no. I'm probably a communist but authoritarianism can fucking shove it

Tankie is a floating signifier. If you ask twenty liberals what a tankie is you’ll get

1. Twenty different answers, and
2. Several people upset at being called a liberal because they don’t have even a Wikipedia-level understanding of liberalism or socialism.

I'm not from this instance, so probably not totally relevant to this poll, that said

NO, I'm not a tankie.

I think, however, it's worth considering that a lot of people that could be considered tankies probably wouldn't apply the term to themselves, and that could skew the results of your poll. First of all, tankie is sort of a pejorative term, and many wouldn't want to apply it to themselves for that reason alone. Secondly a lot of people just may not consider themselves to be a tankie, and genuinely do not recognize their own tankieness.

I don't think I'm the guy to come up with a definitive checklist of what does or does not make someone a tankie, but for the sake of getting the conversation going (and feel free to disagree with me here, I welcome the discussion) I think two of the biggest hallmarks of being a tankie are

1. Communism- not all communists are tankies, but all tankies at least claim to subscribe to some sort of communist ideology.

2. Authoritarianism- tankies either are authoritarians themselves, or are willing to support or overlook authoritarians as long as they see them as being in some way opposed to "the west"/capitalism/etc.

I think the authoritarianism aspect is going to trip some people up trying to answer this truthfully. A lot of authoritarians probably wouldn't consider themselves authoritarians, most people like to think they're standing for freedom, justice, liberty, equality, etc. even if their actual actions tell another story. Don't get me wrong, there are people out there who are openly authoritarian and proud of it, but a lot of authoritarians are a little brainwashed to the point they've lost sight of what they're actually supporting (take a look at the MAGA crowd, they think they're about free speech and anti-censorship but want to keep books they don't like out of libraries, they think they're about small government but want to regulate what kind of medical care you can get, they think they stand for law and order but also proudly proclaim that they are all domestic terrorists and have a convicted felon as their poster boy)

And politics are messy, full of moral grey areas and times where you have to choose between the lesser of two evils, make uncomfortable alliances, difficult choices, and kick some cans further down the road to deal with later while you tackle the current crisis. It's not always easy or feasible to draw a crisp line in the sand and say "we will not ally with/support/turn a blind eye to these authoritarian regimes," sometimes you have to play a little bit of the "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" game if you want to actually make any progress against that enemy, or you may have to prioritize and deal with something else before you deal with them. There is a whole lot of grey area to explore about when, why, how, how long, and how much you can support or ignore them before you're advancing their cause as much or more than your own.

I think there's probably some tankies who have been taken for a ride on the propaganda wagon and don't truly realize how authoritarian they are, and there's others who have justified it, thinking that they're only going to be/support authoritarians temporarily to achieve a specific goal and will pivot away from that later, but have gone too far or keep moving the goalposts.

Couple last thoughts from me.

There can always be bad actors who are falsely claiming to be (or not to be) tankies for their own purposes. Not really much you can do about that.

Personally, a lot of the criticism I've seen about tankies here has been directed towards the mods and admins, not necessarily the rank average users.

YES

They would have burned me as a heretic in the middle ages.

• Carl Jung

Just like calling someone a "witch" or heretic in the middle ages, a "barbarian", or "savage", or "commie" or "pinko" in the 20th century, these terms are less about the actual meaning, and more about a demonization, scapegoating, or a power relation between the dominant class, and a group they seek to malign and rally their people around.

Creating a useful enemy promotes group bonding, unity, a sense of strengthened identity, and self worth.

"Tankie" had a meaning that generally referred to non-pacifist leftists (or those that agreed with using violence to defend socialist projects), but now it just means, "any leftist I don't like".

It functions in the exact same way that "commie" did in the the McCarthy era, as a xenophobic and western-supremacist scapegoating of socialist countries, and an internal purging of the working-class communist movement.

It's additionally useful because it deters people from reading or engaging with the worldwide communist / socialist movement.

If someone uses this term, this is what they're doing without realizing it:

What's the definition of tankie ?

YES

Everybody to the left of biden is considered a tankie nowdays, and I'm proud of being to the left of (and opposed to) genocide enablers.

No

To clear definitions, at least for me"tankies" are a subset of communists, who praises/defends the actions of all/most communist states far more than similar actions from capitalist states. The difference between communists and tankies is a bias in favor of communist states when looking at things like human rights violations. Very few people will self identify as a tankie, since it's hard to see your own bias.

Yes.

The last time I smiled was on August 19th, 1991. I wear a dirty ushanka at all times, do not shave, and only take cold sponge baths because hot running water is bourgeoisie decadence. Every day at exactly noon I have the same meal of an expired Maoist MRE I store in a pit covered in old issues of a revolutionary newspaper. I sleep in a bed made of flags from every failed revolution so that they are never forgotten. In the evenings I stare at a picture of vodka by candlelight, but I do not allow myself to drink because there is nothing to celebrate. Every local org has banned me after I attempted to split it by assassinating the leadership. There is no plumbing in my house I shit in a brass bucket with a picture of Gonzalo and Deng french kissing in the bottom of it. My house is actually an overturned T34 in an abandoned junkyard in Wisconsin. I have a single friend in this world and it is a tapeworm named Bordiga that I met after ingesting spoiled borscht on 9/11 in the ruins of building 7 (I blew it up after finding that a nominally leftist NGO inside of it wasn’t sufficiently anti-imperialist, the attacks on the world trade center were a perfect revolutionary moment for me to enact direct praxis against liberalism). My source of income is various MLM schemes in the former soviet bloc that have been running for so long no one remembers who I am, they just keep sending money. I have not paid taxes since McGovern lost the Democratic nomination for president and my faith in electoralism died more brutally than my childhood dog after it got into an entire jar of tylenol. I own 29 fully automatic rusted kalashnikovs and three crates of ammunition entirely incompatible with them or any other firearms I own. My double PHD in marxist economics and 18th century Swiss philosophy (required to understand Engels) sits over the fireplace of my home, my fireplace is a salvaged drum from a 1950s washing machine that was recalled for locking children inside of it. I chose that washing machine model on purpose because I am anti-natalist. During the latest BLM protests I firebombed a Nikes outlet in the middle of a peaceful candlelit vigil. William F Buckley and I wrote hatemail to one another for 47 years until my final letter gave him an aneurysm. The only water I drink is from puddles. George Lucas and I dropped acid together during an MKULTRA southern baptist summer camp and he went on to write the movie Willow about our time together. The best way to test whether an electrical wire is live is to drool on it and shrimp salad is racist. You can make an IED out of potassium and the instructions are online thanks to Timothy McVey, who was actually a committed antifascist communist slandered by the deep state as part of operation condor. Every time a liberal files a restraining order against me, I carve a mark into the wall. I am running out of walls. When Amerika finally collapses I will be ready to lead the revolution. I am very smart and people like being around me.

Anarchist. I look forward to being kill by tankies moments after the revolution.

Yes, although I personally prefer "central planning enthusiast".

I think we're approaching the point where the word gets taken back by the community it was used to malign, if not there already. "

NO. Not a fan of the current or former CCP or the former Soviet Union

yes

but no in the way you mean

Maybe?

What the heck is a tankie, anyways? Every person I have asked has had a different answer, and the vast majority of these definitions don't really fit any major communities on Lemmy, not even Hexbear or Lemmygrad.

I have been called a tankie for numerous reasons, like saying that people should read Marx, to saying the US is a net negative on global stability.

Is being a Marxist sufficient for being a tankie? What about a Marxist-Leninist? Are only Dengists tankies? Is Anarchism the only non-tankie leftist position? I've even seen Anarchists be called tankies over on Lemmy.world, which is currently undergoing Red Scare-era anti-leftist witch hunts (like return2ozma's recent ban for "bad-faith spam").

I think this question needs a definition first. If you ask 10 different people what a "tankie" is, you'll get 11 different answers.

i am a meat popsicle

I am to the left of Ronald Reagan. A lot of people would classify that as tankie.

Yes

I think people would probably call me a tankie

A ridiculous question. "Tankie" isn't a term anyone self-identifies with, it's mostly a term used by liberals to hurl at anyone to the left of them or anyone who agrees with western foreign policy. The survey results will be as meaningless as the term "tankie" itself.

YES

The .world libs just couldn't help themselves but ruin our circlejerk.

Sure fuck it. I'll Tankie. Castro is a hero. Western news knows nothing of glorious DPRK Juche, and comrade Stalin did nothing wrong.

Yes.

Lemmy needs proper polls.

No. I had no idea about this instance's reputation when I joined Lemmy but it's nothing like the other instance you mentioned.

It gets very tiring trying to have a conversation with contrarians who think everything Western is bad and anything Chinese/USSR is good. Or worse, that their highly suspicious news sources (some random blog usually) are telling you the real truth, while using any mainstream news media source makes you a deluded Lib

No.

Tankies are fascist that took the socialist part in national socialist serious.

NO

When the current government is not doing a very good job at maximizing the happiness of its citizens, it's a natural reaction to look for answers from a different type of government. America has some enormous problems with capitalism as it currently operates, and communism offers solutions to many of those problems. The issue is the top-down power structure. Democracy keeps the most power in the hands of the general population, and i will always oppose giving that up. Beyond that, I'm open to any solutions for modern problems, public or private.

Yes.

Just go ask the 196 mods.

If Tankie means somewhat supporting what the URSS/China did, then YES.

I'm not communist, I've never read the manifesto but I'm more aligned with their ideals and the materialism philosophy than anything else, and I saw this quote that marked me. I paraphrase: "... the worst communist implementation was still better/on par than the best capitalist country".

Yes. I get called one everytime i defend or advocate for anything left of Bernie Sanders. "

"Communism is the riddle of history solved, and knows itself to be the solution."

Is as true today as it was when Marx wrote it almost 200 years ago.