give it the due care, research and understanding that it needs.

You are the ones avoiding engagement by demanding a 10,000 character response on every single topic simultaneously, which we all know that you will not read.

I’ve never even said I’m anti-communist ever

You don't need to say it, you display it in all of your actions. What do you do? What orgs are you in? What have you ever contributed to anti-capitalism other than spending all of your time on the internet shitting on every socialist project that has ever existed with absolutely no critical analysis of their rights and wrongs? I'm perfectly willing to get into the wrongs, there have been plenty of wrongs in the strategies of past projects or else we would've beaten capitalism already. The issue is that people like yourself tend towards only seeing and talking about wrongs, because you've created an identity for yourself around punching left and thusly preventing socialism instead of actually doing anything to construct it.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago

No I never implied that at all

Emphasis mine

It originally was used to describe Leftists supporting authoritarianism while claiming to be leftist.

Get out of here with that bad faith nonsense