tankie = stalinist/maoist style communist, take control of everything, anyone who resists, run them over with tanks.
lemmy.ml has a bunch, also hexbear and especially lemmygrad.
They seem like angsty tweens who suddenly realized they figured out the solution to everything, and anyone who doesn’t listen to them must be dealt with.
Specifically referring to scenarios where tanks were used in conflicts between civilians and the state, such as Tiananmen square or Chechnya and expressing support for the side using tanks.
It’s a term that goes back to the cold war. There was a strike and the Soviet Union ended it violently by rolling tanks into the city. This put communists all over the world into a bit of a dilemma: on one side of the conflict was the working class making their opinion known (a communist value) and on the other the Soviet Union (the good guys). So whose side should they take?
It was British communists who coined the term “tankie” for those who defended the SUs actions to brand them as “fake communists” who are more interested in identity politics (the good guys did it, therefore it’s OK) than the plight of the working class.
What is a tanky? Only heard that after switching to Lemmy. What’s the origin?
Edit: God damn, definition was far more literal than I imagined!
tankie = stalinist/maoist style communist, take control of everything, anyone who resists, run them over with tanks.
lemmy.ml has a bunch, also hexbear and especially lemmygrad.
They seem like angsty tweens who suddenly realized they figured out the solution to everything, and anyone who doesn’t listen to them must be dealt with.
Specifically referring to scenarios where tanks were used in conflicts between civilians and the state, such as Tiananmen square or Chechnya and expressing support for the side using tanks.
It’s a term that goes back to the cold war. There was a strike and the Soviet Union ended it violently by rolling tanks into the city. This put communists all over the world into a bit of a dilemma: on one side of the conflict was the working class making their opinion known (a communist value) and on the other the Soviet Union (the good guys). So whose side should they take?
It was British communists who coined the term “tankie” for those who defended the SUs actions to brand them as “fake communists” who are more interested in identity politics (the good guys did it, therefore it’s OK) than the plight of the working class.