356
Tank engine (lemmy.ml)
submitted 2 months ago by geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml to c/memes@lemmy.ml
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[-] BluJay320 71 points 2 months ago

Authoritarianism is authoritarianism. Doesnt matter how you paint it.

[-] BrainInABox@lemmy.ml 42 points 2 months ago

Not really, no. To a capitalist, all forms of leftism is 'authoritarian,' because they consider private property natural and oppose leftists 'stealing' in.

'Authoritarianism' just isn't a particularly useful term because nobody who uses is is ever actually categorically opposed to forcefully compelling people to do or not do things. They will always have a build in exception for what ever they consider to be 'legitimate authority', and what they consider justified authority will just depend on what political philosophy they ascribe to. So really calling the word just means "someone with a different political theory to me with regards to legitimate authority."

[-] WolfLink@sh.itjust.works 28 points 2 months ago

Just because some people might not use the term correctly doesn’t mean it isn’t a useful term

I left lemmy.ml because there were too many people defending or denying historical acts of political violence. That’s what we mean when we say tankies are authoritarian.

[-] BrainInABox@lemmy.ml 30 points 2 months ago

If you'd actually read my post, you'd know my point wasn't about it being used "incorrectly".

people defending or denying historical acts of political violence. That’s what we mean when we say tankies are authoritarian.

Defeating the Nazis was an act of political violence, freeing slaves was an act of political violence, over throwing the feudal system was an act of political believe, driving out colonial empires is an act of political violence, enforcing property rights is an act of political violence, ceasing the means of production is an act of political violence.

See? This is exactly, exactly what I was talking about.

[-] WolfLink@sh.itjust.works 12 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I mean we both know I’m talking about specific acts of political violence, but you are right in that I should have clarified.

To be clear what makes it authoritarian is when it’s the state/government/leadership that is using acts of violence against citizens with political ideas that would threaten their power.

And tankies get the name specifically from either defending or denying that specifically the Soviet Union used violence to suppress attempts to leave their union. When I was on .ml I also frequently saw defense or denial of China using violence that way such as the infamous Tiananmen Square Massacre.

People from lemmy.ml love to shout that people who want them defederated are “capitalist” and hexbear has decided accusing people of being anti-trans is their move, but those are simply strawmen, and really poorly constructed ones at that.

[-] GlacialTurtle@lemmy.ml 16 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

And tankies get the name specifically from either defending or denying that specifically the Soviet Union used violence to suppress attempts to leave their union.

I fucking knew it, Lincoln was a soviet plant all along, fucking tankies.

[-] Carl@lemm.ee 15 points 2 months ago

when it’s the state/government/leadership that is using acts of violence

So when a corporation uses or sponsors acts of violence it's not authoritarianism? I guess Coca-Cola-funded fascist death squads are just smol bean libertarians fighting the oppressive tankie socialists!

You can't even get your talking points in order. The main people on lemmy.ml are anti-capitalist, they would accuse those who would censor them of being anti-communist.

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[-] BrainInABox@lemmy.ml 15 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I mean we both know I’m talking about specific acts of political violence

Yes, which was my point. These definitions always have some implicit carve out exception to allow the kind of political violence that the person giving them agrees with to "not count".

To be clear what makes it authoritarian is when it’s the state/government/leadership that is using acts of violence against citizens with political ideas that would threaten their power.

This would include collecting taxes, enforcing national borders, enforcing private property, all gun control measures, suppressing domestic terrorists and militias, implementing a particular voting system and then enforcing the result, conscription, and indeed, enforcing the concept of "citizen" vs "non-citizens" in the first place. But, again, you've cut out an expectation for political violence you agree with already.

And tankies get the name specifically from either defending or denying that specifically the Soviet Union used violence to suppress attempts to leave their union.

And here's yet another post-hoc definition of tankie that does not actually line up with how anybody uses the term. Or are you willing for me to ping you to chime in every time someone calls me a tankie for something that has nothing to do with the USSR keeping Soviets in the union (incidently, there isn't a country on earth that will willing let parts of it leave.)

and hexbear has decided accusing people of being anti-trans is their move, but those are simply strawmen, and really poorly constructed ones at that.

Sounds like you're a transphobe who got called out.

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[-] folaht@lemmy.ml 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Calling the 1989 incidence in Beijing the Tianenmen Square Massacre is like calling the 2021 incidence in Washington D.C. The Freedom Plaza Killings where the Democratic Party ruthlessly slaughtered innocent civilians after a peaceful protest, with the exception that the protesters in 2021 were more reasonable and less violent than the rioters in Beijing. Especially for the fact that when Washington decided to send the military in, the Jan 6 rioters did not decide to stay and try to block the US military from entering the Capitol or Plaza.

I won't be surprised to eventually see an actual equivalent type (demands from pro-palestine protesters for educational reforms) of protest happening in the US with far higher causalties as a result.

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[-] absentbird@lemm.ee 10 points 2 months ago

There are people who are categorically opposed to forcefully compelling people, and many of them use the word 'authoritarian'.

It can be a useful term, not all systems are equally authoritarian. It's a spectrum.

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[-] prototype_g2@lemmy.ml 12 points 2 months ago

Why do the anti-authoritarians not confine themselves to crying out against political authority, the state? All Socialists are agreed that the political state, and with it political authority, will disappear as a result of the coming social revolution, that is, that public functions will lose their political character and will be transformed into the simple administrative functions of watching over the true interests of society. But the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?


On authority, by Frederick Engels 1872

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm

[-] eldavi@lemmy.ml 50 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

-- and they both punch left; exactly as conservatives like to do.

[-] u_die_for_elmer@lemm.ee 20 points 2 months ago

I consider tankies to be on the right end of the socialist spectrum, so when I say it I'm punching right. They're still comrades even if they are miss guided by state-capitalist governments. Cheers

[-] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 22 points 2 months ago

I think if you're comparing "degrees" of left vs right, at that point you're missing the forest for the trees. Ultimately, Anarchists and Marxists disagree on strategy and end goal, but both oppose Capitalism and Imperialism. At that point, there really isn't a "more" or "less" left, there's just differences in analysis and what must be done to get from A to B, as well as what B itself is.

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[-] OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml 16 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I love it when people call a transitional economy state capitalist because it betrays a lack of understanding of actually existing capitalism and the role the state plays in it.

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[-] dessalines@lemmy.ml 12 points 2 months ago

The liberals are still doing this in 2025. We shouldn't really be surprised I spose.

[-] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 40 points 2 months ago

Truly. Any moderate support for AES? Immediately labeled a tankie, I've seen Anarchists and even Liberals labeled a tankie. The term only exists to punch left from the Liberal POV, just like "Woke" is used to punch anything left of fascism.

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[-] davel@lemmy.ml 39 points 2 months ago
[-] __nobodynowhere@lemm.ee 35 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I'm not into that authoritarian stuff. Worshipping a fascist authoritarian state is not a leftist make.

[-] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 24 points 2 months ago

Communism and fascism are entirely different, and conflating the two has roots in Double Genocide Theory, a form of Holocaust trivialization and Nazi Apologia. The Nazis industrialized murder and attempted to colonize the world, the Soviets uplifted the Proletariat and supported national liberation movements such as in Cuba, China, Algeria, and Palestine. I recommend reading Blackshirts and Reds.

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[-] yogthos@lemmy.ml 10 points 2 months ago
[-] TherapyGary 34 points 2 months ago

Do MLs consider anarchists liberals now?

[-] liyunxiao@sh.itjust.works 23 points 2 months ago

Anarchists tend to be smart enough to not use the word tankie.

There are exceptions of course.

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[-] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 15 points 2 months ago

Generally not. Anarchists and Marxists want separate goals and have separate means, but Liberalism is a separate ideology.

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[-] BrainInABox@lemmy.ml 12 points 2 months ago

No, but a lot of liberals consider themselves anarchists.

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[-] Carl@lemm.ee 27 points 2 months ago

True but only for terminally online liberals. I still haven't heard anyone in real life ever use that word.

[-] folaht@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 months ago

It will happen in a few years from now.

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[-] TheOakTree@lemm.ee 22 points 2 months ago

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.

[-] Objection@lemmy.ml 13 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

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.

[-] Nalivai@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

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.

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[-] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 21 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Just replace "woke" with "russian".

[-] garbagebagel@lemmy.world 15 points 2 months ago
[-] starman2112@sh.itjust.works 19 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)
[-] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

All it really boils down to is "supports AES," though. The article even says as much.

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[-] AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 months ago

Wikipedia has a good article about the term

If you think Hitler is bad, wait until you hear what he has to say about the soviets!

[-] AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

But seriously this is an argument that has been over since before anyone alive today was ever born

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm

authoritarianism = bad is literal baby brain

[-] Kwakigra@beehaw.org 14 points 2 months ago

From Wikipedia:

The term "tankie" was originally used by dissident Marxist–Leninists to describe members of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) who followed the party line of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Specifically, it was used to distinguish party members who spoke out in defence of the Soviet use of tanks to suppress the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the 1968 Prague Spring, or who more broadly adhered to pro-Soviet positions.

I've never understood why there is any confusion over the word "tankie." It applies to the pro-cop left. If a leftist believes that it's necessary for cops to beat minorities and dissidents into submission for their society to function, they're tankies. If they approach leftism in a way that does not involve state violence against civilians to enforce those ideas, they're not tankies. To me there isn't a lot of gray area.

[-] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I don't think your second paragraph follows from the first. The cited revolts were largely fascist in origin, for example the Hungarian revolt had the fascists lynching Soviet Officials and freeing Nazis from prison in order to assist with lynching Soviet Officials. Calling them "dissidents" or pretending they were ethnic minorities is ridiculous. Not answering fascists lynchings with violence would be incredibly terrible.

The "rebels" were trained and supplied by MI6, and had marked the doors of Jews and Communists for extermination.

Really curious what a "non-tankie" would recommend doing in such a situation. Giving the Nazis that killed hundreds of people flowers?

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[-] MetalMachine@feddit.nl 11 points 2 months ago

Its become the boomer equivalent of calling everything bad communist.

[-] VinesNFluff@pawb.social 10 points 2 months ago

Whoever taught liberals that word, I hope they have diarrhea forever.

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this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2025
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