What counts as a tankie? Someone left of Social Democrats? Anyone who thinks Lenin was kinda based? Or is it people who love Mao, or Stalin? Or what exactly counts?
Lemmygrad.ml is full of Putin appologists.
Some of them are from hexabear.
The oh yeah, what about Minsk Agreements that Ukraine broke?! is also a wild ride on misinfo as well. Russia agreed to pull out forces out of Ukraine borders. Guess how it went.
Leftism isn’t inherently anti-hierachy. Rather, different leftists take issue with different types of hierarchy. Marxists tend to hate class hierarchy, Marxist-Leninists tend to believe it to be a useful tool in developing to a stage where Socialism is possible, and Anarchists tend to think that all hierarchy is unjust, preferring mutualism.
Then there are Left-Comms, who, depending on country, either love Marx and Lenin but reject Marxism-Leninism, or reject Lenin and purely love Marx. They tend to prefer Council Communism rather than Vanguardist Marxism-Leninism, as they believe councils are justifiable as they are democratically participated in but reject Vanguardism.
I might be too new, but I haven’t actually seen much of that at all. The farthest I’ve seen is adding context to events like collectivization in the USSR, which you can point out and still disagree with it, but prove that it’s misrepresented in American News sources.
I’m not a Marxist-Leninist, but I think one of the most eye-opening things to learn is just how much propaganda is used by every country. Learning from other points of views, assuming historically accurate and verified, helps combat the notion that any states are good.
Tankies are people that defend or deny the shitty things done by ML states. People can appreciate some of Lenin’s ideas, but not defend the states inspired by his ideology. The Bolsheviks under Lenin set the groundwork for Stalin’s reign, with many of Stalin’s terrible practices being inspired by things Lenin did. Lenin crushed opposition and centralized power while he was in charge, with Stalin doing what Lenin demonstrated to be acceptable behavior for their movement. When you reject the results of democratic processes to gain power, don’t be surprised when your successor does the same. One can agree with many of Lenin’s ideas, so long as they recognize the weaknesses.
There are plenty of people that defend or deny the crimes of ML states. The MLs who don’t defend or deny the crimes of ML states usually don’t stay MLs. A big part of the entire ideology is not disagreeing with the party line in public. Democratic Centralism necessitates that you don’t disparage what the party internally decides on. The attitude of most western MLs is one of not letting their team look weak, which usually leads to denying, defending, or using whataboutisms to downplay the bad things done by those states.
I acknowledge the terrible shit done by America and the Democratic party, but I still insist Americans should vote for Democrats over Republicans in elections. This is because people need to make the most out of the system and situation they have to work with. I don’t think of Chinese citizens as tankies for supporting the CCP or Soviet citizens who worked within the confines of their government. That’s the system they had or have, so they do what they have to do. This isn’t the case with western MLs; not legally at least.
Western ML communities are basically cults that isolate you from outside friends or allies, encouraging you to push away those that question the ideology. You are free to leave, but through cultish tactics, they do everything they can to keep you in. If an ML acknowledges the crimes of ML states and the fundamental weaknesses in the ideology, tankie MLs will marginalize them from the group, coercing them to become tankies or leave. The non tankie MLs get driven away, or become tankies. It isn’t a stable state, as they will always fall one way or the other.
You can easily advocate for the overthrow of the government without defending terrible shit. This sort of argument stinks like the people who claim critical support for Hamas. The idea that you must stand one genocidal team is bullshit. You can take a principled position.
Social Dems, in my experience, are generally people with hearts in the right place, but haven’t yet done any structural analysis. Essentially, they recognize that the current states with the highest standards of living are Social Democracies, and form their political and economic beliefs around replicating current “success,” without actually taking it a step further and performing historical analysis or looking at trends.
There are SocDems that are incredibly based, and those are people who support third-world countries becoming Social Democracies as a means to achieve Socialism and Communism in the long run, as they can combat Imperialism and provide more for their people as they develop.
The issues with developed Social Democracies still stem from Capitalism lasting beyond the developing phase. In Scandinavian countries, we still see brutal, awful organizations like Nestlé brutalizing developing nations, rising disparity, and declines in equity. Social Democracies are better than Neoliberal Republics like the US, but still aren’t “good.”
No, that’s not at all what I’m saying. Social Democrats take their roots in Marxist philosophy, but seek reform, rather than revolutionary change. Revolutionary doesn’t inherently mean violent, but a total replacement of the state with a new one. See Rosa Luxembourg’s Reform or Revolution for information on why reform will never work.
Social Demo is not Socialism. Social Demo is a rejection of Socialism, as Socialism is simply a Mode of Production by which the Means of Production are owned in Common, not by individuals. Social Demo is Capitalism, with Social Safety nets, and has issues as I’ve elaborated on in my previous comment.
In what way does it say “we haven’t tried real Communism?” Socialist states have in fact attempted to reach Communism, genuinely, and we can learn from their successes and failures along their paths.
In the real world you only have Soc Dems who are Capitalists. Soc Dem is a rejection of Socialism.
They’re conservatives. They demand a hierarchy where your betters are unquestionable and those below you are subservient. They promote this using the language of leftists, and the contradictions do not bother them, because words are just how you perform loyalty.
Right-wing politics are only the most blatant and fitting expression of that worldview. This tribalism is humanity’s default. Reasoned argument is a learned behavior - and some people visibly are not doing that.
Reality is a team sport, to some people. In their minds: things are good because good people do them. And their people must be good people, because who’d want to be bad people?
I’ve seen AnCaps defend Batista, lol. Even “defenders” of Stalin tend to agree that a lot of what he did was terrible, but will point out that even the CIA said he wasn’t a dictator.
Oh, well if the CIA said his decades of brutal autocratic power don’t count, I guess that doesn’t what the fuck are you talking about of course he was a textbook dictator.
What counts as a tankie? Someone left of Social Democrats? Anyone who thinks Lenin was kinda based? Or is it people who love Mao, or Stalin? Or what exactly counts?
The “I won’t condemn Russias invasion just deflect to Ukrainian Nazis” and “uyghur re-education isn’t happening” is wild to see.
I’m not blocking any communities but if I were that might be the kind of things I would
Lemmygrad.ml is full of Putin appologists. Some of them are from hexabear.
The oh yeah, what about Minsk Agreements that Ukraine broke?! is also a wild ride on misinfo as well. Russia agreed to pull out forces out of Ukraine borders. Guess how it went.
The ones justifying genocides and wars from dictators.
You can be extreme left and still not be a tankie.
I assumed once one got extreme enough left they were anti-hierarchical and bound to principle
It’s difficult to be that and tankie at the same time.
I’m but a poli-sci amateur so I may be talking out my ass.
Leftism isn’t inherently anti-hierachy. Rather, different leftists take issue with different types of hierarchy. Marxists tend to hate class hierarchy, Marxist-Leninists tend to believe it to be a useful tool in developing to a stage where Socialism is possible, and Anarchists tend to think that all hierarchy is unjust, preferring mutualism.
Then there are Left-Comms, who, depending on country, either love Marx and Lenin but reject Marxism-Leninism, or reject Lenin and purely love Marx. They tend to prefer Council Communism rather than Vanguardist Marxism-Leninism, as they believe councils are justifiable as they are democratically participated in but reject Vanguardism.
I might be too new, but I haven’t actually seen much of that at all. The farthest I’ve seen is adding context to events like collectivization in the USSR, which you can point out and still disagree with it, but prove that it’s misrepresented in American News sources.
I’m not a Marxist-Leninist, but I think one of the most eye-opening things to learn is just how much propaganda is used by every country. Learning from other points of views, assuming historically accurate and verified, helps combat the notion that any states are good.
you can be social democrat left, you can be anarchist left, hell you can even be communalist hivemind left!
Don’t know how accurate this is, but I’ve always thought they were hard left authoritarians
That’s the general idea, but usually I’ve seen it more as a slur even for regular leftists as a way to disengage with them.
Tankies are people that defend or deny the shitty things done by ML states. People can appreciate some of Lenin’s ideas, but not defend the states inspired by his ideology. The Bolsheviks under Lenin set the groundwork for Stalin’s reign, with many of Stalin’s terrible practices being inspired by things Lenin did. Lenin crushed opposition and centralized power while he was in charge, with Stalin doing what Lenin demonstrated to be acceptable behavior for their movement. When you reject the results of democratic processes to gain power, don’t be surprised when your successor does the same. One can agree with many of Lenin’s ideas, so long as they recognize the weaknesses.
I wish we had more people like you on the left
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There are plenty of people that defend or deny the crimes of ML states. The MLs who don’t defend or deny the crimes of ML states usually don’t stay MLs. A big part of the entire ideology is not disagreeing with the party line in public. Democratic Centralism necessitates that you don’t disparage what the party internally decides on. The attitude of most western MLs is one of not letting their team look weak, which usually leads to denying, defending, or using whataboutisms to downplay the bad things done by those states.
I acknowledge the terrible shit done by America and the Democratic party, but I still insist Americans should vote for Democrats over Republicans in elections. This is because people need to make the most out of the system and situation they have to work with. I don’t think of Chinese citizens as tankies for supporting the CCP or Soviet citizens who worked within the confines of their government. That’s the system they had or have, so they do what they have to do. This isn’t the case with western MLs; not legally at least.
Western ML communities are basically cults that isolate you from outside friends or allies, encouraging you to push away those that question the ideology. You are free to leave, but through cultish tactics, they do everything they can to keep you in. If an ML acknowledges the crimes of ML states and the fundamental weaknesses in the ideology, tankie MLs will marginalize them from the group, coercing them to become tankies or leave. The non tankie MLs get driven away, or become tankies. It isn’t a stable state, as they will always fall one way or the other.
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You can easily advocate for the overthrow of the government without defending terrible shit. This sort of argument stinks like the people who claim critical support for Hamas. The idea that you must stand one genocidal team is bullshit. You can take a principled position.
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I said left of Social Democrats.
Social Dems, in my experience, are generally people with hearts in the right place, but haven’t yet done any structural analysis. Essentially, they recognize that the current states with the highest standards of living are Social Democracies, and form their political and economic beliefs around replicating current “success,” without actually taking it a step further and performing historical analysis or looking at trends.
There are SocDems that are incredibly based, and those are people who support third-world countries becoming Social Democracies as a means to achieve Socialism and Communism in the long run, as they can combat Imperialism and provide more for their people as they develop.
The issues with developed Social Democracies still stem from Capitalism lasting beyond the developing phase. In Scandinavian countries, we still see brutal, awful organizations like Nestlé brutalizing developing nations, rising disparity, and declines in equity. Social Democracies are better than Neoliberal Republics like the US, but still aren’t “good.”
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No, that’s not at all what I’m saying. Social Democrats take their roots in Marxist philosophy, but seek reform, rather than revolutionary change. Revolutionary doesn’t inherently mean violent, but a total replacement of the state with a new one. See Rosa Luxembourg’s Reform or Revolution for information on why reform will never work.
Social Demo is not Socialism. Social Demo is a rejection of Socialism, as Socialism is simply a Mode of Production by which the Means of Production are owned in Common, not by individuals. Social Demo is Capitalism, with Social Safety nets, and has issues as I’ve elaborated on in my previous comment.
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In what way does it say “we haven’t tried real Communism?” Socialist states have in fact attempted to reach Communism, genuinely, and we can learn from their successes and failures along their paths.
In the real world you only have Soc Dems who are Capitalists. Soc Dem is a rejection of Socialism.
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They’re conservatives. They demand a hierarchy where your betters are unquestionable and those below you are subservient. They promote this using the language of leftists, and the contradictions do not bother them, because words are just how you perform loyalty.
Right-wing politics are only the most blatant and fitting expression of that worldview. This tribalism is humanity’s default. Reasoned argument is a learned behavior - and some people visibly are not doing that.
Reality is a team sport, to some people. In their minds: things are good because good people do them. And their people must be good people, because who’d want to be bad people?
I haven’t seen any examples of this, though, not even from Hexbear or Lemmygrad.
That’s why I’m pretty sure there are extremely few actual Tankies, and it’s normally used to shutdown leftists that think a state is okay for a while.
I don’t believe you.
I haven’t seen anyone “demand a hierarchy where your betters are unquestionable and those below you are subservient,” not even close.
You’ve never seen anyone defend dictatorships?
I’ve seen AnCaps defend Batista, lol. Even “defenders” of Stalin tend to agree that a lot of what he did was terrible, but will point out that even the CIA said he wasn’t a dictator.
Oh, well if the CIA said his decades of brutal autocratic power don’t count, I guess that doesn’t what the fuck are you talking about of course he was a textbook dictator.
He wasn’t autocratic, nor did everything he want to happen, happen. Much of the ongoing, day to day decisions were made by Worker Councils.
The CIA literally stated that the notion that he was a dictator were exaggerated, in an internal memo. “Comments on the change in Soviet leadership.”
i mean, caste systems are a thing that have existed
Sure. Haven’t seen anyone defend caste systems, especially not a self-proclaimed leftist.
Gandhi?
At least until his later years.
Fair, haven’t done my research on Gandhi, but I’m fairly certain we are talking about people on lemmy.
Tankies are people who fill a jug with piss and empty it into a pickup drivers gas tank
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It depends on who is using it more than anything. In many respects it says more about the user than who it is directed at.
It runs the gambit in how its used on Lemmy.