Tankie doesn’t really mean anything to me anymore. Even self-proclaimed tankies often have trouble defining it in a way that is consistent among leftist groups.
I believe in reclaiming “tankie” in the same way as “queer.” Schoolyard bullies don’t really care to distinguish between the many different labels encompassed by LGBT+, and so they inadvertently invented a term that could be very inclusive and all encompassing, even if you’re still figuring out who you are, you call always fall back on “queer” to give the general idea.
In the same way, the term “tankie” gets applied to people of all sorts of different left ideologies. There are significant differences between different leftist ideologies, but our critics don’t care to understand or distinguish between them, so I consider tankie to be a similarly inclusive term. Do you support anything that any socialist government has ever done? Do you think Cuba had an effective literacy program? Congratulations, you’re a tankie, welcome to the club.
Note that my identifying with the term isn’t really an invitation for people to use it. But, you know, if people want to keep using it as this broad, meaningless term that lumps a bunch of people together, as I see it, it only works to our advantage as “tankies,” it pushes people towards us and helps us remember what we have in common instead of fighting over our differences. So I’m not exactly going to fight the label particularly hard.
A tankie is anyone to the left of whoever is using the pejorative. Usually because they expressed a critique of imperialism or aren’t sufficiently racist towards the Chinese.
This seems to be how I see it used most. I usually stick to calling people tankies when they walk around explicitly talking about how proud they are to be one.
Anyone you see self identifying as a tankie is just fucking around because of how meaningless the term is. If you want to insult a Marxist try directly engaging with whatever it is they’re saying that annoys you. You might even learn something along the way.
I thought it had to include the pro authoritarian and often pro war aspect of it. So a Marxist/communist or what not wouldn’t fall into tankies without the call for an authoritarian leader like Stalin.
I was under the impression it was the intersection of the venn diagram of communists and imperialists, as long as imperialist means imperialist (defined as using economic, military, diplomatic and cultural power to influence countries around you in a way that is beneficial to you, and may be either beneficial, inconsequential or detrimental to them) and not just “western and capitalist”
That’s generally a disagreement over what “Imperialism” even means. “Anti-Imperialists” are talking about Lenin’s identification of modern Monopoly Capitalism as it brutally expropriates wealth from the Global South through outsourcing and debt traps with the IMF, like Coke and the Columbian death squads.
Tankie always meant a fan of authoritarianism but not of the nazi variety. And hand to hand with that goes hate for America, but hate for America isn’t enough on it’s own, it should be paired with love of Strong Hand Of The East.
Tankie thinks China, Russia, North Korea are just swell, and not because of some underlying ideology, but because they have an authoritarian model of governance and generally in opposition to the west to some degree.
And that’s the reason why it’s so hard to define for some people, boiled down to it’s definition, it’s very hard to spin into something universally good, so talking to a general public they have to do what authoritarian lovers from the other side of the spectrum call “hiding the power lever”, which muddies the water.
Conveniently all enemies of the US State Department. Don’t those tankies know that these countries are bad because checks notes they do the authoritarianisms.
Tankie doesn’t really mean anything to me anymore. Even self-proclaimed tankies often have trouble defining it in a way that is consistent among leftist groups.
I always just thought it meant leftists who are actively advocating violence.
Tankie = derogatory term for Marxist. It’s that easy
No, and never was.
I believe in reclaiming “tankie” in the same way as “queer.” Schoolyard bullies don’t really care to distinguish between the many different labels encompassed by LGBT+, and so they inadvertently invented a term that could be very inclusive and all encompassing, even if you’re still figuring out who you are, you call always fall back on “queer” to give the general idea.
In the same way, the term “tankie” gets applied to people of all sorts of different left ideologies. There are significant differences between different leftist ideologies, but our critics don’t care to understand or distinguish between them, so I consider tankie to be a similarly inclusive term. Do you support anything that any socialist government has ever done? Do you think Cuba had an effective literacy program? Congratulations, you’re a tankie, welcome to the club.
Note that my identifying with the term isn’t really an invitation for people to use it. But, you know, if people want to keep using it as this broad, meaningless term that lumps a bunch of people together, as I see it, it only works to our advantage as “tankies,” it pushes people towards us and helps us remember what we have in common instead of fighting over our differences. So I’m not exactly going to fight the label particularly hard.
A tankie is anyone to the left of whoever is using the pejorative. Usually because they expressed a critique of imperialism or aren’t sufficiently racist towards the Chinese.
This seems to be how I see it used most. I usually stick to calling people tankies when they walk around explicitly talking about how proud they are to be one.
Anyone you see self identifying as a tankie is just fucking around because of how meaningless the term is. If you want to insult a Marxist try directly engaging with whatever it is they’re saying that annoys you. You might even learn something along the way.
If you want to insult a Marxist
try directly engagingcall them a lib.Knowing Marxists, we also will never shut up lol
Yeah I’m a tankie
generally it vaguely means “communists” as well as “anti-imperialists”, with the caveat that left communists are excluded as a separate thing
I thought it had to include the pro authoritarian and often pro war aspect of it. So a Marxist/communist or what not wouldn’t fall into tankies without the call for an authoritarian leader like Stalin.
I was under the impression it was the intersection of the venn diagram of communists and imperialists, as long as imperialist means imperialist (defined as using economic, military, diplomatic and cultural power to influence countries around you in a way that is beneficial to you, and may be either beneficial, inconsequential or detrimental to them) and not just “western and capitalist”
That’s generally a disagreement over what “Imperialism” even means. “Anti-Imperialists” are talking about Lenin’s identification of modern Monopoly Capitalism as it brutally expropriates wealth from the Global South through outsourcing and debt traps with the IMF, like Coke and the Columbian death squads.
its the one with the… and they have ttank, with… the one with ehe tan, you takn. rhe tanker. tabker is the with the
Tankie always meant a fan of authoritarianism but not of the nazi variety. And hand to hand with that goes hate for America, but hate for America isn’t enough on it’s own, it should be paired with love of Strong Hand Of The East.
Tankie thinks China, Russia, North Korea are just swell, and not because of some underlying ideology, but because they have an authoritarian model of governance and generally in opposition to the west to some degree.
And that’s the reason why it’s so hard to define for some people, boiled down to it’s definition, it’s very hard to spin into something universally good, so talking to a general public they have to do what authoritarian lovers from the other side of the spectrum call “hiding the power lever”, which muddies the water.
Conveniently all enemies of the US State Department. Don’t those tankies know that these countries are bad because checks notes they do the authoritarianisms.
Countries that do authitarianism become bad, yes. That’s exactly how it works, glad you’re getting it.
I can’t believe anyone would enforce class interests with violence, instead of debating tenants out of houses they’re in arrears for. Smh
On some level when you’re doing sophistry like this do you understand you’re acting real stupid?
What’s authoritarianism, and how does a country do it?
Seriously?
Seriously.