both pretty extreme
both pretty extreme
309 comments
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I thought tankies were the far left? Or are they.. further left than that?
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Tankies don't even really fit most definitions for leftism that try to use something more concrete than vibes. They just think they're far left because they like the aesthetics of governments that tried to be or at least called themselves communist.
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If we're using the original definition of left and right, they'd technically be on the right.
The original meaning was whether or not you supported the monarchy. I'd say that a dictatorship is close enough that it applies.
Of course, politics isn't one dimensional. Even the "political compass" isn't really enough, here, there's probably an axis of the political graph for each major axiom of governance.
Honestly the best descriptor for tankies is just "authoritarian communists." That tells you where they stand better than any attempt at a spectrum or graph.
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The original meaning was whether or not you supported the monarchy
So then AnCaps are leftist because by nature of anarchism they don't support any "-archy?"
In fact, that would make any democrat (as in believer in democracy, not Democrat™) or republican (as in believer in a republic, not Republican™) leftists as well, since they believe in democracies or republics instead of a monarchy.
Maybe it's just me, but it seems everyone has strayed from the French revolution's definitions in the late 16th century by now, except those intentionally seeking to sow confusion and discord. Language evolves 'n' such.
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In fact, that would make any democrat (as in believer in democracy, not Democrat™) or republican (as in believer in a republic, not Republican™) leftists as well, since they believe in democracies or republics instead of a monarchy.
Or that's what you'd think, but the guy who created conservatism was a monarchist trying to figure out a way for the aristocracy to exist within democracy. The right is stanning for monarchy under a different name, as proudly admitted by their ideological leader. For details look up Edmund Burke.
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In reality it's extremely complicated. On certain lemmy instances everyone to the left of kleptocracy is a far left tankie lunatic.
No 'actual tankie' disagrees with any left wing view, except the method used to get there. The difference between tankies and the far left pictured is the lessons learned from (usually) us backed 'freedom fighters' that fought against popular movements and uprisings that required force to take down as infinite outside arming and funding is usually difficult to peacefully resolve. There's a lot of valid criticism of the ussr and cpc, anyone that has ever picked up a history book outside the west will tell you that using force to defend progress isn't one of them.
Or to put it another way and really risk the ban; if you were to do a successful revolution in the us tomorrow and a faction of magats suddenly get unlimited funding and weapons to 'protest', kill whatever security force you come up with, and start spreading hateful rhetoric while doing hate crimes... Would you use force knowing how dangerous they are, or would you roll over and let them 'lead a popular revolt' against your 'tyranny'?
Its a fundamental question that separates humans, and one whose answer doesn't change unless the answerer personally experiences why some support using force.
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It's not complicated at all? Tankies are autocrats. They're on the authoritarian right politically, which makes their economic stances irrelevant.
Also everyone knows history is written in blood, the fuck are you pussyfooting around the mention of historical violence for?
You have a deep misunderstanding of tankies. And leftism. And...pretty much everything?
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As brilliant as the previous comment was your reply couldn't be more confidently wrong.
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No, quite literally you do. Then again you people tend to call anyone to the left of burning children alive tankies, so that doesn't matter.
They're not right wing, politically or otherwise. Just as a reminder the ussr was decades ahead of the us in terms of left wing cultural progress; promoting gender equality, racial equality, and religious equality. Yes, they turned authoritarian, because they didn't want to be destroyed by the us; and hadn't advanced enough to understand why mixed markets, i.e. dengism, was essential.
But building a nation from scraps while at war with an enemy with inexaustible resources tends to require authoritarianism, and will require some level of authoritarianism until the west is disarmed, economically and militarily.
Anyone that disagrees with that has no concept of how much destruction and chaos the us sowed among any nation that dared to self determine away from being a us slave state.
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Parenti, in Blackshirt in Reds, covers this topic excellently. He does not gloss over the flaws and corruptions in the USSR, but he is realistic in giving a fair assessment of their successes in the midst of their failures. A big point being what you mentioned above: the USSR had to continue focusing production towards just being on even footing with the US in terms of defense, to protect against the very real threat of the US overthrowing the government as they were doing in so many other communist countries. At no time during the USSR's existence were they ever not under attack by some outside force or another (the NAZIs, CIA, multi-national capitalist interests etc). Here's a good quote talking about the Stalin era and progressive policies during that time:
During the years of Stalin's reign, the Soviet nation made dramatic gains in literacy, industrial wages, health care, and women's rights. These accomplishments usually go unmentioned when the Stalinist era is discussed. To say that "socialism didn't work" is to ignore that it did. In Eastern Europe, Russia, China, Mongolia, North Korea, and Cuba, revolutionary communism created a life for the mass of people that was far better than the wretched existence they had endured under feudal lords, military bosses, foreign colonizers, and Western capitalists. The end result was a dramatic improvement in the living conditions for hundreds of millions of people on a scale never before or since witnessed in history.
Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism by Michael Parenti
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Jesus christ I thought my post was firm enough but you're still trying to argue. I never said shit about the US or the USSR and you're spewing bullshit like I made an argument.
Reading over what you wrote in full, you're either trolling or incapable of admitting fault. Either way, good luck to you.
Your tankie overlords are literally doing what you're describing in Ukraine, South Africa, all over the middle east, right fucking now and you're talking about some CIA spookops the public had no knowledge of until 30 years after the fact.
Who taught you this bullshit?
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You mentioned tankies, tankies are explicitly supporters of the ussr, nothing more or less. If you fail to understand that, no shit you're confused. You're one of those people that think if you have a problem with killing children, you're a crazy leftie tankie. As you've demonstrated in this comment.
Also the us is still bombing more than a dozen countries for the crime of not wanting the us. What the fuck are you in about secret shit?
From pinochet to pol pot the us hasn't been secret about anything but their failures. Who taught you to suck billionaire dick this hard?
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Sure thing lib. Stalinism, the thing that nearly solely killed fascism, is fascism. You're welcome on behalf of stalin, by the way, for killing nazis when you people wouldn't.
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Jesus fucking Christ you think our education system is producing tankies? You think our education system produced people who defend Stalin?
News flash! You learned to hate Stalin in our education system and never questioned it.
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Lmao whose education system do you think I referred to?
Globally our children (and adults like you) are failing critical thinking.
Stalin laid the groundwork for the USSR to turn into what it is now, a dictatorship.
You tankie morons are deluded by the notion that your king is the "good" king.
The only good king is a dead king. Remember this while watching what's happening in the US right now: they're transitioning straight through Stalinist central government structure right fucking now. And they're already pushing it into a dictatorial structure.
Get your heads out of your asses and see that Stalinism is the direct ideallogical link to Nazism. Jesus fucking christ education has failed so many of you.
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Have you ever read anything more complicated than Harry Potter without it being assigned in school?
There's a whole world of history and political theory out there that could tell you the ways you were lied to about Stalin, so you could actually form your own opinion instead of regurgitate what you were told by your government.
Instead you just regurgitate what you're fed.
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Personally, it sounds as if you've been brainwashed far too much to be within any reach of help.
But if you were to open your eyes for one damned second you'd see that your Stalinism is the architecture that led to Ayn Randian objectivism. This led to crony capitalism, which led to oligarchy, which is currently leading the US straight into fascism.
You're the left's equivalent of the right's brainwashed MAGA cultist. You won't make it great. It's been tried, and it wasn't that great to begin with. All you're doing now is feeding into peoples' fears that communism leads to dictatorship, which under Stalinism has BEEN PROVEN to do just that.
You're trying to help but you're honestly harming progress. Educate yourself before you try to educate others. And do yourself a favor and try to see beyond singular governments, you narrow-minded buffoon.
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I dont call people tankies for thinking that communism is cool. Or that the west sucks.
I call people tankies, when they defend the ethnic cleansings and the great purge of Stalin by saying "we just had to defend ourselves" or portraying them as an integral part of the struggle better peoples lives.
Because i personally dont think that deporting entire ethnic groups from their homelands is needed to better peoples lives. I dont think the paranoid xenophobia of Stalin helped anyone and at worst crippled the ability of the Red Army to withstand the initial invasion of the Wehrmacht. I think his usage of the word "counterrevolutionary" completely devalued the word because calling Zinoviev, Kamenev and Trotzky counterrevolutionaries for calling for collectivization, only to turn around and calling Bukharin counterrevolutionary for opposing collectivization is a sign for devolving into a byzantine power struggle.
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309 comments