You're viewing a single thread.
Why does the compromise guy have a hammer and sickle on him? Is it because these countries were formally part of the USSR?
There are online self-proclaimed leftists who simp for the totalitarian Soviet regime, and often for China as well. The slang term for them is 'tankies'. Generally speaking, they're the ones you see online spreading the "Ukraine has to compromise for Russia's Legitimate Security Concerns!" The hammer-and-sickle is there to represent them.
It's very bizarre, considering that most leftists I know, even the ones I butt heads with, recognize that Putin's Russia is an imperialist and fascist state. But no one has ever accused tankies of being consistent.
Don't worry, some tankie will be along to correct you that Russia doesn't meet the exact textbook definition of Fascism, so it is actually a utopia.
My favorite incorrect definition for tankies is, they dont actually like communism, they just like tanks.
They like "dictatorships of the proletariat," and if they think that is given to them by Daddy Big Boots, then theyll simp for him hard as they can.
Absolutely loving the pushback against their shit here on .world, it was getting bleak there for a minute..
Yeah. Tankies in most places are absolutely inconsequential, but they're very prominent on the Fediverse. It's good to push back against the poisonous parts of their ideology (like 'Imperialism is good if it's a capitalist state that's not part of the West doing it').
Would hate to see that kind of vile fascist shit normalized on here.
Yep, authoritarianism and imperialism is wrong left or right. The United States has a horrible track record on this front it's true. But they'll lose their shit when you state a simple fact like ML nations are generally just as bad. Russia basically invaded and forcefully annexed many nations post WWII. Tried to invade Afghanistan. Imprisoned and slaughtered millions in Siberian prisons to this very day even. All for simple dissent. Nivalny anyone? China isn't really any better either.
They usually break into a sputtering revelry of "But imperialists and the west did X". Which you can easily tear apart with a simple "And?". Because it doesn't justify them doing it.
Id still argue that tankies and authoritarians of all kinds dont fit in in the left, but otherwise agreed.
I want a society thats classless, cashless, stateless. Currency, billionaires, socioeconomic classes, dictators dont fit.
Same here. It's a long road. And unfortunately ml and tankies specifically have set us back on it quite a bit. But the evolution Karl Marx originally spoke about is absolutely worth continuing to pursue.
Keep being the change u wish to see in the world. Love u bae <3
Absolutely loving the pushback
And it's being replaced with liberalism - which is every bit as bad.
"Liberalism"
Liberalism is when no tank
...in the most verbose way possible, with bonus points for referencing people out of context, cherrypicking their worst takes, or just deferring to lunatics in a ghish gallop too exhausting to be worth challenging.
They have grocery stores with bread you know. Suck on that imperialist!
“Fascism” is thrown around entirely too much as a term, when it’s just one variety of authoritarianism, which is the term we should be using
Russia doesn't qualify as a fascist state.
Not when you ask putler, try asking people who aren't running a fascist state.
Has Putin stated that he's running a fascist state?
I have news for you, liberal - strengthening, enabling and exploiting fascist elements within a capitalist state to protect the status quo existing within said capitalist state is not a fascist thing to do. It's a liberal thing to do. That is literally how fascists get into power in the first place - they can't get into power by themselves.
Is this a difficult thing to understand? I'd say it's quite simple.
Also... good luck with the whole "putler" thing. Somehow, I don't see that taking off.
Today were can clearly see that, communism was always a red herring. Tankies during cold war and tankies today (that love to dress in American flags), were always about supporting of totalitarian regimes.
The hammer and sickle is to support USSR.
Tankie is a special sort of communist. Doesn't seem fair to paint all communists as tankies.
Tankie is just facist wearing red instead of brown. Leave communism out of it.
Nah communism is just naive people trying to enact collectivist policies wholesale not realising or not wanting to believe that such policies are incredibly open to subversion by authoritarian groups.
collectivist policies
Why do you fine folks draw lines on political and skin pigmentation if it's about collectivism?
At the risk of feeding a troll.
My argument is basically the 'china/russia were never real communism' one but with the caveat that real communism isn't possible in the first place with real human beings because its so easy for a bad actor to hijack the entire thing and thus that will inevitably happen almost immediately. Any real communist is probably naive, deluded or excessively optimistic.Tankies are just the same kind of bad actor who are the reason such a system is impossible in the first place and promote communism simply as way to seize ever more power. Its a very pedantic point of view but I'm sick of the right wing changing the definition of words.
No, you're talking about tankies
I was talking about tankies, whose definition says those are communists that were also fine with using tanks on population by Soviets during the Hungarian revolution.
I'm trying to say those people weren't as much in love with communism as with the love of the Soviets and this is much easier to see today since Russia isn't communist.
He’s a communist from lemmygrad