'Tankies' (for the lack of a better word) have been against communism throughout history. It's disingenuous to assume they could be capable of unity

I always wonder what the political left would look like in different European countries in the 20th century had it not been for the influence of the Soviet Union. Soviet influence ran, in my humble opinion, like poison through the veins of European socialist organisations. It seems to me like successful left wing mobilization is directly correlated with a relative lack of Soviet influence.
- Yeah. They executed a lot of leftist thinking and set back progress for decades. And inadvertently were the reason for the red scare still deeply ingrained in many
- Many anarchists were simply murdered:
  nazy-germany the anarchist movement was whole-sale murdered. Since then there is no anarchsist movment in germany.
  franco-fascist-spain he murdered 200,000 anarchists after the civil war
  ukraine machnowiki anarchists
  russian anarchists and many more...
  that is the reason why there is no anarchist movement in europe today. Before these events Anarchists were a major part of the workers movement.
- You mean the coup, revisionist, governments of Khrushchev, Brezhnev and the following reactionary anti-communists that destroyed the USSR were actually bad for leftism? Color me shocked.
  Even “tankies” would agree that all the anti-communism, anti-Stalinism and anti-Leninism of the USSR after Stalin really fucked communism and leftism all over the world.
  Or do you think “tankies” think the USSR after Stalin was “based”? What even is this take?
Just call em authoritarians. That's what they are

Hexbear comes here to be the debate bros they try so hard to dunk on. They are dying looking for just one little morsel of dunk. Not a good showing, not a leftist unity moment lmao

They're starving, man

You know, there'd be a whole lot less gish-galloping propaganda in the comments here if you were to defederate hexbear. Just sayin. ¯(ツ)/¯

Hexbears don't bother me, but I seem to be bothering them quite a lot
- Just like with fascists though, it's better not to let them propagandize, even if you aren't personally triggered by it.
- Just saying, if you have Kbin nazis tempting you to defederate hexbear, you need to reevaluate how you're carrying yourself.

What an impressive turn out. Looks like they're all using the exact same "arguments" (a combination of manipulation techniques and logical fallicies) that they use every single time.

It's worrying how much of a presence these people create in online discourse because they come out in full force, dominating and suppressing anyone or thing that challenges them. There is no healthy debate.

But i suppose it all makes perfect sense; these people glorify the state, single party rule and dictatorship. Their behavior is a logical result of these beliefs

We need to connect, which then leaves us open to cointelpro. The problem of cointelpro has not been resolved, questioning our capabilities to organize ourselves.
We need a code of honor that makes cointelpro tactics a waste of time.

Meme has been ammended to not be racist. Sorry about not paying close enough attention to it. I've been having issues with my object storage and I've been trying to fix it. In the end I decided to rehost on imgur.

Neat, now we can see how long before/if federated instances update that.
Just a hint: if you find yourself accidentally doing racism, maybe stop and consider if you're doing the right thing.

They create such lame excuses to defend things like Trotsky assassination it's awful

What's a Tankie?

EDIT: The range of definitions below is interesting

A slang term for authoritarian communists.
- Tankies are not at all a uniquely US phenomenon
To give a nore detailed answer... Tankies are "lefties" who have failed to realize one or two extremely important facts about the world:
"Strong men" are not a good thing. No matter your political opinion, using force to get it is literally incompatible with many leftist teachings. The very act of violent rebellion requires the use of force that many believe a government shoudn't have. Thusly, any violent revolution stands a STRONG chance of being shunned by those who do not want a government with sanctioned violence. Getting a "leftist" government through basic violence WILL result in a fascist government. Always.
Strong men cannot be allowed unjust power no matter how just they are. They cannot be allowed power because despite how cliche the expression, "power corrupts", it is wholly true. It doesn't matter how good a particular ruler is. If the levers of power exist, someone WILL pull them very bad directions.
Basically... Tankies are leftists who have not or cannot think through how authority is actually bad to allow to exist in any unchecked form. They think a ruler who does good things is good, when most leftists SHOULD be answering they don't want any ruler.
The horseshoe theory exists because of tankies and extremists. If you want leftist policy but want to achieve it through uncouth means, that's definitionally authoritarian in nature for many answers, and authoritarian answers should be antithetical to the left. Even forcing a utopia still creates a coercive government.
- Thusly, any violent revolution stands a STRONG chance of being shunned by those who do not want a government with sanctioned violence.
  I disagree with this part. Violent revolution—violent opposition to our oppression—is absolutely necessary. However, turning it on ourselves—that is, in any direction other than that which opposes authority—is a recipe for disaster as you say.
  It's not violence itself that is the problem. There are literally always forms of violence sanctioned by every single political philosophy (including absolute pacifism/non-violence, which sanctions violence performed by the state even if its subscribers often don't realize this). The question is how and when that violence is performed and by whom, and the anarchist/non-authoritarian answer is that it must only be in the struggle for liberation, not the fight to gain and maintain power over others.
Someone that thinks people are cool but states are cooler
A liberal who waves a red flag and pretends they aren't liberal. Often they call everyone else (including us) liberal. 😂 😉

holy shit

One upside is that the flaming comments is less lethal than bullets. Of course if they start kicking in doors because of comments we have a different problem.

What in the actual fuck is going on in here?
I guess you could say it's...

Anarchy?

Actually anarchy is not chaos or a state of everybody vs everybody. Anarchy is greek for without rulers. It is basically synonymous with democracy in it's original sense.
Anarchy is a organized(even industrialized and modern) society but without powers concentrated in the hands of a few. Anarchists like myself believe that power corrupts, and even if you joined government as an angle in due time you might fall to the temptation and divert the power granted you by the massed for your own ends, in turn betraying your mandate. I believe this to be the fatal flaw of both systems like USSR and the one we live in, both are state-capitalism.
Anarchists believe that you cannot part with your freedom and then ever expect it back...
God and state is a great book to interest you further or the conquest of bread there is also lucy gonzales parsons and others like proudhon.
I hope you enjoyed this little write up and become an anarchist. 😘

What exactly is a tankie?

an idiot.
- Thanks for nothing, seeing as that comment fits you into your own definition.
I'm not sure if you are defederated with like everyone or just too lazy to scroll the comments before asking a question that's answered several times already
- Lemmy.world is defederated from hexbear so they don't see the comments by Hexbear users here (which is most of them), but they probably are also the lazy type because they could just look it up if they can't find it in the thread, or view the post from another instance to see the missing comments.
Those who defend the atrocities committed by historical communist movements, or deny them against overwhelming contrary evidence
- Okay thanks makes it much clearer, thank you my friend!

Just wanted to come in and say good job op, you managed to make a very entertaining thread. Big ups

This will stand as a great monument to Hexbear

Just going to say what I say every time this shit shows its ugly head: Anticommunism is always profascism. You are siding with nazis.

EDIT: when the place starts getting infested with nazis you have nobody to blame but yourself for effectively inviting them over.

I'm not anticommunism ya dolt.
- You are when you do that.
Just because you seem to say it often doesn't make it less stupid
Anticommunism is always profascism
Desired result: oh no now I must be Communist.
Actual result: whelp, I guess I'm a fascist then.

"Tanks"

So we dont trust authoritarian communists/socialists. How does this influence our praxis?

It doesn't really. Just keep doing anarchist things and don't allow ML entry-ism and agitate for direct action moves instead of top down decision making.
- Hmmmm I kinda get that and actually agree. Buuuuut I feel like actually doing this might be hard and sometimes one might have to disengage because the ML entry-ism actually succeeded.

I see what you are saying, but we should not refer to communists as tankies. Instead of alienating others, we should try to win them over.

Hearts and minds.

one up man ship and gotcha type discourse won't help our cause. We want people to turn to anarchism and for that we need to convince though rational arguments.

We should also appeal to people's emotions.

We should speak to their sense of freedom and individuality. We should show them how we are all wage-slaves and that once we abolish property all the people who have been poor will over night be rich. All of a sudden the bread that rotted off limits can now be eaten by those who were condemned to look at it from afar before.

The thing is, anarchists and MLs tend to agree pretty much all the criticism of the current system.
We, however, disagree greatly on how to progress to the next system. And this is where our disagreements become practical and not easily solvable by polite arguments.
- communists and anarchists agree in everything but communists want to get to stateless communism by having a state-capitalist dictatorship first. Anarchists believe that once you give away your power you never get it back, and thus we hold on to our power throughout the revolution.