I keep seeing “fuck tankies” everywhere, and seem to see people getting called “tankie” for any number of things–I used to feel like I knew what it meant (the formal definition, which I thought was the only application) but that’s clearly not the case anymore. Saw someone get called one because they… Liked the idea of universal basic income and wanted walkable cities? And now the same sentiment is on a large number of Lemmy communities, lol.

I feel like I’ve been living under a rock.

Edit: Wow, I guess it’s just as meaningless of a term now as it seemed. At least it’s a nice, bright flag for ghouls not worth engaging with meaningfully, lol. I saw “fuck tankies” on a genderqueer community and got pretty confused on how the two ideas correlated in the slightest, so I guess that was the tipping point on me finally asking about it.

    • footfaults [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      8 months ago

      because there are some Stalinists or just dumb people who are proud of their country or a country they didn’t even live in.

      The Soviet Union won World War 2 and saved the world from fascism. Millions of Red Army soldiers and Russian civilians died at the hands of fascists and we are in their debt

      • spacesweedkid27 [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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        8 months ago

        I don’t get how doing what is so obviously good makes you a good leader, that just makes the west bad because they basically helped hitler. Also this "we are in their dept thinking isn’t really a productive argument.

        Why can people just admit that there are some truths and not everything was good.

        Communism is not an ideology that can be done by just reading a basic rulebook and blindly believing historic anecdotes that are hard to verify or just straight up wrong.

        I also want to believe that there were good and powerful communist leaderships, I can understand that.

        How does wanting to understand make me a lib? Isn’t this kind of flagging people what left ideologies criticise?

        Just give me some real facts or evidence and I am happy, if you can’t show me these you are reactionistic and conter-revolutionary.

        • TreadOnMe [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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          8 months ago

          Why? You haven’t provided shit outside your opinions, which are clearly just ahistorical propogandistic horseshit. If you think Lenin was ‘less harsh’ than Stalin I have some bad fucking news for you, according to everybody but Khrushchev, that was very much not the case. Molotov famously discussed this in his memoirs.

          We have no obligation to educate you, you are not a known party member in an organization, you are on an anonymous leftist shit posting forum. Go be a liberal debate pervert elsewhere.

        • Dolores [love/loves]@hexbear.net
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          8 months ago

          I don’t get how doing what is so obviously good makes you a good leader

          doing good is not the mark of good leadership? what, pray tell, makes a good leader then?

        • TheLepidopterists [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          8 months ago

          Stalin was a “bad” “dictator?”

          You “think” that Lenin wasn’t a “bad” “dictator?”

          Mao “turned evil in his last years?”

          Do you not understand why these liberal nerd opinions are not well received on a communist forum?

          EDIT: Also “Stalinists?” How about fuck off.

              • axont [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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                8 months ago

                We don’t believe Stalin, Lenin, or Mao were dictators. We believe they were elected party officials who did not exercise ultimate authority. Stalin for instance attempted to resign 4 times and was overruled. We also believe Stalin exercised authority in much of the same way that Lenin would have.

                In terms of Mao we tend to go with the 70/30 split of good/bad. We also don’t tend to say he was evil in his later years, but rather, more like he became a little inefficient and China was going through a rough spot that had a course correction with Deng.

                I hope that helps. I think some people here are seeing you as some kind of troll talking to us in bad faith. I try to assume the best.

                • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  8 months ago

                  Deng was a right-deviationist at least as much as Mao was a left-deviationist, and he is given too much credit for “solving” an economic problem that was essentially invented by liberal accountants who didn’t understand the economy under Mao. It is also true that he protected China’s national sovereignty and that much of the damage he did was able to be undone in subsequent decades while the useful elements were preserved.

                  • Yllych [any]@hexbear.net
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                    8 months ago

                    For anyone interested in this I am finding Gao Mobo’s The Battle for China’s Past a good accounting of the attitudes in China towards the Cultural Revolution and Mao in general. I feel like I’m missing a general background on some of the communist members he refers to, but otherwise so far I recommend it. Does a good job of debunking the more egregious caricatures of Mao

                • spacesweedkid27 [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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                  8 months ago

                  Thanks this is literally the first answer that helps. I actually did know from a leaked CIA document that there even were democratic processes in Stalin’s time.

                  What I don’t like that much about Mao is this propaganda reducation camps or something like that.

    • AlkaliMarxist@hexbear.net
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      8 months ago

      Even in Stalin’s time there was collective leadership. The Western idea of a dictator within the Communist setup is exaggerated. Misunderstandings on that subject are caused by lack of comprehension of the real nature and organization of the Communist power structure.

      - Declassified CIA report from the 1950’s

      Even the CIA knew that calling Stalin a dictator was bullshit.

      Also Mao “turned evil”? Come on.

      Clearly you have totally internalized the “pop-history” view of socialism in the 20th century, surely you realize such a simplified narrative cannot help but hide ideological bias.