Let's Identify WTF We Mean When We Use the Term "Tankie"

I've seen the term tankie used by leftcoms, libmarx, libsocs, and Anarchists to mean all MLs. I've also seen it used by revisionist MLs (they wouldn't use that term, of course) to mean anti-revisionist MLs. Personally, I like to use it for anti-revisionist, anti-imperialist MLs;the kind of people who say any nation that claims the title Socialist is Socialist by definition and that support any nation that is anti-U.S. regardless of that nation's imperialist or capitalist tendencies. What do you guys think? What do you mean when you say tankie?

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thecharnelhouse.org/2015/06/14/no-tears-for-tankies/
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I like your definition OP. There are some decent M-Ls out there, like the ones that support DFSNS

Tankie: Khrushchevites who supported the crushing of the Hungarian revolution. Anything else is meaningless

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that doesn't make any sense

This. I'm not a tankie. I'm just a ML who hates america.

I assumed anti-revisionist was synonymous with Stalinist, but I see that that is also a term that is rather ambiguous (Jesus Christ, why can't we just get cut and dried definitions that are easy to talk about?). Anyway, when I wrote anti-revisionist I meant Stalinist, as in defenders of the USSR pre-Khrushchev and of Stalin's legacy. Oftentimes you do see Stalinists on here that will claim that nations such as Venezuela and China are Socialist because there are parties in power that claim the title Socialist without doing much to actually achieve Socialism. That's what I meant there.

I am of course familiar with the origin of the term being those who supported the Soviet tanks rolling into Hungary to put down the revolution there. I was not aware that some people actually refer to Khrushchev supporters when they use the term tankie. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen a Khrushchev supporter on here now that I think of it….

I think opening your eyes to revisionism and anti-soviet propaganda is useful, but being a full gungho neo-soviet is a bit ridiculous.

I consider it a humorous term, so no clear definition.

I use it to refer to ML:s who go to kind of ridiculous lengths in what they're willing to support. This is indeed often done in the way that OP described.

The opinions must be serious, so half-ironic shitposting about the eternal science of marxism-leninism doesn't count.

You don't have to be a Khrushchevite to support sending the tanks into Hungary.

I always assumed tankies were basically Stalinists and other similar leftist authoritarians, i.e. Hoxhaists and DPRK supporters. Just one level below the absolute autism of Nazbols.

But I will admit, tankie memes are unironically hilarious. Never seen a gulag meme I didn't laugh at. Also, I wholeheartedly agree that the kulaks deserved worse. But that's as far as it goes for me.

Tankie is an easy way to identify ignorant retards and opportunists. If someone uses that word, they are one of the two

as opposed to what, "marxists" who support nato imperialism? kek

I agree. Sometimes though I can't help but turn Sovietboo when confronted with "communism starved all the Russians" type shit. The Soviet Union had real systemic problems and it failed to build the conditions for Socialism, but straight up lying about it and citing GulArch or Black Book drives me up the wall.

weird how you think it's a binary choice

Obsession with defense of the Soviet Union's legacy above all contemporary politics and uncritically towing the Moscow line even to this day when the USSR is gone.

Likewise a believe that the political position small-sectarian groups have any real significance for geopolitics and is not completely irrelevant. Substituting class politics with geopolitics. They a hangover from the cold war.

I know MLs who I wouldn't call tankies.

It kinda is. Anti-revisionists are people who believe the USSR under Stalin was real socialism and dislike the reforms that were made by Khrushchev, etc. (which according to them was the beginning of the restoration of capitalism in the USSR). There are Maoists, Hoxhaists (pretty much all of them) and "regular" ML's who could all be accurately described as anti-revisionists.

The chinese communists are revisionists, and Marxists who call modern China socialist are themselves also revisionists. There are Stalin worshipping tankies on the internet who will call China socialist, but these people are retards and definitely not actual anti-revisionists. Does the Venezuelan government even claim to be Marxists btw? I thought they claimed to be non-Marxist socialists.

A better word for people who call anything with red flags socialist is "Brezhnevites".

There's an important distinction here though. I think most real anti-revisionist ML's, "Stalinists", etc. are hardcore anti-imperialists as well, so they could passionately defend Venezuela for example (oppose sanctions and war against them) despite not believing that it's a socialist state.

It's a useful slur.
The MLs more chiefly concerned with defending brown porky, sovietboo asthetics, defending the legacy of the USSR, or claiming everyone else is part of an anarcho-trotskyist-liberal plot to destroy their small party's chance at leading the vanguard. They place more importance on this lapring than they do on building a socialist movement, even one as retarded and impotent as a party. Honestly, very few born after the cold war gives a fuck if Stalin killed gorgillions or how the USSR's GDP growth was askutally the highest ever, yet the tankie can not get out of the past and stop shreiking at random passerby the truth about Stalin while decked out in sovietboo gear.

A tankie is a reactionary who still can feel some measure of empathy.

i use it to mean people with any one of the following opinions:


opposing imperialism in venezuela, syria, dprk etc. are all reasonable opinions so i don't consider them tankie opinions (i hold these opinions myself). i consider "tankie" not to mean "anti-revisionist ML" but to mean "literal fucking insane person". it's not a word that i use much anymore because i've seen it thrown at any leninist (including plenty of trots)

As a synonym for "Stalinist" or as they like to call themselves: "Marxist-Leninists". This particular signifier (tankie) of course owing its existence to the USSR's invasion of a country with a workers' revolution in Hungary, in the '50s.

thecharnelhouse.org/2015/06/14/no-tears-for-tankies/

Because a lot of ideologies operate based on connotations rather than denotations, i.e. what you associate with a word and how it makes you feel rather than an explicit definition.

weird how you think you can call yourself a marxist and support imperialism pickaxehead

put your flag back on

looks like somebody needs to read a fucking book

says the trot that gets his education on the dprk from vice propaganda videos.

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I want reddit tankies to leave.

you don't argue with a trot

>you have to pledge absolute unwavering support to the oh-so-benevolent hereditary monarchy democratically elected government of the DPRK or you're automatically a trot who supports US imperialism, it's literally that simple
miss me with those non-arguments

ye i'm sure you know the inner workings of the party and their way of electing the leadership due to your years of experience in their political system. that, or you saw a vice video claiming they have to pay for breathing and choose 1 of 15 mandated haircuts.

How about we stick with what we know:

No free access to the internet - why?
No free movement - why?
Literal Potemkin villages being built and left unoccupied - why?
Songbun - why?

What makes the government of the DPRK worthy of any kind of support that wouldn't be better given to the people of the DPRK instead?

why would they allow access to predominantly liberal propaganda?


central planing. you can move, but it has to be arranged. you cant just get up and leave whenever you want


propaganda purposes


not a thing.


i know your "criticisms" were pop-propaganda buzzfeed/vice tier, thanks for proving my point you dumb fuck

Tankie is a slur for anybody who actually supports socialist states, even though it has its origins as a term for communists who supported USSR in putting down the fascist uprising in Hungary in 1956.

"Authoritarianism" is a fucking meme, please read some Engels or a book in general. How autocratic or libertarian a revolution is matters not in terms how authoritarian it is. You can somehow measure levels of political participation but in the end it doesn't matter for the groups surpresses by the revolution.

jesus christ almighty
well that's fucking retarded, isn't it? socialism isn't supposed to be about fencing people in.
it was just made up on the spot?

no country that isn't shit needs to keep its own citizens prisoner. if north korea was a good place to live, they wouldn't have to stop people from leaving. that's basic common sense.

a bunch of communists trying to break hungary free from being the USSR's thumb = fascist
this is your brain on ML, folks

Reminder that thousands of Jews fled for fear of pogroms from the Hungarian "revolutionaries" that are the founding myth of this slur.

Revisionist MLs are the actual tankies. Hoxhaism is one of the most anti tankie tendencies there is, but like "weeaboo" the term is completely meaningless now.

Non sequitur here, but since Trotskyism was brought up, I have a question. I have seen the claim that "Trotskyists are Neocons" or "a lot of former Trotskyists became Neocons" thrown around. What does this mean?

Anyone that claims to be "Socialist" or "Communist" but also that "the papa state" the ohhh "holy" state is essential for the survival of the human species. Thats a tankie aka a retard.

Some trots ended up becoming neocons, david horowitz comes to mind.

tankie is a slur

is there something, in your mind, about Trotskyism that would lend one towards becoming a Neocon? Could it be that they are already bent towards anti-USSR propaganda, perhaps supporting interventions against the USSR, and as such the idea that the U.S. (or whichever country) should interfere in other nations and freely invade them isn't too much of a leap? Perhaps if someone abandons communism, that interventionist part remains? I'm sure Trotskyists would be just as abhorred by former Trotskyists-turned-Neocons as non-Trotskyists are, though.

its literally a myth made up by right wingers. leftists shouldn't bother with this kind of garbage

I see. So tankies and/or Stalinists throw that claim around just to smear Trotskyists, while the origin of it was paleocons redbaiting neocons.

I thought its people that understand that using military power is neccesary. And if you dont agree with that, go debate merits of socialism with capitalist armed drone flying mile above you locking on you.

No, it's not that. Heck, even most Anarchists that aren't Anpacs would agree that in some circumstances violence is necessary, and Anarchists certainly aren't tankies. Probably most council communists, Deleonists, Libsocs, etc. that would be perfectly willing to have a violent revolution, and you wouldn't call libertarians like them tankies.