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.
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.
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.
Unless 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?
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 @[email protected] 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?
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.
my family calls it complaining and so do i despite my therapist’s efforts to get me to stop calling it so; i bet that guy WISHES he could roll his eyes as hard as my family does every time i do it. lol
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.
I don’t know your situation, and I don’t have a crystal ball, but I think Trump’s rhetoric is going to rub up against the will of the bourgeoisie which relies on exploiting immigrant labor. Republicans talk a big game about immigrants and then exploit the precarity & fear that it generates. Not to imply that the fear isn’t justified, because it’s not all talk.
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.
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 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.
but I- oh wait I do have an opinion on Soviet use of tanks to crush the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the 1968 Prague Spring uprising. My bad, continue.
Yep, it’s a deeply unserious term. It’s only used unironically, in my experience, by people who haven’t read theory yet devote a huge chunk of time to debating online, which is largely a waste of time to begin with. That’s why I focus on just trying to correct misconceptions and provide my reading list when appropriate, debating is just an outlet for frustration for most people. It’s truly rare that debate convinces anyone.
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.
They’re literally stealing children and indoctrinating them
Let’s say there’s a war going on, and let’s say there are war orphans, or children who were already orphans before the war
Let’s say these children are also native Russian speakers, like many many people in Eastern Ukraine
What should the Russian government do? Send these orphans to orphanages far from the front?
Or: put them on the bus and send them to the Ukrainian government where they ban the Russian language and there are Bandera pictures everywhere?
Do you seriously believe this is the same as what the Canadians did to the natives?
I think the extreme version of this, “stealing children”, is on the same level as the “Gaddafi ‘supplies troops with Viagra to encourage massremoved’”
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.
I think they do want to do this, since the Nazis are extremely hostile to Russia, so it’s crushing the opposition. Obviously this is pretty different from the historical de-Nazification efforts whose corpse Putin cynically puppets as cover for his actions.
If there are meaningful factions of Greater Russia Nazis in Ukraine, he’d obviously be fine with those as he is fine with them in Russia.
Sure, there is some element to that, but the mover and pusher is a removal of threats, not out of any anti-fascist dedication, hence why like you said Putin is fine with “Greater Russia” Nazis.
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.
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.
I mean I would argue saying “party in charge of” is a bit much, while they are the Majority party in total, and the majority party in the coalition, there are 8 parties in the coalition, so its not like they are the only party, instead they are the largest party in the PRC
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
Oppose Book Worship
When you get anywhere near making a point, just send up a flare, ok?
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 @[email protected] 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.
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?
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.
You could start with communist content on YouTube. That tends to be more easily digestible and eases you into reading theory later on.
I can recommend channels like Second Thought, Yugopnik, Hakim, revolutionaryth0t and Ian Neves/História Pública (you’ll need to use subtitles for this one if you don’t speak portuguese).
ha! i’m already subscribed to half of them, but thanks nonetheless for the two i didn’t know about.
We need to make more parentiwave tbh, we’ve been slacking on that
i’ve never heard of parentiwave, but it sounds perfect if it’s anything like vaporwave
https://youtu.be/OOUQ28oTsVY
Of the few tracks, this one’s my favorite
it looks like vaporwave; i subscribed.
Vaporwave but with Parenti speeches 😎
i just saw an example and i wonder if it can be leveraged somehow.
Sharing it! Or just jamming
my family calls it complaining and so do i despite my therapist’s efforts to get me to stop calling it so; i bet that guy WISHES he could roll his eyes as hard as my family does every time i do it. lol
Hahaha 😂
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_hegemony
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.
I don’t know your situation, and I don’t have a crystal ball, but I think Trump’s rhetoric is going to rub up against the will of the bourgeoisie which relies on exploiting immigrant labor. Republicans talk a big game about immigrants and then exploit the precarity & fear that it generates. Not to imply that the fear isn’t justified, because it’s not all talk.
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.
The devs are tankies and there are some notorious tankie instances, like Hexbear and Lemmygrad, so they’re a lot more visible here than on reddit.
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. 🙃
but I- oh wait I do have an opinion on Soviet use of tanks to crush the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the 1968 Prague Spring uprising. My bad, continue.
I do love tanks.
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.
It’s both overused in the way you describe and yet obscure enough that only terminally-online political people have even heard of it.
Yep, it’s a deeply unserious term. It’s only used unironically, in my experience, by people who haven’t read theory yet devote a huge chunk of time to debating online, which is largely a waste of time to begin with. That’s why I focus on just trying to correct misconceptions and provide my reading list when appropriate, debating is just an outlet for frustration for most people. It’s truly rare that debate convinces anyone.
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.
Let’s say there’s a war going on, and let’s say there are war orphans, or children who were already orphans before the war
Let’s say these children are also native Russian speakers, like many many people in Eastern Ukraine
What should the Russian government do? Send these orphans to orphanages far from the front?
Or: put them on the bus and send them to the Ukrainian government where they ban the Russian language and there are Bandera pictures everywhere?
Do you seriously believe this is the same as what the Canadians did to the natives?
I think the extreme version of this, “stealing children”, is on the same level as the “Gaddafi ‘supplies troops with Viagra to encourage massremoved’”
The US is doing an actual genocide in Palestine, but thanks for telling everyone you don’t know what words mean
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.
I think they do want to do this, since the Nazis are extremely hostile to Russia, so it’s crushing the opposition. Obviously this is pretty different from the historical de-Nazification efforts whose corpse Putin cynically puppets as cover for his actions.
If there are meaningful factions of Greater Russia Nazis in Ukraine, he’d obviously be fine with those as he is fine with them in Russia.
Sure, there is some element to that, but the mover and pusher is a removal of threats, not out of any anti-fascist dedication, hence why like you said Putin is fine with “Greater Russia” Nazis.
Cool 👍
Staying ignorant is cool, you heard it here first folks.
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
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.
I mean I would argue saying “party in charge of” is a bit much, while they are the Majority party in total, and the majority party in the coalition, there are 8 parties in the coalition, so its not like they are the only party, instead they are the largest party in the PRC
That’s fair! My point is more generally that they ought to explain what they disagree with and get their terms straight.
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.
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.
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.