How to fix a tankie

In 2017 I repaired the minds of no less than three ☭TANKIE☭s using the following technique. I should clarify that I believe this methodology is only useful for the ☭TANKIE☭s you have real-world access to. Those online ☭TANKIE☭s posting ironic memes and who believe that the over a dozen US military bases in Syria is a counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie conspiracy are too far gone to fix.

The first step is to empathize with the ☭TANKIE☭. Learn what makes the ☭TANKIE☭ prefer authoritarianism. If it's simply because they are a cop in revolutionary clothing, don't waste your time, they will eventually be class traitors.

Most ☭TANKIE☭s are the way they are due to ML indoctrination by way of lies and dogma. This is easy enough to combat. It starts by explaining to your ☭TANKIE☭ why you can never be a ☭TANKIE☭. The key here is to explain that you're an anti-capitalist and that by definition that means you must oppose state-capitalism. It'll take a lot of work over beers to convince them that you're not crazy when you say that the Bolshevik program simply replaced bourgeoisie control of production with a state-capitalist bureaucracy.

If you're unfamiliar with this then you can begin to brush up on the subject here, libcom.org/forums/theory/lenin-acknowledging-intentional-implementation-state-capitalism-ussr-23032011 .

Once you get into the weeds with them begins your opportunity to begin rebuilding that poor broken brain. To start do a book exchange. Trade one book or pamphlet you want to read with one they want you to read. Of course whatever they offer you will be revisionist reactionary nonsense so it'll be easy enough to discredit. However, the four book I will suggest you have them read will destroy their existing worldview. I recommend reading them with your friend in the order listed below but I don't think it is really critical…

The Bolsheviks and workers' control: the state and counter-revolution, Maurice Brinton
libcom.org/library/the-bolsheviks-and-workers-control-solidarity-group

The Kronstadt Commune, Ida Mett
theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ida-mett-the-kronstadt-commune

Bloodstained: One Hundred Years of Leninist Counterrevolution, Iain Mackay, Barry Pateman, Mark Leier
libgen.io/book/index.php?md5=3674C9EDCDC99A4E6E2BF00A431F1015

The guillotine at work, part 1: the Leninist counter-revolution, Gregori Maximov
libcom.org/library/guillotine-work-volume-1-leninist-counter-revolution-gregori-maximoff

This is period is going to be very emotionally trying for your ☭TANKIE☭ so it would be best to only focus on one ☭TANKIE☭ at a time. They may begin to be ostracized by or disconnect from their fellow ☭TANKIE☭s which will mean you'll need to be there to reassure them they are on the right path. If you cannot commit to this they will likely break off their comradery with you instead.

Through this period thought the ☭TANKIE☭ will have shed their outer iron shell and embrace a more libertarian Marxist perception. It's not likely you'll turn them into something as radical as an anarchist but whatever the result it'll always be better than a broken tank.

Thanks for reading this and I wish you the best of luck in fixing your own tanks.

Other urls found in this thread:

marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-7/cpp-coba-ussr/part-1.htm
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lol buddy, wasted trips

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If you're an American leftist, and you aren't authoritarian, you're an idiot.

Ill become a LibCom or a Anarchist when they drag their ass's out of their house and create a Revolution that can Survive for more then ten minutes without getting crushed by Imperialists or the state

Look Libertarian-Socialism and anarchism are nice ideas and the comrades who are of these tendencies obviously have good intentions
But its just not viable in the modern world its just Idealism
The most LibComs and Anarchists usually amount to is starting some Co-ops or making a few communes in the woods where they spend all day getting high as the sky

Look i can see western workers buying stuff like M-L's but i cant see them embracing LibCom or Anarchism any time soon

this post is gonna get deleted, but good advice man, awesome

Is this satire?

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State capitalism is a greater enemy then the bourgeoisie.

Let us know when a successful anarchist revolution happens. I'll wait.

read marx before trying to sound smart

I'm curious to know when a successful authcom revolution happened. All we've ever seen from their ilk have been failed revolutions turned permanent state capital nightmares. But hey. 🐸☕️

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oh boy here we go

tell me smashie, how exactly was the ussr "state capitalism"? who was the capitalist in this analogy, who accumulated surplus value from the workers?

Every revolution is authoritarian.

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wow this is the worst threa I've ever seen

I personally prefer to use some aspects of the USSR as an positive example regarding the power of a planned economy rather than, you know…

you need accumulated surplus value in the form of capital to have capitalism. read marx

You are a good comrade

You're that "cop in revolutionary clothing" the OP is talking about.

Clearly you've never read Lenin. The party controlled the economy and acted like a single huge capitalist, extracting the surplus value from the workers production. It is impossible to deny that Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin all setup a state capitalist economy as an intermediary stage until the proletariat succeeded in establishing communism. But since communism was NEVER established the legacy of Bolshevism is a legacy of brutal counter-revolutionary capitalism.

there was no surplus value extracted, because there was no accumulation of capital. what you're referring to in your confusion is most likely the temporary policies of war communism.

point out to me the accumulated capital of the ussr, where was it? who owned it?

Comrade. You need to read Preobrazhensky. Stalin accumulated capital like a boss. The USSR had to accomplish in a decade what England had taken centuries to do. This required affecting the working class wages for both regular workers and managers. It wasn't until after Stalin's death that it was possible to use that accumulated capital to introduce a minimum wage.


Was Russia ready for socialism? Of course not. No country is ready for socialism.

Socialism will be worldwide or not at all. No country on its own can be anything other than state capitalist. The Soviet regime was merely a holding operation until the rest of the world caught up (and overleaped) Russia. No country can skip the dialectical process that is a historically material fact.

If you foolishly believe Russia was ready for socialism then that means you believe that socialism in one country is possible, and co-incidently that Stalin was right. If you believe that the task of the revolution is to develop national capitalism, as the Mensheviks did, then… Stalin, who developed Russian national capitalism, was also right. Either way, you're wrong, and Stalin was right.

Stalin had capital under his personal private ownership, which he kept accumulated and stagnant and passed on to someone in the form of private capital? I'm gonna need some sources on those claims bucko


kek

You need to read this fam. marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-7/cpp-coba-ussr/part-1.htm

the tank is strong with this one but yer proving the ops point man. how are we going to mobilize the working class if all you have to offer is national capitalism? that's the sort of bullshit no one in their right mind would fight for.

now link me the democrat's website.

in all seriousness, I think you need to read marx because you obviously don't understand the definition of accumulated capital.

I also just read what you actually linked me, the discourse of a small trot party that literally split itself to death.

If you want to read a M-L/trot debate that wasn't done among 5 people, read the transcripts of the debate the KKE held with the 4 prominent trot organizations in greece at the time.

marxists.org is not the fucking IMT website
that's marxist.com

ye, but the thesis he posted is by some trot splinter group that split itself out of existence.

since i cannot help myself, i actually read it. the argument of a bourgeoisie socialist class is ridiculous, since transfer of capital and consolidation of one's status within this "class" weren't permanent (people were elected, not born into the party in other words), the whole concept of state capitalism is in direct contrast with the dialectical course of history, as it implies a move state after socialism which is somehow a synthesis between a reactionary position already deposed by socialism, and the notion that capitalism can exist without private property is a trot/leftcom one and not a marxist one. a proper critique of this could be written here, but it would take me 5-6 six posts to write what 1000 marxist scholars have done better before me.

An amazing collection that really ended my flirtation with Leninism. I can't recommend it enough for anyone who doesn't spend a lot of time in the deep end of the pool.

Yup. It actually has the the Kronstadt Commune in it already but I feel like it should be read first. But in this process you can skip around and just keep in in Bloodstained. It's all good.

The idea is to expose the ☭TANKIE☭ to the fact that their ideology just causes greater suffering and doesn't actually work they way they think it works.