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this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2023
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What is a tankie? First time I’m seeing it today.
From wikipedia
They usually praise communism and ignore the flaws and horrible practices of things like the U.S.S.R
so a bit like holocaust deniers but on the left extreme of the spectrum
They are the best example of why left unity is bullshit. Tankies are okay with literal fascism as long as it doesn't involve a western country.
That is mighty wrong.
Just because it's authoritarian doesn't mean it's fascist. The USSR murdered millions, and was an authoritarian shithole, but that doesn't mean it was fascist. It was communist. Fascism is terrible, but so are other forms of authoritarianism.
It's literally semantics at this point
The "a capitalist economy" bit is the very important distinction. Communist states share most or all of the other traits with fascism. But so do Feudal countries with merchantilist economies, modern dictatorships without government-driven economy, and all other strongly authoritarian systems eventually.
I'm all about left unity. If someone makes excuses for authoritarian governments, they're not on the left. If they disagree with black lives matter, they're not on the left. If they're transphobic, they're not on the left. We leftists need to stick together and protect the most marginalised members of our community, by kicking fascists and bigots out. That's what left unity means. Good old paradox of tolerance.
Just because someone's beliefs don't align with yours doesn't mean they "aren't on the left".
Leftism isn't a catch all for good people.
In fact many anarchists became disillusioned with the idea of "the left", hence post-leftism.
A tankie is a communist who at least defends and often advocates for forced submission to their rule, or more broadly defends the authoritarian regimes that engage in such. It dates back to the USSR sending in tanks to crush an uprising in Hungary in 1956, and was applied to the UK communists who argued in support of the USSR.
The owners of lemmy.ml are tankies.