I keep hearing the term in political discourse, and rather than googling it, I’m asking the people who know better than Google.
If I wanted to make a high engagement post I would post something like this. Are there any other controversial, not clearly defined words to ask about?
I honestly saw someone use the word, wondered what they actually meant by it, and came here to ask. TBF, I didn’t know much about what “here” was, at the time.
Lemmy is developed by communists, and Reddit banned a bunch of leftist subreddits like r/chapotraphouse, r/GenZedong, and r/TheDeprogram. As a consequence, a bunch of communists are on Lemmy by ratio compared to Reddit, though Lemmy.world is defederated and blocks 2/3rds of the major communist instances, so you can’t actually see them. They usually are on Lemmygrad.ml or Hexbear.net if you want to see the communist side of Lemmy.
Lemmy.ml is the dev’s testing instance, so that’s why a lot of communists are here but also why it’s not defederated by Lemmy.world.
Socialism and communism seem to be very misunderstood outside of places like Grad, Hexbear, Lemmy.ml, etc. Some thing social programs are socialism, others think the Marxist conception of communism is incompatible with administration, some think any form of market or private property has to be eradicated for socialism to exist, some think it’s about worker/employer relationships, etc. I think it would be a decent idea to form a better understanding.
For clarity, socialism is best described as a transitional status between capitalism and communism, by which public ownership is the principle aspect of the economy (controls the large firms and key industries at a minimum) and the working class is in control of the state. This fits cleanly with socialism in practice and with Marxist conceptions of socialism.
People fed up with the the (false) sin/cos dichotomy and want to get people to use tan more often.
the (false) sin/cos dichotomy
but… but… if sin/cos is false, that is literally tan ! (yes, I was frequently bullied in high school, why do you ask?)
Tan is the tao out of which the sin and cos arise
Use DuckDuckgo?
DuckDuckgo uses Google. So do I. Sometimes I want to have a conversation with people. That’s why I asked here.
Someone who believes people outside of the United States of America are also human beings.
The word Tankie originates from 1950s British Communist circles. Specifically, it was used by British Communists to derisively describe their comrades who supported the 1956 invasion of Hungary by the Soviet Union.
Images of the Soviet invasion featured a lot of tanks, hence, “Tankie”.
After that died down, the term didn’t come back into use really, until the 2010s, when leftists on the internet started using it in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way. It was fun to bring back a stupid sounding, incredibly niche, British slang word.
At some point the word breached containment and started to be used by liberals, in a very cavilier sort of way. I’ve seen people use Tankie to describe anyone from Marxist-Leninists, to Marxists generally, to Leftists generally, weird right-wingers who converted to Russian Orthodoxy, pro-Palestine activists, mods of Lemmy instances someone doesn’t like.
Shit, I’ve seen literal Anarchist get called Tankies.
Basically, it’s a meaningless nothing word now, that’s a bit like your boomer grandpa who still thinks it’s the Red Scare, calling Joe Biden a Commie Pinko.
So don’t worry about it too much.
A leftist. Someone with political beliefs, empathy, and conviction.
Not all leftists are tankies the same way not all right wingers are fascists. A tankie is an authoritarian leftist
What makes them authoritarian?
They believe in an authoritarian government systems. Where the state has extra power that they can use to enforce their goals. That is in contrast to anarcho communists where the state is dissolved.
Logically most leftists fall somewhere in the middle as not wanting full on authoritarian government but also not wanting a complete lack of government
In theory if the state has the best interests of the people, then by giving the state extra power all you are doing is reducing bureaucracy and increasing efficiency. That however also makes it easier for the state to abuse that power so I am not saying one is better or worse than the other
This is not how any communist views authority or the state. All communists are in favor of abolishing the state. This requires erasing the basis of the state, which is class society, and that requires collectivizing production and distribution. With production and distribution collectivized, class doesn’t exist, and as such the state withers as it loses its reason to function.
It isn’t about “giving the state power.” It’s about taking state power from the capitalist class, and creating a working class state. This socialist state does not have “more power” than a capitalist state, the class it serves is what’s distinct.
Leftists usually fall into the Marxist umbrella or anarchist umbrella. Marxists are for collectivization, while anarchists are for communalization.
When I say “communalization,” I mean anarchists propose horizontalist, decentralized cells, similar to early humanity’s cooperative production but with more interconnection and modern tech. When I say collectivization, I mean the unification of all of humanity into one system, where production and distribution is planned collectively to satisfy the needs of everyone as best as possible.
For anarchists, collectivized society still seems to retain the state, as some anarchists conflate administration with the state as it represents a hierarchy. For Marxists, this focus on communalism creates inter-cell class distinctions, as each cell only truly owns their own means of production, giving rise to class distinctions and thus states in the future.
For Marxists, socialism must have a state, a state can only wither with respect to how far along it has come in collectivizing production and therefore eliminating class. All states are authoritarian, but we cannot get rid of the state without erasing the foundations of the state: class society, and to do so we must collectivize production and distribution globally. Socialist states, where the working class wields its authority against capitalists and fascists, are the means by which this collectivization can actually happen, and are fully in-line with Marx’s beliefs. Communism as a stateless, classless, moneyless society is only possible post-socialism.
Anarchists obviously disagree with this, and see the state more as independent of class society and thus itself must be abolished outright.
This is not at all about being more “authoritarian” or “libertarian.” It’s a fundamentally different understanding of class and power dynamics, and both seek a liberated society. The political compass cannot depict this, even if the liberal view of anarchism and Marxism wants to point them as two extremes on a tidy graph with most people in the middle of them. What’s important is that politics is not a bell curve, Marxism and anarchism are consistent ideologies with specific tendencies under them that fundamentally contradict. People don’t just pick what they like from each (usually), because then they cease to be internally consistent.
All states are authoritarian in that they uphold one class and oppress others. It’s a good thing when the class in charge is the working class, throughout history socialist states have resulted in dramatic improvements in living standards for the vast majority of society. These socialist states, and the ones who support them, are labeled “authoritarian” whenever these states practice land reform, nationalize industries, etc, and are met with mountains of hostility and slander from the west.
Even an anarchist revolution is “authoritarian,” as it involves violently taking control. In practice, “authoritarianism” is more of a vibe than an actual thing we can measure or a policy to be implemented. It’s used as a club against socialist states by those who’ve lost property to land reform or nationalization.
It’s a spectrum and a person who supports the government having more control of their citizens is considering authoritarian. A person who wants to limit government control over their citizens is more libertarian.
It’s a very valid belief that someone might want leftist policies with limited government control over individual citizens so calling them all tankies is inaccurate and confusing
When you utterly erase class analysis, and just group everyone under “citizens,” you run into utter contradictions. Socialist states have been far more liberating for their populace overall, even if they’ve been oppressive towards fascists, capitalists, etc, meaning they would technically belong in the “libertarian” quadrant if we define it the way you claim we should. The entire idea of a “libertarian-authoritarian” spectrum, or even a left-right spectrum and not just various right and left ideologies that cannot be abstracted into a graph-based system, is actively harmful to our understanding of political ideology.
Anarchists want communalism, whereas Marxists want collectivization. Neither is more or less “authoritarian” or “libertarian,” in that even horizontalist systems actually erase the democratic reach of communities to within their communities and immediate surroundings, while collectivization spreads power more evenly globally. This isn’t something that can be represented on the graph in any way, yet results in fundamentally different approaches and outcomes.
This is an intentional strawman right? Like there is no way you are truly misunderstanding this much?
Auth governement dictates what individual citizens can/ can not do
Lib government limits what power the government has over individual citizens
You can’t say we are actually lib because we only are targeting the “bad people”
Show your conviction and don’t dance around your point if you want a government that has more power over its citizens that’s fine, that’s your belief and you are fully entitled to it but if you can’t acknowledge your own beliefs that’s its own problem
Again, you need to look at things from a class analysis. There is no such thing as “libertarian capitalism,” capitalism requires the state, and freedoms for citizens are restricted because they don’t have as much access to necessities and democracy doesn’t extend to the economy.
Socialist countries that provide better access to necessities have more freedom for the average person than capitalist countries. They don’t have the same privledged class of capitalists with unlimited political power, but the people have more power.
This is a false-binary. It isn’t a strawman, the political compass is entirely bogus and cannot accurately depict ideology or structure as they exist in the real world. It does more harm than helps.
I’m not dancing, I’ve said it firm: I want the working class to use the state in their own interests, against capitalists and fascists, to meet the needs of the people and liberate society.
You are the one making it binary when it isn’t and when I say it isn’t you bring it back to being binary. You can have libertarian beliefs without wanting a complete dissolution of the government the same way you can have authoritarian beliefs while still wanting people to have individual freedoms. So yes you can have libertarian capitalism which is simply a less regulated form vs authoritarian capitalism. We can see this in the UK vs EU where the UK is requiring people to submit official IDs to see porn (auth) vs the EU passing data privacy laws (lib)
You are inventing all these other arguments that I am not making. I have never said socialist countries have less freedoms and don’t even remotely believe that so if you are not making a strawman then try rereading what I am saying because you are arguing against an argument I am not making which is the literal definition of a strawman
That’s called being authoritarian, there is nothing wrong with that and as long as the state is using that power fairly that can create a great society but you must realize that on a 1-10 scale of government authority with a 1 being full on anarchy and 10 being the state has full control to make all decisions that you are closer to a 10 then a 1
As soon as you give the state power to go after people with different beliefs (even if those beliefs are deplorable) you are being authoritarian
Anyone ideologically left of Richard Nixon according to our local blue conservatives.
Nixon was a tankie according to them. He’s responsible for the EPA and OSHA.
Left of Reagan.
A person who opposes genocide
When a South Asian calls the British monarchy fascist or Churchill a genocider in my experience.
Isn’t monarchy already a bigger bad word in itself than fascism?
Not according to the Yakubians over at the miserable island.
I actually always wondered a bit about the line between fascism and monarchism. To the casual observer they might seem nearly identical, though I wonder if in historical materialist terms it’s a reactionary attempt to backslide to feudalism rather than progress capitalism to socialism.
Typically it refers to leftists who strongly defend/advocate for authoritarian statist approaches to socialism/communism.
A size of tank, smaller than normal tank, but bigger than tankette.
OP, what have you unleashed.
I just thought this was where you came to ask questions.
It is, I’m just kidding around. Your question was innocent enough, it’s just that the comments look like a battlefield.
you’re on the .ml instance, which is an incredibly political place, so you’re gonna get a lot of flack
I think every instance has pretty strong political views
A cute water cistern.
A slur mainly on the internet against those leftist (usually Marxists-leninist) who oppose western interventions, sanctions, coups and wars against countries and governments labeled as “authoritarian”.
originally used by UK communists party trotskyist wing in support of Hungarian -56 crushed uprising against those who opposed it, calling them tankies. Vaguely same as “stalinist”, but it pretty much has lost that meaning in modern use.
