Libertarian alternatives like council communism, De Leonism, syndicalism, Libertarian Marxism and left communism are safer bets
Pretty sure I see more posts complaining about “tankies” than I do tankies. More and more as redditors migrate.
I remember hearing this even back in 2023, when it was impossible to avoid tankies playing fucking Holodomor denial and Uyghur Genocide denial. That was back when Hexbear was still more ‘active’ outside of their circlejerk. So you’ll have to forgive me for seeing tankie shite almost every day, and that without even stepping foot into ANY .ml comm, and thinking that maybe complaining about people bootlicking for genocide and capitalist oligarchy because it has a thin coat of red paint is warranted.
Every day I learn about a new thing about myself. Today, it is my uncanny power to part unavoidable tankies like the Red Sea as I pass through unawares. Strange that I should see this term alienated from them so often then.
“Even back in 2023,” the ancient times of three years ago. Yeah, I don’t know how long you’ve been on the internet, what I’ve referred to here applies to observationd on fediverse communities over the past few years, but will be familiar to many people who have had to deal with liberals who think theyre “leftists.” Ive been called a tankie for advocating for decolonialism multiple times on different sited.
Should I ever see a tankie, I assure you that I’ll take a screenshot.
Every day I learn about a new thing about myself. Today, it is my uncanny power to part unavoidable tankies like the Red Sea as I pass through unawares. Strange that I should see this term alienated from them so often then.
Here, let me help - most recent fucking post of one of the largest comms on the Fediverse:
Next I predict “Kim Jong Un isn’t really a tankie, shitlib!”
“Even back in 2023,” the ancient times of three years ago
“Even back when tankies were even more common outside of their circlejerks, people still insisted on playing dipshit bootlicking games to deny their presence”
ftfy
I’m afraid it’s tough to meet this seriously if I don’t even know what “the biggest comm” on fediverse is meant to be, from here that’s a screenshot of a post that is apparently a lib making fun of libs without knowing what a lib is. The “tankieness” of course being the inclusion of genocidal authoritarian figures alongside thinkers and activists, not any indication of authentic substance beyond this political-compass-level meme.
Which, reading this and then seeing your profile, the story is becoming much much clearer. I don’t interact with communities where men pretend at politics all that much (or in earnest), typically as they come across a feed like this post right now. My power seems to be that I don’t seek out “tankies,” which is to say liberal men who don’t know what liberalism or “leftism” is beyond the recursive loop of their validation communities.
Unavoidable I guess, very warranted.
I’m afraid it’s tough to meet this seriously if I don’t even know what “the biggest comm” on fediverse is meant to be, from here that’s a screenshot of a post that is apparently a lib making fun of libs without knowing what a lib is.
Considering what’s said below this, this is immensely ironic.
The “tankieness” of course being the inclusion of genocidal authoritarian figures alongside thinkers and activists, not any indication of authentic substance beyond this political-compass-level meme.
“Hitler was only ONE of my listed ‘great thinkers whom I admire’! I’m not really a Nazi!”
Also, called it:
Next I predict “Kim Jong Un isn’t really a tankie, shitlib!”
Which, reading this and then seeing your profile, the story is becoming much much clearer. I don’t interact with communities where men pretend at politics all that much (or in earnest)
… if you don’t interact in political communities, why the fuck would you think you’d have any idea of how prevalent tankies are or are not here?
It’s like hearing someone complain about shit being smeared in the men’s room, you butting in to say you have no idea what they’re talking about and how YOU’VE never seen shit in the men’s room, and then saying you never use public bathrooms anyway.
Utter fuckwit.
My power seems to be that I don’t seek out “tankies,” which is to say liberal men who don’t know what liberalism or “leftism” is beyond the recursive loop of their validation communities.
That you think identifying one’s political allies as fucking Stalin and Kim Jong Un is ‘liberal’ is beyond insane.
Its funny that you list yourself as a historian, I know historians like this who don’t really know what history is either. I can also see you moderate a number of communities known to foster bigoted and juvenile misconceptions about history, so I don’t think it should be all that surprising that someone doesn’t take you all that seriously.(I wrote this before you tried to ban me after claiming to know about Fediverse very much, thanks for setting me up for a funny joke)
If a person understands politics or political philosophy in terms of the pictures of people they like quotes from (such as thinking I’m commenting on Kim Jong Un’s politics when I’m talking about how his image is used and why) I’m going to safely deduce that they don’t know much about the thing they claim to know a lot about and assume they’re not that mature if it is also apparently important to their identity with that lack of knowledge. I run into grown men – sometimes even historians – who don’t even know what liberalism is beyond the terms they were taught about from different eras of liberal policy; the fundamentals were never taught to them. I’m serious, I know tenured profs who think welfare liberalism and neoliberalism are fundamentally opposed philosophies and that it is the height of nuance to point out that the New Deal was racist. I know people who “love” Malcolm X but think activists are the bad guys if they use violenxe. They’d call themselves leftists, or left leaning, much like you and apparently whoever made that meme.
You’re right, I don’t take most people like this very seriously and dont really think about them beyond trying to understand why they’re so willfully misinformed. I figured you out pretty quick.
I won’t see your response.
Ban evasion and bleating out a “The people are tired of experts!” line on history isn’t the gotcha you think it is. Sorry that you think being misinformed is equivalent to being educated on a subject. I hope you recover from being a MAGA chud in a different color of sportswear.
The “holodomor” is a neonazi conspiracy theory used to downplay the holocaust.
since we’re apparently doing reviews of the userbase
You are one of the whiniest and most annoying users in this website, and you regularly repost reactionary garbage you take from instagram meme pages
I haven’t seen your name pop up for a while, and it’s been good
spoiler
Сталпн 👻
Sorry that acknowledging genocide is “reactionary garbage” to you. Go back and lick boots with your fellow fascists on .ml.
Silly me. I thought you were a moron or a tankie. Turns out, you’re just a troll.
Don’t worry, they always find these threads eventually and brigade them with downvotes.
Tankies are going on an insane propaganda blitz these last few years. They are actively undermining good leaders to accelerate towards societal collapse. I was reading a deranged thread on here a few days and these people think exactly the same as MAGA.
Eh, could be worse. You could join Lemmy Europe hoping that it won’t be 90% news from USA.
I wish I’d see more political Eastern European posts, TBH. Not just Ukraine, but everywhere.
I am but an armchair observer, but my impression is you folks know precisely what happens under Soviet/Russian authority. You lived it. It… seems mixed. I am inclined to listen to whatever the intricacies are more than opinions from some tankie in Idaho.
mixed my ass
That was a euphamism, heh.
Honestly this is the worst part of Lemmy…
Freaks complaining about imaginary tankies, it’s insane.
imaginary tankies
They aren’t imaginary, I’m not sure what world you live in but there are definitely a ton on Lemmy.
I’m new here. What’s a tankie?
As I understand it: left leaning (usually extreme left) users who idolise the Chinese government. Tankie is a reference to the Tienanmen Square protests and massacre, and specifically to the “tank man”. I’m not sure how that got associated with pro-CPR users though, as the protests were very much against that government.
Edit: check out the replies to my reply for a different and likely more correct explanation.
No, tankie is a reference to Soviets using tanks to quell uprisings in Hungary (1956) and Czechoslovakia (1968).
Tankies are not leftists, they’re authoritarian simps that hate the United States and love China/Russia. If you think Russia is leftist you’re insane, doubly so for China.
Edit: I also find it funny that the person I’m responding to has had this explanation given to them already.
Edit 2: Ok that may have been an honest mistake, I’m sorry I’m just like a raw nerve when it comes to this topic.
Maybe that person, whoever they are, has amnesia. Or dementia.
Or were just engaging in the thread not paying attention, I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation.
It was actually the Hungarian student rebellion. Young Hungarians wanted to vote out their Soviet puppet leaders and elect new leadership. It’s important to point out the leaders they wanted were still communists. The Soviets sent in tanks to crush the movement.
British communists were disgusted by some of their fellow communists that were cheering on this violent oppression and started calling them tankies.
Tankies are on the side of the tank in the tank-man story.
Ah okay that way it makes sense.
And what instance? Because that the nice thing about the lemmyverse. You can choose to talk to other instances, but you can also not.
I don’t go to any .ml comms, but .ml bootlickers still come to Piefed and .world comms.
I’m at a point of no tolerance for tankies, and I have a strong sense of needing to set the record straight.
Fuck tankies.
I would personally not fuck anyone I don’t like, but do what you want.
A person can be fucked with many things, a great deal of them unpleasant.
Lemmy was literally made by someone who took the moniker of a genocidal warlord btw
Could you please elaborate a little?
Dessalines is the one who made Lemmy. Jean-Jacques Dessalines was a genocidal maniac. Modern tankies like him because some of the targets of his genocide were slave owners.
Edit: manuallybreathing@lemmy.ml sent me a DM calling me a fascist for liking Rush lmfao
I live not far away from a metro station called “Robespierre”, and I don’t think you could call him a nice guy. Context matters.
Context matters, but I’ll go ahead and be a moral absolutist here and say that there is no context that justifies cutting children’s heads off. Never heard of Robespierre, but if he was as bad as Dessalines, then I’d say he probably shouldn’t have a metro station named after him
The targets of his genocide were slave owners?
The targets of his genocide were white French, regardless of economic class.
Some of them, yeah
Just like South African genocide…
The person you’re replying to is equivocating between the violence of slavery and the violence of a slave revolt, ie the Haitian revolution.
Dessalines was a former slave who became a leader of the revolution. He order the massacres of French colonists out of fear that they, with support from the French government, would overturn the revolution and reimpose slavery. His brutality was a reflection of the incomparably hellish conditions and violence that Haitian slaves endured.
That said, the questionable morality or necessity of his actions are not the reasons why he’s held up today. People don’t see him up as a figure to emulate. Instead, he’s a symbol and reminder to the perpetrators of imperial violence of the consequences that they will inevitably face.
I thought the worst part of Lemmy was genocide denialists, and people like you who try to pretend they aren’t a problem.
have you even used lemmy?
I have seen some absolutely idiotic “socialist” takes on Lemmy (usually just dumb ass takes based on false premises like “food is free in nature, why isn’t it free now?”) but yeah the amount of complaining about “tankies” is like 10x the amount of actual “tankie” content I see. Really just blocking lemmy.ml takes care of 99% of the issue if you really hate seeing it.
but yeah the amount of complaining about “tankies” is like 10x the amount of actual “tankie” content I see
Any time .ml users get wind of a thread they can bootlick in, they tend to swarm it. Hell, here’s one from a user in this very comment section just a few days ago, on a major comm:
And I mean, fuck, man, .ml’s memes comm, which is still one of the larger comms on the Fediverse, hardly goes a day without boot-throating tankie shite.
The argument “food is free in nature and should therefore be free” isn’t a good argument. There is however one to be made for “with the level of technological advancement we’ve achieved at present, food shouldn’t be as inaccessible as it currently is”
Fascinating study. I’ll keep this in my repertoire of anti-capitalist arguments
Yeah, but look, it would make shareholders sad! We can’t do that, can we?
It would be impossible under capitalism, good thing there is another way
Right, but I have seen massive arguments on Lemmy over this topic. The argument you made is actually well thought out and makes sense, while the one I mentioned is stupid and doesn’t withstand even the smallest amount of basic thought.
my only worry about is that if they are the main developers, what if they start abusing that position?
My main question is: what makes you think they aren’t already doing that?
I havent seen any evidence or mentions of it
I have seen post after post on Meanwhile on Grad about Dessalines abusing his power, you probably aren’t aware of it because by the time you see it all you end up seeing are users like Cowbee monologuing to the void.
.world and pie preemptively defed from .ml.
ffs, why cant there be anything nice in this world… everything has to have some downside or looming problem. How can i even recommend lemmy to people if there is a problem of " yea, its main developers are crazy tankies, but maybe its going to be okay?"
Though by now i hope there are enough interested developers in lemmy in general that hopefully it can be branched if things get too bad.
Just recommend piefed to them.
What are tankies?
Because it’s a pejorative term it gets applied to all sorts of different people but the basic idea is a leftist who believes the USSR and other communist nations did nothing wrong and that the worst human rights abuses of those regimes were either justified or completely made up. I believe the term “tankie” comes from the idea that they believe the guys in the tanks at Tiananmen Square were in the right. The term is usually levied against certain leftists by other leftists more than by people on the right, because people on the right just think that’s how all leftists are.
I believe the term “tankie” comes from the idea that they believe the guys in the tanks at Tiananmen Square were in the right.
From the Wiki:
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
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie
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.[6][7] The term has extended to describe people who endorse, defend, or deny the actions of communist leaders such as Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong. In recent times, the term has been used across the political spectrum and in a geopolitical context to accuse individuals of having a bias in favour of anti-Western states, authoritarian states, or states with a socialist legacy; Belarus, Cuba, China,[8][9] Iran,[10] Nicaragua, Ba’athist Syria, North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela serve as prevalent examples.
The tanks they supported were not Tiananmen Square, but actually 30 years earlier when the USSR crushed the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.
Tbf if devs were not “tankies” this would just be another for-profit app selling data to ad companies and offering support in government cencorship, no?
Is being a tankie a requirement to create an open source project? Didn’t know that. I guess Linus Torvalds is a communist?
Bruh, there are a great many other forms of anti-capitalism than throating boots with a thin coat of red paint.
So you’re saying I should thank them while they shovel differently colored lies down my throat?
Alright dude, whatever you say — I’m gonna keep flinging shit at them.
tankies suck, but this is a non issue
They only show up when you look for them. And then get mad when you look for them.
Or you could be on an instance that doesn’t federate with them. Or block them. Or…
perhaps the instance is playing a role in my perspective on this, but block? hell no, im way cooler than that. lol
Literally the only post you’ve ever made. Doesn’t seem like you use Lemmy and just wanted another void to post brainless memes into…
Damn, if only things like using a site without an account or jumping to a different instance existed.
There’s every reason to believe that their account is a second account. The fact that it’s a piefed account suggests that they got fed up with the tankie devs of lemmy and left lemmy for piefed
It’s a sh.itjust.works account, this is a piefed comminity
Jesus Christ i hallucinated
One time I was agreeing with a point a tanky made and they turned around and started arguing with me too. Needlessly combative keyboard rabble rousers.
Oh, yeah, definitely, they keep telling me how my mothers lived in Cuban stories are fake. The nuance has died long ago.
I’m definitely interested in your mothers stories, for what it’s worth. (This isn’t a ‘your mom’ joke)
They were mainly about how she was used as forced labour and the mandatory military trainings. She says she wanted to come here to EU to be in a place where “they don’t have to wash up and re-use the diapers”.
The Castro regime has done incredible things (100% literacy rate was great) but it is also a regime that’s just using the name of Communism to extract wealth from the people of Cuba.
Surely the American puppet was better… For the well off.
They tried that in one of my communities, it was an admin of hexbear @Nakoichi@hexbear.net who was sealioning and posting garbage propaganda in my community. I thankfully was able to get them to leave me alone by banning them and all their friends from my communities and they in turn decided to ban me from Hexbear and stopped bothering me or getting my comments sent there.
Honestly, the taint is so much that it makes one wonder if another federated alternative that was just largely a name change would be more popular. Even with piefed, go into the Lemmy ecosystem and you can’t escape the biases of the baseline.
Removed by mod
In this comment section: members of the Zionist instance with social credit score complain about “authoritarianism”
Fuck Israel, and fuck tankies.
Mood.
Are tankies bad morally or they just bring a miserable attitude to everything?
They’re the “Stalin/Mao did nothing wrong” flavor of authoritarian “communist”. Anything bad that happened either is CIA propaganda or “the west’s fault”.
not a tankie, personally think stalins rule was atrocious, and that he was a fucking idiot who ruled out of fear and selfishness rather than for the good of his people. but the west did see him as valuable to fight the nazis, and the second the war was over churchill gave his iron curtain speech and deemed russia an enemy. and this was mainly based on the fact that russia had decided not to honour the debts accrued by the tsar to the west, post revolution. and so the west isolated russia through sanctions and funded the white army counter revolution in russia for years afterwards. which obviously did not help the famine situation, and just because it doesnt put a neat little bow on why these things happened, it doesnt mean we should ignore it. history is history. theres obviously a lot more minutia to this situation.
stalin is/was a monster, but the west was obviously more concerned with regaining capital post ww2 and destroying socialism/communism than they were for the wellbeing of russians/people in general. so really, the russian people were getting it from both angles for centuries and the decades that followed the formation of the soviet union.
fact is, stalin ruled under state capitalist authoritarianism, rather than full fledged socialism or the as of yet ever to be achieved communist ideal.
so its arguable from a semantics/technical point of view that communism hasnt killed anyone, as it has never existed.
but who am i to say that? im just some bitch, straight up on the toilert right now and my legs are falling asleep.
and the second the war was over churchill gave his iron curtain speech and deemed russia an enemy. and this was mainly based on the fact that russia had decided not to honour the debts accrued by the tsar to the west, post revolution. and so the west isolated russia through sanctions and funded the white army counter revolution in russia for years afterwards. which obviously did not help the famine situation, and just because it doesnt put a neat little bow on why these things happened, it doesnt mean we should ignore it. history is history. theres obviously a lot more minutia to this situation.
That’s not even close to true. Churchill was a lifelong anti-Communist, but the mood after WW2 was initially hopeful about reconciliation with the Sovs; the Iron Curtain speech was delivered in the context of the USSR making territorial demands and occupying countries that had agreed to be liberated, in addition to refusing to hold the democratic elections it agreed to in non-Soviet Eastern European countries. The issue of the Russian Empire’s debts was not even on the negotiating table; the Sovet Union refused to honor debts it itself had taken out during WW2; despite this, ‘sanctions’ were not levied on the Soviet Union after WW2, and for that matter, unconditional aid was offered under the Marshall Plan, which the USSR refused, and mandated all Warsaw Pact countries refuse. The White Army was only active in the Russian Civil War which ended ~25 years years before. The wartime famine under Lenin in 1921 could be argued to be due to bad circumstances, but the 1933 famine under Stalin was nothing less than grotesque mismanagement, coupled with targeted retribution against Ukraine for ‘resisting’ Stalin’s ‘glorious’ vision for the USSR.
thats another view of history and i appreciate your input. but you rewrote what i alluded to, parts of what you said are parts i didnt mention because i was offering a general summary. we can argue semantics and specifics if youd like but the fact of the matter is the west has done everything in its power to undermine communist and socialist countries since their inception. specifically russia, which stood as an example for communist revolutionaries the world over, specifically within the confines of what they were able to do financially during the great depression, and then with increasing and varied amplitudes afterwards. trade embargos, denial of credit, tariffs, etc.
the white army/loyalists who were formerlly part of that army were still very much active after the fall of the tsarist regime, even decades later, obviously less militant and more so waging an ideological/political battle . this is part of what lead to the birth of gullags under lenin. and the slaughters under stalin, they didnt vanish overnight, and they 100% recieved support from the west after the revolution for a multitude of purposes that undermined russia with various degrees of aggression and differing tactics. and part of it not only was occupied land disputes, but unpaid debt, ideology, and economic reasons as well.
and yes it was gross mismanagment, but pretending like the west wasnt actively attempting to undermine or foster the flames of a counter revolution in russia post lenin, all the way up to the modern day is an example of western teachings on the subject. the truth, as they say, is always somewhere in the middle.
western influence in russia has been an issue since well before lenin could read or write, and long after stalin breathed his last.
im not saying what you said isnt true, nor do i disagree with your statements, its all part of the larger issues at the time, and we can sparse it out if you like. i got the time right now, im just making some seafood soup at the moment. perhaps you can allude to something i havent read yet. and perhaps direct me to some interesting sources i havent seen. im a fan of these interactions, and how propaganda works from both ends. im just basing my sources off of (some of) churchills letters/diaries/speeches, stalins diaries/letters/speeches (the maisky diaries specifically) as well as lenins and trotskys pamphlets and writings before, during, and after the october revolution up until their deaths, and a number of documentaries ive watched over the years on the subject. i will admit im less aquainted with churchills works and rhetoric besides “the hits”. so if thats a point of contention that you are better informed with, and you are willing to dissect, im all for it. id love to hear your takes.
thats another view of history and i appreciate your input. but you rewrote what i alluded to, parts of what you said are parts i didnt mention because i was offering a general summary.
I literally only addressed issues that I directly quoted you on above.
the white army/loyalists who were formerlly part of that army were still very much active after the fall of the tsarist regime, even decades later.
No. They really weren’t. The Whites were spent as a force within Russia by '23. The only Whites who remained active were emigres in other countries who spent most of their time moping and begging from their hosts.
this is part of what lead to the birth of gullags under lenin. and the slaughters under stalin,
Neither of those claims are true. The birth of the GULAG system arguably has its roots in the Tsarist regime, but its most infamous incarnation under Lenin was applied to political prisoners in general; and under Stalin simply whoever caught their neighbor’s ire at a given point in time.
, they didnt vanish overnight,
No, they vanished over the course of 5 years of civil war. And they weren’t that powerful to begin with; the Bolsheviks killed as many anarchists and dissident socialists as Whites during the civil war.
and they 100% recieved support from the west after the revolution for a multitude of purposes that undermined russia.
Only until the Russian Civil War was over. Fuck, man, most of Stalin’s industrial reforms were enabled by Western material and technical assistance in the 1930s.
and yes it was gross mismanagment, but pretending like the west wasnt actively attempting to undermine or foster the flames of a counter revolution in russia post lenin, all the way up to the modern day is an example of western teachings on the subject.
Again, the post-WW2 situation was outright hopeful in the West until it was clear to even the most naive that Stalin had no intention of keeping any of the promises he made.
the truth, as they say, is always somewhere in the middle.
The Golden Mean Fallacy is just that. The truth between Alex Jones claiming 10,000 water-breathing human hybrids in vats created by the UN and sane people claiming 0 is not 5,000. The truth is the truth, regardless of the range between claimants; and claimants can be completely correct or completely incorrect.
thats a great expansion on the subject, i appreciate your passion and input. it reads as a bit aggressive, but i respect your willingness to disagree with an agreeable statement. and to be honest i am not a fan of hostile debate, and am more of a casual conversationalist more than anything. that being said ill address some of what you said between mouthfuls of soup, and ill try to keep it as accurate as i can considering the inherent biases and interpretations that are inherent in this hotly debated subject.
No. They really weren’t. The Whites were spent as a force within Russia by '23. The only Whites who remained active were emigres in other countries who spent most of their time moping and begging from their hosts.
you can argue that the whites and former white army members, loyalists, anarchists, bolsheviks, and general opposition to stalin didnt attempt to undermine him consistently through his reign, even out of fear of death, but they did. even after they were seemingly “wiped out” you cant argue that there was no opposition, they simply no longer advertised their prior loyalties (at least not as openly). thats like saying every single german was a nazi during world war 2, and that there was no ideological resistance or simple sabotage. was it rare to find open opposition? absolutely, open opposition was a death/prison sentence in most cases, but underground movements and western funding for those movements in addition to their own domestic abilities were still happening periodically through the existence of the USSR.
Neither of those claims are true. The birth of the GULAG system arguably has its roots in the Tsarist regime, but its most infamous incarnation under Lenin was applied to political prisoners in general; and under Stalin simply whoever caught their neighbor’s ire at a given point in time
this felt like disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing. so i wont spend much time on this one. you even mention it was arguable yourself, so i can assume you know what i meant and move on. blue dress, gold dress. if you want ill say EXPANDED and ravamped GULAGS. if thats a more agreeable statement for you.
Only until the Russian Civil War was over. Fuck, man, most of Stalin’s industrial reforms were enabled by Western material and technical assistance in the 1930s.
when i say after the revolution, im speaking about everything after the revolution. not just the 1930s. but the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and so on. should have been more clear on that, i guess. also its a known fact that stalin disliked the western influence that differed from his ideals of strict central planning during this period you mentioned, and he was correct in thinking that it wasnt just a simple exchange of goods and services, western trade unions, workers rights, cultural exchanges of foreign workers, etc, and he generally viewed any kind of investment, loans, or technical aid as capitalist penetration. and there was recorded intent for that as well from the west. so he wasnt wrong to question it from his standpoint. there was a mixture of cultural influence, political influence, and technological influence that he did not find agreeable to his standards. these “micro” aggressions were some of the many reasons that lead to further aggression from both sides that lead tonthe cold war.
Again, the post-WW2 situation was outright hopeful in the West until it was clear to even the most naive that Stalin had no intention of keeping any of the promises he made.
you said it yourself, it was clear, hence why they undermined russia in the coming decades whenever they could get away with it. everything from denying credit, trade embargos, tariffs, distribution of propaganda, even rebel radio networks. it wasnt always direct aggression. it had far more nuance than you are letting on.
The Golden Mean Fallacy is just that. The truth between Alex Jones claiming 10,000 water-breathing human hybrids in vats created by the UN and sane people claiming 0 is not 5,000. The truth is the truth, regardless of the range between claimants; and claimants can be completely correct or completely incorrect.
thats an entirely different argument and id argue in this case a false equivilence. history is written by the victors and dead men tell no tales. we can only surmise based off of available historical evidence and the words of historians who base their arguments on said evidence. and the evidence dictates that there was western influence in the USSR during lenin, stalin, and so on, with the express intent to simultaniously uplift profitable aspects, and undermine other less profitable aspects. and the various forms that takes to achieve it.
im not disagreeing with anything you are saying, in fact i understand everything you are saying, im just arguing that there is more nuance to what you are putting out there. its not as cut and dry or absolute as you are saying.
Oh yikes, I honestly always thought they were just socialists.
Sadly, no. Very often, Khrushchev is too much of a ‘revisionist’ for them. Overwhelmingly, tankies are Stalinists and Maoists, or people willing to simp for Stalinism and Maoism.
A very funny comment. Yes, they pretty much always do just mean socialists. They say they don’t, but the purportedly uncritical subscription to Stalinism and Maoism will often be deduced from something like, Land Back or “voting reform isn’t enough.”
Largely, it’s used by liberals to express frustration at being reminded that rainbow capitalism isn’t woke.
They say they don’t, but the purportedly uncritical subscription to Stalinism and Maoism will often be deduced from something like, Land Back or “voting reform isn’t enough.”
Saying that you hope someone aligns with Stalin, Kim Jong Un, and Xi Jingping when they say that they’re a leftist is, apparently, also not a tankie opinion according to you. How curious. Almost sounds like your tongue is latched to a boot.
they just bring a miserable attitude to everything?
This is in part a function of the first part.
I say mostly when I talk about why we should participate in elections on some level. There is a strange defeatist attitude and closed mindedness to them when trying to discuss real action.
It’s like, fuck, I completely sympathize with the idea that voting won’t bring the necessary reforms in our current system. I may not be at that level of despair just yet, but I get it, there’s nothing in principle wrong with rejecting electoralism as a solution.
But “Harm reduction isn’t important” is utterly insane.
If you think canvassing is a waste of time, if you think your polling place is going to be flooded with bullshit and you have a family to take care of, if you aren’t going to even bother with donating to a DemSoc candidate, that’s all legitimate. But if you (generic you, not you personally) live in a place where voting is easy and you aren’t doing the bare minimum of ten fucking minutes of your time for harm reduction; or worse, are actively discouraging harm reduction of that sort?
Get fucked. The people who shit on harm reduction are more interested in being the purest coprophage around rather than the actual lives of marginalized demographics
At a minimum its also about credibility. A movement that cannot get its followers to periodically show up somewhere to fill out a sheet of paper is likely not going to persuade those followers to a higher level of civil disobedience.
Particularly since the vote is not going to get you beat up at the moment. Case in point Uganda just had elections and had soldiers around to intimidate. A dictator does not want the opposition to be willing to vote as that is a show of numbers and would give the opposition confidence that they have the strength to over throw. After all everyone saw everyone show up.
I personally would agree that we won’t fix the system just by voting, but it is a way to engage and get something that we want in the mean time as well as show that we are a real movement outside of online spaces.
The thing is also that elections are a bit like a marathon. They take prep. Can’t just show up and expect to go far. As lefties we have not done much to prep and get our platform. Thankfully we have AOC and Mamdami showing that we can on some level expect results. In Texas there is a Mamdami type running on primaries atm by the name of Rosas.
Get outta my swamp!
