Do you deny the genocide happening in China or in Ukraine? Then you are a tankie.
Do you defend the action of the orks in ukraine, or try to claim that the war began because of Ukraine or NATO somehow? Then you are a tankie.
Do you support, even if only mentally, totalitarian governments that love to act that they are somehow communist/socialist? Like the terrorist state of Russia, China, or North Korea? Then you are indeed a tankie.
It’s funny how angry tankies can get when people who are actually leftists call them out. They try to squirm and claim that “they didn’t support tanks entering sattelite states when they tried to split off from the USSR” when that’s not even necessary to be called a tankie.
If you would rather support a totalitarian government over the freedoms communism and socialism promises to bring, you are not a leftist you claim to be, you are a tankie. But if that term offends people so much, perhaps we can call you a redfash, a red fascist. I don’t mind that.
But then again, I am on a .ml community saying this, so I would not be supprised if this get removed lmao
Okay then why am I accused of it while not qualifying. Seems like that’s not how it’s used by liberals, almost like this isn’t the colloquial definition
Summary of this comment: “Do you recognize reality and not believe the ocean of NATO propaganda we’re all awash in? Then you’re a tankie. Do you reject a bunch of bullshit I made up using fascist-invented terms like “red fash” and “totalitarian”? Then you’re a tankie.”
Ok, I’m a definitely tankie then. It must suck not to be one and be stuck in these pitiful, childish delusions, and labeling people “orks” and ascribing people who value truth with what you think is an epithet. Some grade A fuckin’ cringe right here.
I don’t need to add anything, you have so much ruzzian and chinese propaganda up your ass its coming out of your mouth.
Move to ruzzia, China and north korea, don’t forget to criticize them the same way you do the “awful west”. Hold some protests as well! Im sure that will go well!
Behold, fellow lemmy browsers: here^ we see the scratched liberal as their mask starts to slip. Not unlike the “UHMUHRICA! Love it er LEAVE it!” style of chud. They have a similar simplistic and deeply uncurious faulty view of the world, a view desperately clung to even when they are shown it is undeniably false, for self reflection is too frightening a concept for them even to consider.
You provided not a single shred of evidence, redfash. Hilarious to tell me I have no self reflection, when your daddy dictators do unspeakable crimes against humanity, yet you support them and call yourself a leftist.
Please do call me a liberal. It’s very funny to see, after beating the shit out of local nazis in our counter rallies more times that you have felt the touch of a woman.
Unlike you, I felt the consequences of your favourite dictatorships, I’ve lost friends and loved ones to it.
incredible that people can see an actual genocide livestreamed for 13 months on every social media platform available, and STILL think anything comparable to that is happening in China. absolutely mindboggling.
Damn, its almost as if China does everything in its power to block the media. As if they had some kind of way to silence their critics who live in China. As if they had some kind of control over their internet and all news sources…
As if this has been going on for a decade now, yet its still not an “actual genocide” for you people. Absolutely mind-boggling.
do you think Israel, with one of the most advanced security apparatuses in the world, doesn’t also have methods to censor evidence? and yet, all of this evidence still flows. insane, China has 1.4 billion people, all with cell phones, all with access to TikTok and VPNs, and there’s not a single picture or video of mass graves or camps or starvation campaigns or religious persecution. is China just uniquely good at censorship? is every Chinese citizen just brainwashed and can’t think for themselves?? or are you just repeating cold-war style CIA think-tank talking points about a geopolitical rival because you refuse to investigate for yourself?
Thats cute, to compare both as if they are identical. Because one country definitely isn’t 100x larger than the other, with its concentration camps deep inside, where no one can see them.
Because the level of censorship in Israel is definitely comparable with that of China right? They definitely have cameras with AI face detection everywhere, a completely walled out Internet, and definitely dissappear journalists and critics (inside their territory, in palestine they do awful shit to journalists in palestine)
Israels’ “most advanced security apparatus” definitely uses most of its time to censor such information right? They definitely are not rather focused on sabotage, assassinations and espionage of their geopolitical rivals. Because surely there doesn’t exist a tiny amount of one, and massive amount of other.
And of course, there is no evidence of the starvation camps, forced abortions, rapes, forced sterilisations, yep definitely no evidence, you can’t just fucking Google outside your Chinese and ruzzian propaganda sources. I definitely didn’t investigate myself and definitely didn’t learn this in my fucking modern history class.
But who am I to argue, against a fucking tankie like you? It’s like talking to a wall.
Go ahead and go call me a fascist, or a NATO shill or something, and please continue denying genocide when it’s your daddy dictators who do it. I couldn’t care less.
And if someone supports the American government which is committing a genocide in Gaza right now?
How does supporting one genocide stop the other? Who said that I somehow support the US? Who says I am even american, and not someone who personally has to deal with the consequences of tankie horseshit?
Your definition conveniently exempted America and countries such as Germany or the UK.
There is quite literary no fucking way you could compare these to Ruzzia, China or North Korea. Unless you are completely fucking insane.
That is true. What the west is doing in Palestine is worse.
More ukrainan cities have been flattened by orcs than the entirety of palestine 10 times over. No it fucking isn’t.
Russia does bomb regularly bomb infrastructure such as energy plants. But Russia is not mass bombing schools, hospitals and refugee camps. Every time they do it it is front page news because 2 people died. Meanwhile Israel bombs a school killing 20 people every single day.
If Russia did what America and Israel are doing in Gaza, the front page of newspapers would be filled with sob stories and gore. And Hamas would be praised as brave resistance fighters against the modern Nazis.
Do you deny the genocide happening in China or in Ukraine? Then you are a tankie.
Do you believe that claims made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence? Then you’re a tankie.
Some people have this idea that if a claim involves genocide, then it gets to bypass the entire process of investigating a claim, because it’s technically “genocide denial,” so like if someone said “France is committing genocide against Belgians!” you’d just have to accept it without question. In fact, it’s the opposite, more extreme claims require more solid evidence.
Since we’re on .ml though, we don’t have to deal with such absurd censorship standards, and I’m free to point out the fact that the whole “Uighur genocide” narrative is just unsubstantiated propaganda, coming almost entirely from one crackpot named Adrian Zenz. And at this point it’s largely outdated propaganda, since the narrative has largely quietly disappeared from the news after the claims about it couldn’t be verified.
You’re welcome to prove me wrong though. You know, just show me the bodies. How long has it allegedly been going on at this point? We can see what an ongoing genocide looks like by what’s happening in Gaza. Strange how there aren’t any similar images coming out of Xinjiang, isn’t it?
I mean, you are aware that genocide doesn’t have to involve mass-killing of a population, right? Causing them serious bodily or mental harm with the goal of destroying that separate culture, i.e. in reeducation camps can still fulfill that definition.
Has there ever been a genocide in history where no one was killed?
Honestly, if we’re going to use such standards and definitions that a “nonviolent genocide” is possible, then I’m not sure I understand what makes such a thing wrong. In Japan, the number of people who believe in and practice Shinto is in decline, and more and more people are paying for Western style weddings, so temples are struggling to keep their doors open. Is that an inherently bad thing? Is that genocide? How about in the context of the Allies pressuring the emperor to renounce his claims to divinity, undermining a major aspect of Shinto beliefs? Because it seems to me like that did more good than harm. Does that mean I support the (mostly) “nonviolent genocide” of Imperial Japanese culture?
Or perhaps a better example: After 9/11, there was a wave of hate crimes against Muslims, the US extrajudicially detained people (primarily Muslim) without trial and subjected them to numerous human rights abuses, and there were many people talking about how, “Islam is a religion of violence,” and about “Turning the desert to glass,” and the country started two wars with Muslim countries in which about a million people were killed. Did that constitute a genocide? Why or why not?
Honestly, if we’re going to use such standards and definitions that a “nonviolent genocide” is possible, then I’m not sure I understand what makes such a thing wrong. In Japan, the number of people who believe in and practice Shinto is in decline, and more and more people are paying for Western style weddings, so temples are struggling to keep their doors open. Is that an inherently bad thing? Is that genocide?
Come on, you can do better than that.
People changing their culture on their own volition is obviously different from people being forced to by those in power.
How about in the context of the Allies pressuring the emperor to renounce his claims to divinity, undermining a major aspect of Shinto beliefs? Because it seems to me like that did more good than harm. Does that mean I support the (mostly) “nonviolent genocide” of Imperial Japanese culture?
That’s a slightly better point. The main argument for genocide though is, that a whole population is forced to erase their culture. The population of japan could have chosen to ignore the obviously forced statement and continued to believe in their faith. And it seems like they did if shinto is still a thing, even if it is struggling like many other religions are.
Oh, you mean like what the Ukrainian coup government was doing to the people in the east (Donbas) for years before Russia even entered the conflict? Yes, there is a strong argument to be made that genocide is the term we should use with regard to what Ukraine was attempting to do to the Russian-speaking population in their country.
You know what, I’m going to refer you to your fellow .ml comrade and you can discuss whether this is or is not genocide. If what happenend in Eastern Ukrain was genocide, then what is happening to the Uygurs is definitely also genocide. But if what is happening to the Uygurs can’t be genocide, then what has been happening in Ukraine also can’t be genocide. Please keep me updated on any results you two produce :)
https://lemmy.ml/comment/15069887
Has there ever been a genocide in history where no one was killed?
Honestly, if we’re going to use such standards and definitions that a “nonviolent genocide” is possible, then I’m not sure I understand what makes such a thing wrong. In Japan, the number of people who believe in and practice Shinto is in decline, and more and more people are paying for Western style weddings, so temples are struggling to keep their doors open. Is that an inherently bad thing? Is that genocide? How about in the context of the Allies pressuring the emperor to renounce his claims to divinity, undermining a major aspect of Shinto beliefs? Because it seems to me like that did more good than harm. Does that mean I support the (mostly) “nonviolent genocide” of Imperial Japanese culture?
Eastern Ukrain was genocide, then what is happening to the Uygurs is definitely also genocide.
Except in Ukraine people did die and their heritage and language were being actively suppressed, etc. We know this because it is documented all over, even in pictures on the net. These specific things are readily confirmable. It was even a large impetus for a broader war, as hopefully you’re aware. There is zero question that Ukrainian nazis were shelling Russian-speaking civilians in the Donbas and that Ukraine as a state was passing laws detrimental to Russian speakers.
In Xinjiang, no such evidence exists because nothing of the sort happened. It’s based on a lie dreamed up by one Christian fundamentalist Adrian Zenz. Every source on this “genocide” traces back to him, and none of the claims are confirmable. Even to the UN! In fact you, yes, even you if you have the means to travel, can go there today and see for yourself that the Uyghur population is thriving and they will laugh if you tell them they’re being genocided. I’ll leave the academic discussion for exactly where to draw the line for the definition of the term genocide to others for now. But based on how you were defining it, Ukraine was committing genocide, but no, China was doing quite the opposite by encouraging ethnic diversity. Again, go see for yourself like this person did: Oh yeah, just look at all that genociding going on!
You may call me crazy but this doesnt sound like it all traces back to just one guy
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-22278037
Several countries, including the US, UK, Canada and the Netherlands, have accused China of committing genocide - defined by international convention, external as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.
The declarations follow reports that, as well as interning Uyghurs in camps, China has been forcibly mass sterilising Uyghur women to suppress the population, separating children from their families, and attempting to break the cultural traditions of the group.
The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, has said China is committing “genocide and crimes against humanity”.
The UK parliament declared in April 2021 that China was committing a genocide in Xinjiang.
A UN human rights committee in 2018 said it had credible reports that China was holding up to a million people in “counter-extremism centres” in Xinjiang.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute, external found evidence in 2020 of more than 380 of these “re-education camps” in Xinjiang, an increase of 40% on previous estimates.
Analysis of data contained in the latest police documents, called the Xinjiang Police Files, showed that almost 23,000 residents - or more than 12% of the adult population of one county - were in a camp or prison in the years 2017 and 2018. If applied to Xinjiang as a whole, the figures would mean the detention of more than 1.2 million Uyghur and other Turkic minority adults.
The UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said the files contained “shocking details of China’s human rights violations”.
Earlier, leaked documents known as the China Cables made clear that the camps were intended to be run as high security prisons, with strict discipline and punishments.
People who have managed to escape the camps have reported physical, mental and sexual torture. Women have spoken of mass rape and sexual abuse.
Also, yes I am aware of the reasons putin brought forward to start an attack on ukraine with the goal of erasing that country from the landmap. Go ahead and tell me he wouldn’t pass laws “detrimental” to the people of Ukraine if he succeeds with his invasion.
It’s always funny to me how the go-to examples of like, “See, they just blindly support anything the regime does!” tend to be relatively minor events after the state in question has considerably chilled out. Like, Stalin and Mao did much worse things compared to Khrushchev/Hungary and Deng/Tienanmen. The problem being, communists are generally willing to criticize things like the Great Leap Forward, because, surprise surprise, we don’t just blindly support anything they do. The reason for this is that the word tankie isn’t meant to describe someone who blindly supports everything a communist country does, as it’s claimed to, but rather, someone who supports anything any communist country does.
The fear Western leftists had that led to the term being coined was that people who had previously been critical of Stalin and Mao would respond positively to the countries moving away from their approach, and so they had to create a label to discredit such people and associate them with the previous leaders. It’s one of the reasons Khrushchev’s approach was questionable, because no matter how much you try to distance yourself from someone like Stalin and paint yourself as “one of the good ones,” you’re still never going to appease the Western left that demands absolute perfection, let alone the West in general.
The biggest irony of our times is blood thirsty liberals who are cheering for as much war as possible running around calling people tankies.
Iraq war supporters calling anyone a tankie, should be immediately flattenned by a tank
The first time I saw this word being used was here on Lemmy, when I arrived during the reddit exodus. I’m not a native English speaker though.
It was used on Reddit, but not widely. Mostly by insufferable ‘enlightened centrists’ who didn’t want to engage in good faith argument.
It’s now a blanket term for “anyone left l politically left of me” used by insufferable liberals who don’t want to admit that trying to curry votes from Republicans lost them the election.
For a time it was being used to describe actual Chinese and Soviet sympathisers, but given how quiet that particular group has been after the election, I suspect it was interchangable with state sponsored bot accounts.
nowadays tankie just means someone who shills for china/russia with a communist background
Communists support the PRC as a Socialist state run by Marxist-Leninists, yes. No Communist supports the Russian Federation outright, however, only reserved, temporary, and highly critical support for Russia’s anti-US Hegemony stance, which it only adopts for its own survival and not out of any moral superiority. No Communist “shills” for the Russian Federation.
If China is a socialist state worth supporting then I’m a donkey with a laser dick :P But I’m more anarchistically inclined so different perspective.
I see your point though. What I’m saying is not that communist = tankie, on the contrary. I’m saying that tankies claim to be communists but spend all day parroting their favorite Russian or Chinese state propaganda because they believe everything else is clearly controlled by Obamna™ himself. They rarely actually talk about communism, they just roam Lemmy all day calling everybody who disagrees with them a liberal :D
Per the origins of the term, a tankie is a communist that supported the Soviets wuelling the Hungarian 1956 uprising. It was an insult concocted by British Trotskyists, who also consider themselves communists.
The modern use of the term is just a liberal sentiment leveled against anyone that doesn’t fall neatly in line with US Empire’s vilification campaigns. If you dare to say that Russia has material motivations that are a counter to those of the US rather than being a kingdom run by a madman that just loves killing, you are a tankie. If you don’t want Ukraine used as a proxy for the US to hurt Russia, regardless of how many Ukrainians die, you are a tankie. If you treat the PRC as country filled with normal people living normal lives rather than the dystopian nightmare it’s falsely depicted as, uou are a tankie. If you know anything at all about Dengism, you are a tankie.
Really, the liberal position on both countries is premised on orientalism and it is never a surprise when the criticisms inevitably turn into vague tropes. And when this laziness is called out, well, it’s time to deploy a tactical tankie reference. I definitely don’t care about being insulted, these situations are really just a way for the other person to give themselves an excuse to stop thinking or engaging.
Those are some valid arguments actually. I guess some people do throw the term around too liberally (heh).
I’m very critical of American imperialism but I fail to see how the US is using Ukraine to hurt Russia.
The fault always lies with the invader, Russia did this to itself. If I see someone getting stabbed and throw him a knife, implying I’m using him to hurt the other person attacking him is silly. Russia can leave anytime.
I do agree tankie is thrown around far too much, I’ve been called one myself just for talking shit of the military, even though I never mentioned an other country or a political idealogie.
The spread of the word as well as the constant villainization of China seems like prep for red scare 2.0, so we can have the population support bombing villages full of civilians (again).
I’m very critical of American imperialism but I fail to see how the US is using Ukraine to hurt Russia.
The US and its proxies have constantly escalated using Ukraine as a proxy for over a decade and since the war started they have continued this pattern. There is no path to victory for Ukraine. If the RF wanted to end it they could run mass bombing campaigns like NATO members do. They are making the opposite calculation: that the status quo of a military meat grinder for Ukraine is better for the RF. Given that one of their goals is a demilitarized Ukraine, there is some logic to this idea.
It has been painfully obvious that Ukraine cannot win from the beginning. Nobody trying to escalate, provide Wunderwaffe, etc really things Ukraine will win, that is just not what any serious person thinks. This is also why there is such an intense and absurd propaganda campaign to say that Russia is losing more people and equipment, with the source nearly always being Azov Batallion, the UA MoD, or a combination of the two. They need to sell the public on the idea that Ukraine just needs your support and dang it they mogjt pull this thing off!
So then, if UA can’t win and the heads of state know they can’t win, what is their logic? What is the angle on who benefits? Well, the singular common thread of brinksmanship with Ukraine as proxy has always been to try anf peel Europe away from economic integration with Russia and to instead keep it in the EU bubble, with more American integration. And, lo and behold, look at how Europe has destroyed its own industry and made itself even more dependent on the US. This has the added effect of isolating Russia from Europe. While Europe still buys their fossil fuels from Russia, trade overall is way down.
In addition, there is the simple calculus that it requires manpower and productive capacity to wage war, capacity that could be directed elsewhere. Iran would likely have more and better air defense systems if Russia weren’t focused on Ukraine.
At no point does the suffering of the Ukrainian people enter the equation. There are no anti-war voices on the mainstream media about this aside from self-serving right wing “this is not our problem” rhetoric.
The fault always lies with the invader, Russia did this to itself. If I see someone getting stabbed and throw him a knife, implying I’m using him to hurt the other person attacking him is silly. Russia can leave anytime.
There are few countries thst tolerate a civil war on their border targeting the ethnicity of your own country, let alone an encroachment of the primary aggressor military force around the world couping them, let alone that neighbor remilitarizing despite agreements and not honoring their agreements. This is geopolitics, not a bar fight. War does not occur in a vacuum, it has a material basis. One does not need to justify war in order to understand that this did not occur in a vacuum and there is blame to go around.
I do agree tankie is thrown around far too much, I’ve been called one myself just for talking shit of the military, even though I never mentioned an other country or a political idealogie.
Yeah it’s really just a way for national chauvinist liberals to quiet their own cognitive dissonance. I also think it’s extra funny when a Trotskyist gets called tankie, since they invented the epithet.
The spread of the word as well as the constant villainization of China seems like prep for red scare 2.0, so we can have the population support bombing villages full of civilians (again).
Yes the US is trying to decouple on its own terms. Its constant attempts to provoke the PRC with Taiwan is also similar to what they did to Ukraine. To have the consent of their population to sacrifice their own well-being and justify whatever military action might occur, they will needs to be more racist and xenophobic towards China. It may not be Taiwan. It might be Korea or Myanmar. But constant escalation and provocation is the US game. Maximalist, relentless foreign policy pushing towards war and death.
Russia entered a conflict that was already in progress, a civil war where the Ukrainian coup government was attempting to ethnically cleanse the Russian speaking population in the east. This coup was orchestrated by the US (this was obvious, admitted to in recorded phone calls, and was rife with high US politicians (John McCaine for example) going there to celebrate. The US/NATO also funded the training and arming of openly neo-nazi militias like Azov Battalion, (and others) many of whom were the ones shelling the people in the East long before Russia intervened. All of this was done by the US to exert pressure on Russia. And this is just scratching the surface. So no, Russia did not “do this to itself” and your framing of it is naive and simplistic and just plain false.
I am genuinely glad to see you reognize the villainization of China, but please also apply those same critical thinking skills to what you have been told about Russia in the Ukraine conflict and do some digging into the history that doesn’t rely on western propaganda.
This is the reality of language.
Both definitions are now correct. The change isn’t a fight you can win.The reality of language is that people like op rely on the negative connotation of the definition I just gave.
Imagine of they just said, “advocating for” instead. Wouldn’t have the same impact, right?
Yup.
You say that like it’s mutually exclusive. Nobody gets to choose how other people use language. Definitions are whatever people agree that they are, even if you’re not one of the people who agrees with it.
You can dislike that definition of tankie all you want, the fact that they used it in this way and that you understood it means that it was used correctly.The evolution of language may hurt people, but denying the reality of evolving language hurts nobody but yourself. The etymology and history is good to know (and the meme relies on it), but the new definition is still a correct alternate definition.
Oh I misunderstood and thought we were talking about a different word. This makes this discussion even sillier.
You say that like it’s mutually exclusive. Nobody gets to choose how other people use language. Definitions are whatever people agree that they are, even if you’re not one of the people who agrees with it.\
How do people agree what they are without telling other people their meaning explicitly or implicitly? What about people that intentionally misuse language to deceive? What about language that is self-descriptive due to selective use?
I’m aware of prescriptivism vs descriptionism but this conversation isn’t actually about that. In fact, I am already following a descriptivist line of reasoning, if you will review my earlier comment. I am saying how tankie is used nowadays.
You can dislike that definition of tankie all you want
What definition? Which one do I dislike? I don’t know what you’re talking about.
the fact that they used it in this way and that you understood it means that it was used correctly.
The way I understood it is, “anyone defending a target of US empire in any way from the left that I would like to stop listening to before my brain breaks”. Seems spot-on to me.
The evolution of language may hurt people, but denying the reality of evolving language hurts nobody but yourself. The etymology and history is good to know (and the meme relies on it), but the new definition is still a correct alternate definition.
What on earth do you think you’re replying to?
Has the thought ever occur to you, that maybe Russia can just leave Ukraine be? Just maybe another country that is resisting wants to keep it’s sovereignty? Maybe the Tankie word is for people that fails to have any critical thought?
The Russian Federation did leave Ukraine be. It was only after Western meddling, a coup, a civil war, not implementing agreements, toying with NATO membership, and resuming a civilian shelling campaign that the RF invaded.
The imperial core Western powers poked and prodded and used Ukraine as a pawn until the RF hit its limit.
Given that you likely live in one of the countries doing the relentless escalation, why not work against them doing so?
Removed by mod
It’s always hilarious to see how the most ignorant libs are always the most confident. You might as well believe you’re a donkey with a laser dick as it makes as much sense as everything else you believe.
hehe Yogthos I was actually thinking of you when I mentioned China stans :P no offense
I really don’t like being called a liberal though :( what makes me come across like a liberal? Is it my anarchism? My hatred of capitalism, colonialism and western hegemony?
It is your repetition of radlib talking points to punch left.
Anarchists are liberals who like LARPing as leftists. You share the same ideology and focus on individualism above all else.
Okay we might have a different definition of liberal. (ironically under a post where I’m arguing about the definition of tankie lol). I’m talking about people who think capitalism can work or can be made to work. People who conflate capitalism and the fake meritocracy sold by the American dream with actual freedom.
If liberal just means somebody who believes that freedom is important, then yeah I’m a liberal. But maybe you have a different definition? (genuinely asking, not trying to be standoffish)
You have a misconception about anarchism being about individualism though. Anarchists focus on community and communes. Most anarchist theory I’ve consumed laments the individualism that capitalism tries to sell because it destroys culture and community.
Liberalism is fundamentally an ideology of private property ownership and that’s why it always inevitably devolved into fascism in times of crisis.
Therefore, whenever economic liberalism finds itself under threat from “populism”, it quickly jettisons the principles of political liberalism to which it is theoretically tied.
In other words, these “principles” are not principles at all, just convenient postures designed to cloak the unpleasant reality of the economic liberals’ capitalist system.
https://orgrad.wordpress.com/articles/liberalism-the-two-faced-tyranny-of-wealth/
Anarchists talk a lot about community, but reject actual practical way to organize communally and combat capitalism. And the argument for rejecting practical means is that these approaches restrict individual freedoms. Anarchists place their individual freedom above collective good, and thus align with liberal capitalists in action.
The conversation around China will take a minute, so I’ll skip ahead to your second paragraph and circle back to do your statement justice.
The people you describe as “tankies” do not exist in any reasonable number. You are extending a belief in some aspects of anti-western sources as full blind dogmatism. Secondly, in order to even consider oneself a Communist in a western-dominated website means exposure to constant western-narrative, the idea that eastern propaganda is much more effective is more of a smokescreen to avoid discussing hard topics than anything else.
As for the PRC, they absolutely aren’t Anarchist. They are, however, Marxist-Leninist, and Socialist. They have a Socialist Market Economy. Their Public Sector has supremacy over the direction of the Private Sector as key heavy industries the Private Sector relies on are entirely State Owned, and the Private Sector itself is trapped in a “birdcage model” whereby the CPC increases ownership and control as Markets naturally form monopolist syndicates.
This is entirely in line with Marxism. Marxists believe that markets naturally centralize and form monopolist syndicates ripe for central planning, and thus are more efficient vectors for growth at earlier stages in development, but that as they centralize this becomes less efficient and public ownership and central planning takes priority.
I recommend the article Socialism Developed China, Not Capitalism.
The people I’m describing as tankies are people I’ve interacted with myself. I’m sure they don’t exist in huge numbers, but they are more concentrated on .ml, they are loud, and they are impossible to converse with. I still like it here because most people here, like yourself, are smart and offering interesting perspectives I haven’t explored before.
I agree that the idea of only Eastern propaganda being dangerous and pervasive is wrong. Western propaganda is everywhere too and also dangerous.
One thing that is different is the lack of government-critical sources available from China, also Russia. Freedom of Speech in the West is wobbly, but in China and especially Russia it is even worse (from everything I’ve read).
This is a lovely segue into our China sidequest, and while I agree on the definition, I have doubts on how public the public sector really is. The way that national election results look and the way vocal dissidents or political opposition are treated does not give me the idea that the people truly have all the power here.
Capitalism concentrates power in the capitalist class. This class can then subvert democracy, resulting in oligarchy. In a similar way, central planning concentrates power in the central government, which actually makes it even easier to abuse that power. Chinese government is not transparent nor federal enough for me to call it democratic or owned by the people.
One thing that is different is the lack of government-critical sources available from China, also Russia. Freedom of Speech in the West is wobbly, but in China and especially Russia it is even worse (from everything I’ve read).
What have you read?
Your freedom of speech is tolerated in the West to the extent thst it doesn’t threaten ruling class interests. The ruling class already owns all of the papers and TV channels and think tanks, they drown you out. You can never hope to push socialism through their apparatus. That is how effective their cemsorship already is: you’re told you have freedom of speech and then deplatformed. If you get a little louder, you might get a platform on occasion, but will then will still be drowned out by “competing” views.
And if you fly too close to the sun, you will get direct government censorship. Ask Germany how “free speech” is going with regards yup Palestinian solidariry. Ask comrades in the US how free speech is going with Samidoun declared a terrorist orgsnization. Ask a former Black Panther for free their speech was while being soued on snd martyred by the feds and cops.
If you actually do anything that matters, if you truly challenge the ruling powers in the West, you will need to be realistic and expect oppression. The idea that you have free speech is just pure propaganda.
Re: China go on Weibo you will find plenty of criticism of the government. The idea that you can’t criticize the government in China is xenophoboc propaganda.
Re: Russia: okay, but what is your point? There are bad things that happen in Russia so… their role against US imperialism is bad? Because that tends to be the only thing supported by “tankies”. The Russian Federation is a capitalist project created by capitalist revanchist shock therapy on the USSR that killed 7-10 million people. The West created the RF, its “oligarchs” are hust centralized capitalists like in othet countries in Europe, except the West continued to exclude Russia from the imperisl core, attempting to force it into the periphery (extraction snd poverty). What you see today is a regional capitalist power that is respinding to that. One where the national bourgeoisie are dominant rather than the international bourgeoisie, due to circumstances imposef on them. As a consequence, they often align against Western imperislism.
This is a lovely segue into our China sidequest, and while I agree on the definition, I have doubts on how public the public sector really is. The way that national election results look and the way vocal dissidents or political opposition are treated does not give me the idea that the people truly have all the power here.
Which is to say, you don’t actually know anything about it. Public means state-owned, by the way. Do you believe they aren’t actually owned by the state?
Capitalism concentrates power in the capitalist class. This class can then subvert democracy, resulting in oligarchy.
This has the false premise that the historical course of capitalism is to enter spaces that were already “democratic” in the bourgeois democratic sense. This is not true. Instead, capitalism itself gained power through the replacement of feudalistic giverning powers (like monarchies) with structures they could control, compatible with their ideas of “progress”. In short, they created bourgeous democracy. They were already in control. The question of concentration of capital changes the words but not the fact of who is in control.
In a similar way, central planning concentrates power in the central government, which actually makes it even easier to abuse that power.
In countries run by socialists, central planning is an exercise of power that already exists. The power is maintained through the oppression of competing classes and, traditionally, party bureaucracy.
I don’t know what it could possibly mean to say it is “easier to abuse that power”, it is so vague and decontextualized thst it just sounds like something you’re makinh up on the spot. Socialists endeavour to speak in terms of concrete realities and draw conclusions from them. What is your standard of abuse? Of power? How are you comparing these things?
btw central planning is not unique to countries run by socialists. Highly concentrated capitalism also has central planning aspects, as do their governments in times of emergency. But it is, in that case, central planning for bourgeois interests.
Chinese government is not transparent
How so? Tell me how the Chinese system works for, say, someone working to get a hospital built in their town.
nor federal enough
This sounds like America-centrism. There is nothing inherently democratic about federalism and it is often antidemocratic. If you are in the US, do you applaud the electoral college?
for me to call it democratic or owned by the people.
Tell me which other peripheral countries hsve done so much for their people. Tell me who has alleviated so much poverty, built so much infrastructure, and by their own hand rather than imperialism and capitalist ventures. The proof is in the doing.
I’m genuinely apologizing because I’m only skimming this as I’m getting sleepy. and it’s a lot to go through. I can tell you took effort so apologies.
Re: West also bad, at times worse
I know and I agree!
btw central planning is not unique to countries run by socialists. Highly concentrated capitalism also has central planning aspects, as do their governments in times of emergency. But it is, in that case, central planning for bourgeois interests.
And in the case of China, it is for CCP interests. Holding elections every now and then doesn’t translate to the dictatorship of the proletariat as envisioned. By that logic, US democracy would be a dictatorship of the proletariat as well, since they hold elections every now and then.
This sounds like America-centrism
I do not consider america really federal, since there is massive power concentrated at the top. Same for other “federal” states like Germany
I’m genuinely apologizing because I’m only skimming this as I’m getting sleepy. and it’s a lot to go through. I can tell you took effort so apologies.
No worries, I am not holding you to a schedule. Please take any amount of time to reply. I also won’t take it personally if you don’t reply.
It actually isn’t much effort, I am very fast at writing.
Re: West also bad, at times worse
I know and I agree!
Well that isn’t what I said, though. What I said about the West is that there is addressing the false perception of greater “free speech” in the West, which is, again, largely just chauvinism. You do not enjoy greater speech, you are just such a non-entity in terms of threatening the ruling interests. This is because those ruling interests keep you, along with the wider public, weak, docile, and hating their same enemies.
I am also highlighting the ruling interests, not the government. This is because in these places with allegedly more “free speech”, international capital is dominant and has control over your everyday lives. It controls whether you can house and feed yourself and it censors on a constant basis. Restricting yourself solely to government censorship is a rhetorical trick used by capitalists to pretend that corporate control over life doesn’t count as oppression. Where is the comparison to private censorship, where the “free press” is actually a corporate-censored press? Have you done a comparison between the accuracy of claims from the SCMP and NYT? Just pick Palestine, see how it serves you.
And in the case of China, it is for CCP interests. Holding elections every now and then doesn’t translate to the dictatorship of the proletariat as envisioned.
The dictatorship of the proletariat is not specified as anything other than the proletarian class oppressing the bourgeois class because they gained power through revolution. The PRC regularly executes billionaires and uniquely reroutes funds to its people, and its poorest, to build material well-being for all, not just the richest, and certainly not just the higher-ups in the party.
By that logic, US democracy would be a dictatorship of the proletariat as well, since they hold elections every now and then.
The dictatorship of the proletariat does not have any governing structure specified whatsoever. It is something predicted by Marx to have certain attributes that are more about political economics, like using monopoly industry that is already centrally planned and wielding it for the good of the proletarians. Something that China has often done and is the explicit communist logic behind their conveyor belt strategy for requiring companies to have more party and government participation as they grow larger and more monopolistic.
I do not consider america really federal, since there is massive power concentrated at the top. Same for other “federal” states like Germany
Then I have no idea what your meaning is.
I appreciate you calling me smart and trying to have a conversation, however I want to stress something you said:
I’m saying that tankies claim to be communists but spend all day parroting their favorite Russian or Chinese state propaganda because they believe everything else is clearly controlled by Obamna™ himself. They rarely actually talk about communism, they just roam Lemmy all day calling everybody who disagrees with them a liberal :D
What you are seeing is one aspect of people, and moreover the ones with “favorite state propaganda” that distrust all western sources as liberal propaganda don’t exist. Even just seeing people debating endlessly on Lemmy.ml is just one aspect, people frequently have different accounts or discuss Communism on different threads than the ones they get into debates in.
Additionally, I encourage you to look beyond the western veil. There are plenty of Russia-critical sources and China-critical sources in the east.
With respect to China, I encourage you to look into processes like Whole Process People’s Democracy, State Owned Enterprises, and other aspects to see how Socialism with Chinese Characteristics works. I encourage you to read the article I linked, as well. Additionally, while I know you said you are an Anarchist, your point on centralization being a bad thing goes directly against Marxist understanding. I recommend the article Why Public Property?
Capitalism concentrates itself and centralizes, which prepares the productive forces for the mechanisms required to centerally plan them after folding them into the Public Sector. Central Planning is the only way to truly democratize production in the eyes of Marxists.
Weird way to say has at least modicum of understanding of geopolitics and doesn’t support the genocidal western empire.
It’s not shilling, it’s nuance. American main stream thinking is full of lies about both China and Russia. And both conservatives and liberals HATE when people don’t fall in line.
Your second and third sentence are true. I have definitely seen plenty of shills though.
In my experience I’ve only seen the word tankie be used by leftists. Libs and conservatives don’t even know what a tankie is.
Yet again begging liberals to understand what the word “shill” means.
Define liberal please because I don’t like being called one.
In the same way that some people will shill for billionaires or for some billionaire-owned company, aka a corporate shill. People who fail to see that (capitalist) companies are just a way to extract profit. In the same vein, some people fail to see that nation states are just instruments of power. Some are better than others in different ways of course, but I get real itchy when people jump to defend a nation at the first smidgeon of criticism. I hate nationalism.
Define liberal please because I don’t like being called one.
Liberalism is the dominant ideology of capitalism, it is a wide set of social and political views that serve capitalism through the absorption of bourgeois attitides and its primsry vehicle of political legitimacy is bourgeois democracy, like parliamentarianism. Every person living under capitalism has absorbed some liberalism, including every anarchist and communist. But those who critically engage sufficiently can shed the label because they understand the system sufficiently and work against it.
You are repeatedly exoressing a litany of thoughts rooted in unexamined liberalism. One that is usually retained by baby leftists in Western countries is racism and xenophobia. They will see the value of organized labor and social justice but cannot tie it to imperislism and fall in line with who the Capitalists tell them is their enemy
What do you think of people who say it’s hypocritical for queer people to support Palestine? Because to a socialist you sound like that when spreading imperialist pinkwashing against China.
In the same way that some people will shill for billionaires or for some billionaire-owned company, aka a corporate shill. People who fail to see that (capitalist) companies are just a way to extract profit.
A shill is someone paid to profess to have views other than their own. People shilling for a product makes sense, it is an old salesman tactic.
Who do you think is paying me to be right about China all the time?
In the same vein, some people fail to see that nation states are just instruments of power.
On the contrary, every communist that has ever existed knows this. We write about it all the time. Projecting this liberalism onto communists is just telling on yourself.
Some are better than others in different ways of course, but I get real itchy when people jump to defend a nation at the first smidgeon of criticism. I hate nationalism.
Existing in the real world as we do, your “anti-nationalism” is really just nationalism in favor of Western powers, despite your professibg to be against them. You repeat their talking points! What do you think the outcome is of uncritically repeating sinophobic or russophobic falsehoods? Why do you think we are even talking about those two countries? It is because US empire has decided to focus on them as targets of derision and marginalization.
What, exact, nationalism are you pushing back against? What is making you itchy? Because all I see are people defending China against piss-poor talking points.
Liberalism is the dominant ideology of capitalism,
gonna stop reading right here since I’ve stated I’m anticapitalist and it feels like going in circles. sorry but can only answer so many of these huge comments in a day. If there’s an argument you really want me to engage with please let me know
Holy fucking shit what a coward you are. This person @TheOubliette@lemmy.ml has done more in good faith to actually educate you about things no leftist should be ignorant about than you deserve. You have this tremendous opportunity to genuinely learn from someone with a wealth of knowledge and actually deepen your understanding of the world and even the ideology you claim to subscribe to, but instead you plug your ears and pretend there’s nothing to be gleaned from this generous education you’re being offered all because it conflicts with your preconceptions, your misconceptions which is cognitively uncomfortable. But that really does just come down to cowardice. I hope one day you can recognize this, recognize the importance of and necessity for self crit. If not, you’ll forever be stuck as you are, the proverbial useful idiot for the same empire you claim to wish to see an end to.
gonna stop reading right here since I’ve stated I’m anticapitalist and it feels like going in circles.
Anyone can call themselves anything. Are they always correct?
If you deigned to keep reading, condescending liberal, you would find that I explained how this works.
sorry but can only answer so many of these huge comments in a day. If there’s an argument you really want me to engage with please let me know
No. You can reply to what I said if you want to discuss this topic or you can acknowledge that you aren’t ready to discuss these things. This is not asking very much. I’m not asking you to read a book. It is about 3 average-sized paragraphs worth of text. I am not holding you to a deadline, either. But you can’t just dance around in bad faith and expect patient responses.
Or someone who slightly disagrees with a republican
Or even a democrat. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been called a tankie, by liberals, for simply not adhering to status-quo ideology.
The use of the word “tankie” these days is so over-used it has become synonymous with “left of the DNC.” I’ve even seen Anarchists described as “tankies,” it’s getting ridiculous. Still, the word “tankie” is most often used by liberals against Marxists, though they won’t admit to having an anti-Marxist bias, mostly because they think they agree with Marx generally but are unfamiliar with Marxist analysis.
Really, more people need to read theory before having an opinion on it to avoid speaking past each other. I wrote an introductory reading list for Marxism-Leninism if anyone wants to get a better understanding of Marxism.
As I said in another comment, Tankies are often in support of the modern Russian state and the modern CCP. These are not positions that are “left of the DNC”.
Supporting the PRC is absolutely a Leftist position, as a Socialist country and a rising superpower it’s the current best hope for Socialism, whether you agree with all of the CPC’s actions or only some.
Critical, reserved support for Russia’s temporary and strategic anti-US Hegemony stance does not mean Leftists critically supporting Russia agree with the Russian state or support it.
Support for Russia’s genocidal invasion of Ukraine in no way supports anti-US hegemony stances. They’re literally stealing children and indoctrinating them-the same thing the US did while committing genocide against the First Peoples.
Just opposing the US doesn’t make Russia the good guys.
Not believing in blatant right-wing propaganda is a leftist position. Parroting right-wing propaganda is a right-wing position. You are parroting right-wing propaganda. Please stop doing that, especially if you consider yourself on the left.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine isn’t “genocidal,” what would be closer to genocidal is the West’s intention to fight Russia to the last Ukranian standing. Several times, Russia has tried to reach a peace deal, only for the UK and US to step in and tell Ukraine not to take it. The “stealing of children” is taking orphans from warzones and making sure they don’t die.
Russia’s goal isn’t to ethnically cleanse Ukraine, nor is it to “de-Nazify” Ukraine. Russia’s goal is to totally ruin Ukraine’s military capabilities as a means to prevent further extension of NATO encirclement around it’s borders. This is a consequence of the 2014 Euromaidan coup, and goes all the way back to the dissolution of the USSR. When the USSR was sliced up and sold to the West for profit, 7 million people died, and a Nationalist movement led to domestic Nationalist bourgeoisie reclaiming industry from the West, beginning a long series of NATO expansion and encirclement to force Russia to open themselves up again for the West to profit.
No, Russia are not the “good guys.” No Communist believes Russia has morally just intentions and is here to save everyone. Communists believe Russia is acting in its own material interests, and those interests happen to align against US-Hegemony, which Communists see as the primary block for progress.
Communists have as such advocated for both countries to negotiate a cease-fire since the beginning of the invasion. An ideal situation would be a cessation of NATO expansion and no bloodshed, but Communists have no real control over that.
Staying ignorant is cool, you heard it here first folks.
This one isn’t just staying ignorant, they’re loudly proclaiming their ignorance as if they’re proud of it. Yikes.
Cool 👍
I’m sorry if I’m misunderstanding but are you in support of the CCP?
Generally yes, I support the CPC. I’m a Marxist, and their dedication to developing Socialism, eliminating poverty, developing green energy, and presenting an alternative for the Global South should be admired. The PRC and CPC aren’t perfect, not by any stretch, but among the major world powers they are the least problematic and present the greatest potential for Humanity moving forward.
I cannot take you seriously if you think the CCP is anything other than an authoritarian spy-state
I cannot take you seriously if you willfully swallow the firehose of US propaganda about how cHiNa BAD ebil aUthOrItArIaN when it’s a country whose government has the enthusiastic approval of over 90% of the population, the country that lifted 850 million people out of abject poverty, the only large country doing anything significant about the mass extinction event that is climate change, the country that… well, I could go on. But no, keep believing those lies like a good lil western capitalism enjoyer.
Why do you say that? First of all, the CPC is the party in charge of the PRC, not the PRC itself. Secondly, which of the things I said do you disagree with? We can discuss them if you want, but otherwise I can’t really take you seriously either if that is your response to me answering your question honestly.
thank you for that and the “what is socialism” post; but i’m encountering that theory is somehow still a HEAVY read for someone like who me has been inside the leftist sphere of influence for his entire life; there’s needs to be some sort of sound-bite-able way of sharing these messages and i wish that ml’s had the capitalists’ deep pockets that guarantees a deep bench of talent that could figure something like this out.
it reminds of my own own experience of going from technical support to software engineering by simply reading. your ignorance makes it daunting as first and you have to put in A LOT of effort to understand it when you don’t even know the basics and you’ll get there eventually if you stick with it; but most won’t stick with it and if you’re REALLY knowledgeable at it, it becomes difficult to understand why it’s difficult for other people.
It’s certainly difficult, but when in doubt I love sharing this person’s articles as more bite-sized bits of theory and soundbites from Michael Parenti speeches, haha.
even more material to “read”; now i’m wondering if i’ll ever be finished with any of it. lol
We’ll never be finished with bourgeois theory: it’s what we’ve been fed our entire lives, usually without even realizing it. It’s just common sense.
i’m convinced that if i had fewer vulnerable identities that i would never have been able to see through practice all the “common sense” bullshit levied against me all my life and i also think that’s the only reason why i try when others with identical backgrounds, like my family, don’t bother; i’ve learned the hard way that ignorance will hurt me long before it will hurt them.
That does help. After all it was black Americans who invented wokeness, before white liberal Americans co-opted it and perverted its meaning. The marginalized have always experienced the fascism that’s been baked into the American project since the beginning.
i suspect that facism is going to force me to move back into the country that my parents immigrated from if trump gets his way and in the same way that incidents like operation wetback deported millions of american citizens.
Haha, if you want the most bang for your buck I stand wholeheartedly behind my introductory reading list. I truly put a lot of effort into it and several comrades helped tremendously.
i’m starting there because i’ve learned that audio books are the best way to cheat at “reading” lol
Thanks! Feel free to ask questions 🫡
Back when I used reddit it seemed like everyone threw around Fascist in a similar way. Lemmy seems to prefer Tankie. For a lot of people the thinking doesn’t go any farther than “I disagree with you, therefore you are ________ist” or whatever.
It is what it is.
It varies from instance to instance. The main users of the word “tankie” are blahaj.zone, lemmy.world, and sh.itjust.works from what I’ve seen, most other instances generally aren’t as bad about it IMO.
Probably because there are a lot of tankies here. 🙃
Yep, and unfortunately a lot of fascists on Reddit.
I do like how whenever a conservative Lemmy pops up, it has more trolls than users and the mods abandon it within a few weeks.
Marxism and Marxism-Leninism are not the same, and should not be treated as the same. One is an economic theory/philosophy, one is an ideology. I’ll leave it to you to figure out which is which.
Marxism is broken up into 3 major components:
-
Dialectical and Historical Materialism
-
Critique of Capitalism via the Law of Value
-
Advocacy for Revolutionary and Scientific Socialism.
Marxism-Leninism carries these 3 foundations forward, and analyzes Capitalism as it reaches Imperialism, as well as numerous expansions on the foundations of revolutionary theory and practice.
They are not “the same,” but the vast majority of Marxists are Marxist-Leninists, because Lenin’s application of Marxism to higher stages of Capitalism are invaluable to Marxism.
Marxism-Leninism was not actually thought out by Lenin, but by Stalin. The Stalin.
And how invaluable were Lenin’s ideas about violently suppressing opposition, resistance, and unwanted societal classes?
Stalin synthesized Marxism-Leninism, yes. He did so on the basis of Lenin’s theoretical advancements on Marxism. Stalin himself wasn’t that much of a theoretician, hence why it’s Marxism-Leninism, though Stalin has a few works under his belt. Yes, the Stalin. You’re free to read my introductory reading list if you want to learn more about Marxism.
Secondly, you have no idea what you’re talking about if you’re pretending Lenin came up with the idea of revolution and using the Dictatorship of the Proletariat to suppress fascists and the bourgeoisie. Such ideas came from Marx and Engels, who always advocated for revolution. From Marx:
“We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror.”
I suggest you take the advice of @Edie@lemmy.ml and read up on Marxist theory and history before speaking nonsense from a pedestal.
That quote is extremely hinged on context in which it was made, and it would serve you well to internalise that context before throwing this quote around pretending it to have been something Marx lived by.
Secondly, you have no idea what you’re talking about if you’re pretending Lenin came up with the idea of revolution and using the Dictatorship of the Proletariat to suppress fascists and the bourgeoisie.
That was not my claim, but thank you for so generously misinterpreting what I said. Lenin implemented the violent oppression of dissenters and opposition in a socialist system. That was carried further by Stalin, under whom ‘counter-revolutionary’ became an extremely malleable term that could mean anything not fully aligned with his ideas. The fact that you think political violence and terror is a core tenet of Marxism tells me that you’re the one who might need to brush up on their history a little bit.
In fact, authoritarian socialism - as practiced in virtually every single Marxist-Leninist country that ever existed - was completely counter to the ideals of Marx and Engels. The people we have to thank for creating the violent authoritarianism that pervaded communist countries in practice are Lenin and Stalin. “Dictatorship of the proletariat” may have been a phrase used by Marx, but he never fully elaborated on what that should or could look like. And fascism as created by Mussolini and unleashed upon the world by Hitler didn’t even exist during Marx’s lifetime. Even Marx’s views on religion were a lot more complex and multifaceted than what Marxist-Leninist governments turned them into.
I don’t know if either of you have ever lived in a Marxist-Leninist country (as in lived, not just visited). I was born in one. I lived in another for five years. I’ve seen the before and after, first-hand. That’s my pedestal. How’s the weather up there on yours?
That quote is extremely hinged on context in which it was made, and it would serve you well to internalise that context before throwing this quote around pretending it to have been something Marx lived by.
Correct, Marx wasn’t just randomly terrorizing people. He was referring to the Proletariat making no apologies for revolution and taking up arms against the bourgeoisie and their enablers, something Lenin and the people of the USSR carried into reality. Lenin descibed what you’re doing to Marx and Engels right now quite well:
“What is now happening to Marx’s teaching has, in the course of history, happened repeatedly to the teachings of revolutionary thinkers and leaders of oppressed classes struggling for emancipation. During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their teachings with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to surround their names with a certain halo for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time emasculating the essence of the revolutionary teaching, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it. At the present time, the bourgeoisie and the opportunists within the working-class movement concur in this “doctoring” of Marxism. They omit, obliterate and distort the revolutionary side of this teaching, its revolutionary soul. They push to the foreground and extol what is or seems acceptable to the bourgeoisie. All the social-chauvinists are now “Marxists” (don’t laugh!). And more and more frequently, German bourgeois scholars, but yesterday specialists in the annihilation of Marxism, are speaking of the “national-German” Marx, who, they aver, educated the workers’ unions which are so splendidly organized for the purpose of conducting a predatory war!”
- Vladimir Lenin, The State and Revolution
That was not my claim, but thank you for so generously misinterpreting what I said. Lenin implemented the violent oppression of dissenters and opposition in a socialist system. That was carried further by Stalin, under whom ‘counter-revolutionary’ became an extremely malleable term that could mean anything not fully aligned with his ideas. The fact that you think political violence and terror is a core tenet of Marxism tells me that you’re the one who might need to brush up on their history a little bit.
Lenin implemented the world’s first Socialist state, and this state violently oppressed the bourgeoisie, fascists, the White Army, rebels, and so forth. The fact is, political violence is often sadly necessary against those who would crush the Socialist state, like the 14 Capitalist countries that jointly invaded the USSR after its founding. A Marxist project that rolls over and dies the second fascists and the bourgeoisie fight against it isn’t Marxist. Blackshirts and Reds is a good quick read on the tangible benefits AES states achieved despite brutal opposition from the outside.
In fact, authoritarian socialism - as practiced in virtually every single Marxist-Leninist country that ever existed - was completely counter to the ideals of Marx and Engels. The people we have to thank for creating the violent authoritarianism that pervaded communist countries in practice are Lenin and Stalin. “Dictatorship of the proletariat” may have been a phrase used by Marx, but he never fully elaborated on what that should or could look like. And fascism as created by Mussolini and unleashed upon the world by Hitler didn’t even exist during Marx’s lifetime. Even Marx’s views on religion were a lot more complex and multifaceted than what Marxist-Leninist governments turned them into.
This is nonsense. First of all, what separates “authoritarian” Socialism from “non-authoritarian” socialism? All Marxist-Leninist states practice democracy and allow more participation in the way society is run than Capitalist states for the average person. Soviet Democracy by Pat Sloan is a good resource on this. Secondly, the idea that Marx and Engels never had a clear idea of what the Dictatorship of the Proletariat would look like is further nonsense - Marx described the Paris Commune as the first implementation of the DotP in reality. Marx and Engels knew quite well that violent suppression of bourgeois elements was required.
Furthermore, whether Marx or Engels really observed fascism is utterly irrelevant, unless your point is that they would not have been anti-fascist, which is nonsense.
I don’t know if either of you have ever lived in a Marxist-Leninist country (as in lived, not just visited). I was born in one. I lived in another for five years. I’ve seen the before and after, first-hand. That’s my pedestal. How’s the weather up there on yours?
A non-sequitor. Spending early childhood in an AES state does not mean you know how it works, nor what it deals with on a daily basis. Even people who live their entire lives in Capitalist states go without knowing how they function.
In fact, authoritarian socialism - as practiced in virtually every single Marxist-Leninist country that ever existed - was completely counter to the ideals of Marx and Engels.
Do you mean the Engles who said this:
[T]he anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?
Therefore, either one of two things: either the anti-authoritarians don’t know what they’re talking about, in which case they are creating nothing but confusion; or they do know, and in that case they are betraying the movement of the proletariat. In either case they serve the reaction
…or is there some other Engles I should know about?
I don’t know of any person called Engles who would be significant in this context, so I can’t tell you if there is one you should know about. The Engels who said what you quoted above, also said - literally in the sentence preceding your quote:
Why do the anti-authoritarians not confine themselves to crying out against political authority, the state? All Socialists are agreed that the political state, and with it political authority, will disappear as a result of the coming social revolution, that is, that public functions will lose their political character and will be transformed into the simple administrative functions of watching over the true interests of society.
As always, context matters. And I’ll trust the context created by the words and interpretations of respected historians way more than I’ll trust some randos on Lemmy who only excel at selective quoting.
I don’t know if either of you have ever lived in a Marxist-Leninist country (as in lived, not just visited). I was born in one. I lived in another for five years. I’ve seen the before and after, first-hand.
Could you please name those countries? And share your experiences, if possible? Were they not Marxist?
The countries were the German Democratic Republic, where I was born; and Cuba, where I lived from 1985 to 1990.
And what are experiences? By all accounts what I grew up in was normal, because I didn’t know any different. We grew up like any kids really, playing, riding bikes, watching TV, getting up to mischief. I have a lot of good memories from both the GDR and Cuba, and even getting started on them would take me hours.
Sure, we knew about the West. Some of my friends had relatives in the West and occasionally got packages with sweets and other things. We watched Western TV and were exposed to Western toys, comics and music, to a degree. In Cuba there were a lot of Western movies and series on TV. But we also knew that you could get into trouble for being too open about that.
But after it all came down, we learned a lot about what went on. The oppression, the secret police, the lack of basic freedoms.
Once in art class, we were tasked with drawing something we had seen or experienced. Just a short time prior to that, we had gone to see a well known boat lift east of Berlin. The boat that came through the lift was a freight barge flying the West German flag. So that’s what I drew. Only years later my parents told me that they had subsequently been summoned by the school and had to explain that it was nothing more sinister than that - a child drawing a picture of something they had seen.
Another thing that struck me as odd at the time was this. Most of the socialist countries we knew as ‘friendly’ had state-run youth organisations. Ours were called the pioneers. Once there was an afternoon activity with a little quiz, and one of the quiz questions was ‘name three friendly youth organisations’. So I named three that I remembered from my pioneer calendar - and one of them was Finnish. My quiz came back with the correction ‘friendly youth organisations’.
I will always remember and defend the good aspects about the countries I grew up in. By the same token I will always vociferously criticise the bad things, and anyone who wants to try them again.
7·8 hours agoUnless you have investigated a problem, you will be deprived of the right to speak on it. Isn’t that too harsh? Not in the least. When you have not probed into a problem, into the present facts and its past history, and know nothing of its essentials, whatever you say about it will undoubtedly be nonsense. Talking nonsense solves no problems, as everyone knows, so why is it unjust to deprive you of the right to speak? Quite a few comrades always keep their eyes shut and talk nonsense, and for a Communist that is disgraceful. How can a Communist keep his eyes shut and talk nonsense?
It won’t do!
It won’t do!
You must investigate!
You must not talk nonsense!
When you get anywhere near making a point, just send up a flare, ok?
-
I, for one, haven’t seen people over-using the word “tankie”, I haven’t seen people getting called tankies for the reason alone that they are leftists or even communists.
However, I’ve seen many tankies insisting that the word is meaningless or that it just means anybody on the left.
People I’ve seen using the word tankie have been surprisingly consistent about who they call a tankie: supporters of authoritarianism, especially Putin and the CCP.
The only Communists that don’t support the PRC are Maoists, generally, Marxists and Marxist-Leninists consistently support the CPC. None of them support Putin, only critical, reserved support for the Russian Federation’s temporary and strategic opposition to US Hegemony, which Communists see as the primary obstacle in the way of Socialism across the world.
Oh I know quite a few communists who would absolutely not support the PRC. They wouldn’t shill for the US either. Nor for Russia nor the USSR for that matter.
Are these Communists members of any Communist orgs, or just online people?
They’re using the same playbook as the fascists, insisting the word is overused and meaningless while painting themselves as victims. It’s actually fascinating how similar hexbear snd the_donald feel.
As somebody who isn’t much on social media, I often have to look up slang terms I don’t use. It’s actually kind of relatable when an explanation doesn’t convey the nuances people feel when these terms are just part of normal speech. Also tbh the general idea of mocking people for not knowing things doesn’t really seem that cool.
If you don’t have an opinion on it, you might when you learn the fascists were putting chalk marks on the doors of communists and jews
i’ve only ever seen tankies complain about the word “tankie” being over used. i guess us non-tankies just don’t hear it very often.
there’s also this false dichotomy i’ve seen many tankies present where they try to argue that people are either liberals or tankies. it is possible to be a leftist and not support authoritarian governments.
I’ve seen Anarchists, Marxists, and progressive liberals all called “tankie” before, so either you aren’t looking or you consider them to be “tankies.” Secondly, I don’t know what you mean by “supporting authoritarian governments,” leftists don’t support the US Empire.
/acc in name
Worse than tankie tbh
I thought tankie was for any government that used tanks on their own people? So many others should be included, China is missing, I think the Phillipines maybe? There’s more. I’m open to being corrected.
The word “tankie” originated as the OP describes, referring to members of the Communist Party of Great Britain that supported the USSR putting down the color revolutions in Hungary and Prague Spring. Nowadays, it is used as a catch-all pejorative for anyone to the left of the DNC.
That’s not entirely accurate. I’m sure some use it that way, but it’s not “left of the DNC” to support the modern Russian state and its actions, which is the problem most people have with Tankies.
The word “tankie” isn’t solely applied to people who critically support Russia in its temporary anti-US Hegemony stance. Again, the lack of unity behind the usage of the term means some may use it in a more reserved and restricted manner, but in reality it is used by liberals of all stripes against leftists of all stripes.
Examples? Seems like it’s used for Russians that fail to stand up to or actively support their government to me.
You can see quite a few instances in this thread of such accusations. Actually, maybe not, you aren’t federated with the major leftist instances as far as I know.
Oh, we can see them alright. Haven’t seen so many tagged profiles in a long while.
What do you use for tagging? I need a way to start doing that
Boost.
Somehow supporting colonial aggression by a totalitarian state is a left cause.
Unsure what you’re referring to, specifically, moreover the use of the word “totalitarian” betrays a lack of understanding how the USSR functioned in reality.
Not talking about the USSR there skipper.
You keep saying that people are called “tankie” for being “left of the DNC” but the only people I see being called “tankie” are folks who think a lot more people aught to be dying from polonium poisoning.
So, nobody? You really don’t see anyone being called a tankie? Interesting.
