this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2023
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What counts as a tankie? Someone left of Social Democrats? Anyone who thinks Lenin was kinda based? Or is it people who love Mao, or Stalin? Or what exactly counts?
The "I won't condemn Russias invasion just deflect to Ukrainian Nazis" and "uyghur re-education isn't happening" is wild to see.
I'm not blocking any communities but if I were that might be the kind of things I would
Lemmygrad.ml is full of Putin appologists. Some of them are from hexabear.
The oh yeah, what about Minsk Agreements that Ukraine broke?! is also a wild ride on misinfo as well. Russia agreed to pull out forces out of Ukraine borders. Guess how it went.
The ones justifying genocides and wars from dictators.
You can be extreme left and still not be a tankie.
I assumed once one got extreme enough left they were anti-hierarchical and bound to principle
It's difficult to be that and tankie at the same time.
I'm but a poli-sci amateur so I may be talking out my ass.
Leftism isn't inherently anti-hierachy. Rather, different leftists take issue with different types of hierarchy. Marxists tend to hate class hierarchy, Marxist-Leninists tend to believe it to be a useful tool in developing to a stage where Socialism is possible, and Anarchists tend to think that all hierarchy is unjust, preferring mutualism.
Then there are Left-Comms, who, depending on country, either love Marx and Lenin but reject Marxism-Leninism, or reject Lenin and purely love Marx. They tend to prefer Council Communism rather than Vanguardist Marxism-Leninism, as they believe councils are justifiable as they are democratically participated in but reject Vanguardism.
I might be too new, but I haven't actually seen much of that at all. The farthest I've seen is adding context to events like collectivization in the USSR, which you can point out and still disagree with it, but prove that it's misrepresented in American News sources.
I'm not a Marxist-Leninist, but I think one of the most eye-opening things to learn is just how much propaganda is used by every country. Learning from other points of views, assuming historically accurate and verified, helps combat the notion that any states are good.
you can be social democrat left, you can be anarchist left, hell you can even be communalist hivemind left!
Don't know how accurate this is, but I've always thought they were hard left authoritarians
That's the general idea, but usually I've seen it more as a slur even for regular leftists as a way to disengage with them.
Tankies are people that defend or deny the shitty things done by ML states. People can appreciate some of Lenin's ideas, but not defend the states inspired by his ideology. The Bolsheviks under Lenin set the groundwork for Stalin's reign, with many of Stalin's terrible practices being inspired by things Lenin did. Lenin crushed opposition and centralized power while he was in charge, with Stalin doing what Lenin demonstrated to be acceptable behavior for their movement. When you reject the results of democratic processes to gain power, don't be surprised when your successor does the same. One can agree with many of Lenin's ideas, so long as they recognize the weaknesses.
I wish we had more people like you on the left
You can easily advocate for the overthrow of the government without defending terrible shit. This sort of argument stinks like the people who claim critical support for Hamas. The idea that you must stand one genocidal team is bullshit. You can take a principled position.
I said left of Social Democrats.
Social Dems, in my experience, are generally people with hearts in the right place, but haven't yet done any structural analysis. Essentially, they recognize that the current states with the highest standards of living are Social Democracies, and form their political and economic beliefs around replicating current "success," without actually taking it a step further and performing historical analysis or looking at trends.
There are SocDems that are incredibly based, and those are people who support third-world countries becoming Social Democracies as a means to achieve Socialism and Communism in the long run, as they can combat Imperialism and provide more for their people as they develop.
The issues with developed Social Democracies still stem from Capitalism lasting beyond the developing phase. In Scandinavian countries, we still see brutal, awful organizations like Nestlé brutalizing developing nations, rising disparity, and declines in equity. Social Democracies are better than Neoliberal Republics like the US, but still aren't "good."
No, that's not at all what I'm saying. Social Democrats take their roots in Marxist philosophy, but seek reform, rather than revolutionary change. Revolutionary doesn't inherently mean violent, but a total replacement of the state with a new one. See Rosa Luxembourg's Reform or Revolution for information on why reform will never work.
Social Demo is not Socialism. Social Demo is a rejection of Socialism, as Socialism is simply a Mode of Production by which the Means of Production are owned in Common, not by individuals. Social Demo is Capitalism, with Social Safety nets, and has issues as I've elaborated on in my previous comment.
They're conservatives. They demand a hierarchy where your betters are unquestionable and those below you are subservient. They promote this using the language of leftists, and the contradictions do not bother them, because words are just how you perform loyalty.
Right-wing politics are only the most blatant and fitting expression of that worldview. This tribalism is humanity's default. Reasoned argument is a learned behavior - and some people visibly are not doing that.
Reality is a team sport, to some people. In their minds: things are good because good people do them. And their people must be good people, because who'd want to be bad people?
I haven't seen any examples of this, though, not even from Hexbear or Lemmygrad.
That's why I'm pretty sure there are extremely few actual Tankies, and it's normally used to shutdown leftists that think a state is okay for a while.
I don't believe you.
I haven't seen anyone "demand a hierarchy where your betters are unquestionable and those below you are subservient," not even close.
You've never seen anyone defend dictatorships?
Oh, well if the CIA said his decades of brutal autocratic power don't count, I guess that doesn't what the fuck are you talking about of course he was a textbook dictator.
He wasn't autocratic, nor did everything he want to happen, happen. Much of the ongoing, day to day decisions were made by Worker Councils.
The CIA literally stated that the notion that he was a dictator were exaggerated, in an internal memo. "Comments on the change in Soviet leadership."
Maybe you've never seen Lemmy apologia for repressive totalitarian governance because you don't own a mirror.
Amazing how he could do all that while apparently being a totally normal non-autocratic political figure, clearly beholden to democratic workers' councils below him. Thirty years of unchallenged power (violently suppressing any internal opposition!) and that's not at all the same thing as dictatorial power over a nation-state.
Do you think hair-splitting is what barbers do?
Yeah, I read your one citation the first time. You, personally, here, now, are still listing a bunch of horrifying shit the man did, and could just as easily have not done, by his whim alone, during his decades of unitary executive power over a nation which brutalized any citizens who did not fall in line. 'Well he had a team!' Yeah dude, most autocrats do, or they get stabbed in their sleep.
I don't understand how you can talk about purging political opponents and still not get that 'well he's teeechnically not a dictator' is stupid word game. By the definition you're using - does Hitler count? Does anyone?
There's people here absofuckinglutely defending Stalin's atrocities. And the atrocities of other allegedly-communist or at least anti-"western" governments. Those are the tankies we're supposed to be talking about. When you say you've never seen them, I don't believe you.
It is our national shame that Andrew Jackson was ever elected - let alone twice - but the motherfucker was in fact beholden to congress and the courts, and when his time was up, he left like anybody else. More recently, we had The Idiot try not to leave. Nothing that narcissistic bastard did compare with Jackson's atrocities. And yet: if The Idiot had maintained power, in spite of popular opposition and without apparent limit, he would be an American dictator. And there would be assholes defending him, as they now excuse his failed coup. They'd loudly declare we're a republic, not a democracy - and other word-salad excuses for their desired conclusion - and it would be exactly the same kneejerk ingroup-loyalist hierarchy game as saying Russia / China / Hamas did nothing wrong.
Where are the people defending his atrocities? Specifically. Citation needed, because I haven't seen anyone defend any of what I just said, nor anyone believe a leader should have absolute power, like you posited.
That's why I'm asking what your answers are.
Is there anyone actually defending any of the heinous shit I listed, or are they defending other sensible policies that a broken clock got right?
Is there anyone actually advocating for a system of power whereby the leader is uncontested and absolute, which has never existed in the USSR?
That's my point, your definition of a tanky doesn't actually exist in any meaningful quantity.
Have a scroll.
I'm not playing this stupid word game where it's only dictatorship if it's from the dictateur region of France, and any micron short of literal absolute power means it doesn't count. Ask any normal person to define dictatorship and they'll name all the shit you already said Stalin did. The mechanics of his inner party don't fucking matter. They don't change the effect. When a king has viziers and vassals and so on, and needs them to enact his next pogrom, that's still absolute monarchy. "The riddle of steel" doesn't make Charlemagne a respected bipartisan official. Dude owned a country.
You will almost never see someone describe their worship of that hierarchy, because they don't understand there's any alternative. It's like saying things should obey gravity. But it is visibly the ideology shared by a shockingly broad variety of bootlickers. It's what every Republican twat is saying, when their defense of The Idiot's abuse of power is, 'but he had that power!' Listen to those people. They are telling you how they think. They don't understand power can be abused. It is a contradiction, in their worldview. Either a figure has that power, and can use it however they see fit - or they do not deserve power in the first place. There's no third option. This is every aggravating non-argument you've had with Elon Musk fanboys who think disagreeing with him means you have to be smarter and richer and less bald.
Cool, so it's just vibes I guess. Not even once did I see anyone defend absolute power hierarchy defended, nor the heinous shit I mentioned defended.
The absolute closest is defending violence against settlers, which I'd argue is still wrong but is still rooted in anti-colonial, anti-imperialist sentiment, rather than a defense of genocide or absolute power hierarchy. You're not going to find me defending people killing settlers, but you've still misrepresented them.
"That's only sparkling authoritarianism!"
Sorry, no, you even denied Stalin's rule qualified as that. He did a bunch of bad stuff but how dare anyone use blunt terms to describe when one guy in charge until he dies gets to do basically anything and kill his opponents. And nobody better call kneejerk defenses of that hierarchy a kneejerk defense of hierarchy!
Name an actual dictatorship. Tell me what the hell you mean when you use that word, if you mean anything when you use that word.
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn't work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !meanwhileongrad@sh.itjust.works
Tankies are people who fill a jug with piss and empty it into a pickup drivers gas tank
It depends on who is using it more than anything. In many respects it says more about the user than who it is directed at.
It runs the gambit in how its used on Lemmy.