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this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2025
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Anyone that uses the term "Tankie" unironically to refer to people to the left of them and the Democratic party are not a part of the left.
It's always helpful to identify the liberals that are getting "scratched" though.
It's the good old Red Scare but using the word "tankie" instead of "commie" and the people doing it now are just as devoid of ethics and hard right as the Macarthists were.
It's a self report on the level of people who use dog whistles so loud they are foghorns. Just a word or two in the right context and you know you can ignore everything else you've read by them in the last 30 seconds.
Tankie is when they correlate the industrial growth of USSR as success when every other nation transitioning into a bourgeoise republic had similar growth
Tankie is when they pick and choose traits of Stalin and refuse the facts of his authoritarianism
Tankie is when they ignore the lack of progress in communism in USSR after Lenin died
Tankie is when they make excuses for the failures of USSR by pining them all in the west
The differences being that the USSR uplifted everyone equally and not just a capitalist few; and that it developed without abusing imperialism and unequal exchange against the global south (and actually contributed the most to emancipatory movements and was key in the decolonisation of the 20th century and as a reference for worker movements in the west to push for further rights).
Tankie is when they reject the big-man understanding of history and instead analyze the material and historical conditions of a particular era.
Tankie is when they point to the doubling of life expectancy in the Soviet Union and the only case of industrialisation of a country in history together with China that happened since the 20th century, excluding subsidised US colonies such as South Korea or Japan.
Tankie is when you understand that an imperfect but emancipatory movement which surmounted extreme odds, is desirable over the continuation of imperialism
What if I use the term 'tankie' unironically to refer to people to the right of me?
Probably some light mockery.