Remember kids, Tankies wants to undermine democracy - same as facists.
this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2023
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I still don't understand what a tankie is
Edit: From what I gathered, they're essentially authoritarian communists
The type of "communist" that supports authoritarian, usually state capitalist regimes like the USSR, China, and the DPRK.
The lack of meaningful worker enfranchisement in any of those regimes should tell you all you need to know, really - they're red-coded fascist lunatics.
Soo is it still okay to support good communism which doesn't spy on the people and is cool?
Star Trek Socialism
End scarcity, deconstruct currency, and put me in space 😎
Also sexy aliens
Do you think there's such a thing as species dysphoria in the Star Trek universe? God knows we saw them trivially change the crew's race and back for every random survey mission, I'd love to try being a cute Andorian for a few weeks.
I would 100% spend at least one day a week as a cute young alien in a short skirt and a mod hairstyle (I didn't watch the show enough to know their species, but, like, one of the ones that look like humans with unusual foreheads). And the other 6 days as a cute young alien in Magnum PI shorts and a tshirt (but male this time).
Yeah, go for it.
You mean utopia?
Yes exactly. Is it acceptable to believe in a world where everyone can be happy and not have to worry about having enough money to afford a living? Would be super sick, but also quite the extremisticly positive imagination of the world.
Did peasants in the middle ages believe in a constitutional democracy? And yes, I'm aware we don't live in a perfect democracy, but it would still seem like utopia to people from a few centuries ago.
Fair point. We have come a far way, but humans always want more, so we want more utopia.
People who lived without all the convenience and comforts of our modern lives existed so everything's fine, no need to progress further. Pack it in folks, we're stopping progress here, it's not perfect but it's better than it ancestors had so our complaints are invalid.
Maybe it wasn't clear in my above comment, but I am not in favor of the status quo. My example was just to show how our current view is limited and we should very much strive for progress, since we don't know what is possible.
Sure, other people who lived a much harder life would think that our current times are fantastic. But of course our own perception is what counts when it comes to our own pursuit of happyness.
And of course, even today there are still millions of people who's life isn't that far removed from peasansts in the middle ages. Not to mention the still waste amount of difference in life quality and prosperity between different regions on this planet. Just because I'm happy enough to be born in one of the best places on this planet doesn't mean I can't realise, that many people have it much worse and that there is so much room for improvement if we overcome the greed of a few powerfull people.
What bothers me is that you get called a Tankie for simply acknowledging that this just isn't gonna happen without some violence nowadays.
I'm not trying to add water to an oil fire but Lenin himself categorized the USSR as state capitalist. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't he and his people consider state capitalism to be a necessary step towards communism?
Enlighten me.
@backhdlp the term was invented to describe those communists in the West who thought ~~Rákosi (a Hungarian Stalinist)~~ [edit: whoever it was, there's a communist historian correcting me downthread] did nothing wrong when he and Kruschev sent military tanks into Hungary to force them to stay in the Soviet Union. That was in the 1950s.
Wikipedia on Hungarian Revolution
When did stalin die and when did the hungarian revolt happen?
@OurToothbrush oops you're right, it was some of the Stalinists who succeded him. Have edited, thanks for educating me in such a polite way!
Edit this entire conversation takes place twice in this thread, to avoid spamming I'm replying to them elsewhere. Tl;dr is the tankies think Kruschev ~~and the Stalinist Hungarian, Rákosi,~~ did nothing wrong.
Are you calling krushchev a stalinist? They guy who led destalinization?
No. You should read their edited comment.
That makes even less sense? He wasn't involved in the decision making process?
Okay I'm not the person to ask about that. I just answered your question about whether they were talking about Krushchev. If you wanna get your pants in a twist then do it to OP.
IIRC it is specifically attributed to a magazine or paper that the British Communist Party had put out where one especially sadistic supporter of the authoritarians actually pre-empted the response by demanding the Soviets "send in the tanks."
@PhlubbaDubba thanks, that's interesting. Scary too.
Hakim has a good video about it https://youtu.be/LcJ5NrJtQ8g?si=Fgc2HTHJHd-pJvPC
It seems to be commies getting angry at other commies, which seems very counterproductive
This might help https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie
stalinists basically
If communism isn't inherently authoritarian then why are all the existing communist countries so authoritarian?