Apologies to the mods.
Locking as people have reached the point where they’re just insulting each other/telling each other to kill themselves.
Are anti-genocide “tankies” really the biggest threat to democracy right now?
Fascists and Nazis are in the white house destroying the US. They are also on the verge of taking over and destroying Europe.
Everyone to the left of fascism needs to unite together to stop the neo-Nazis before it is too late. If the Nazis are allowed to start ww3 then nukes will end us all.
I guess so, but they seem a bit more focused on liberals than conservatives.
Yeah right now, I don’t care about tankies all that much. Are they annoying at times? Fuck yes. Are they a threat to my life? Fuck no.
I don’t mind moderating content online, but its fucking weird people are more pressed about Tankies online, spending more time about them than Trump. At least memes can maybe sway someone about the terminally online, it doesn’t stop Trump when someone shares a meme.
Criticizing Marxists on a community that is federated with the largest Marxist-aligned instances will indeed result in a struggle session.
Not criticising marxists, just tankies.
Given that “tankie” means anyone to the left of Elizabeth Warren, Marxists are a subset of tankies.
What’s a tankie, and what’s wrong with the .ml instance? I just joined it because I read that it was hosted by the people who created Lemmy, so I figured it’d be the best and/or least likely to go down
Hi there,
lemmy.ml has a slight problem of removing pro-ukraine and anti-china posts. It has a high amount of what are called “tankies”. These are communists who believe authoritarian regimes were great. (nothing against communists in general);
Exactly this. Like someone will post an article from RT saying that Ukraine grids up babies for fun. If you ask if RT is really the best source you get a response like “RT cites its sources. If you don’t believe it you can read the sources!!”
If you mention that the sources aren’t reliable or question anything you get sealioned hard.
I would recommend making an account on any instance not ending in .ml or bear.net That way you can have actual conversations without having to wade through the nonsense.
They will also argue terminology instead of addressing the points you raise.
Nothing’s wrong with .ml people just like drama.
As we already discussed, if the vast majority of Marxists fit the definition of “tankie” you gave, then it’s just a pejorative for Marxists. The Black Panther Party supported and was influenced by the DPRK, if you count that as “glorifying,” in your own words, then the Black Panthers were tankies. If you don’t, and believe them to have been sufficiently nuanced, then “tankies” practically do not exist on Lemmy.
Alright, forget the word tankie.
People who- Support modern russia and/or are opposed to Ukraine
- Deny that the Uyghurs were mistreated by china
- Think the DRPK is a nice place to live right now.
That definition doesn’t even apply to the people you’re critising
I get called tankie from time to time, but 1a. I hate Putin’s corrupt fascist oligarchy 1b. I fully support Ukraine!
-
The Uyghurs absolutely were mistreated, but it is hard to care about at the moment when the US and Isreal are carrying out an actual genocide. Also, neo-nazis have taken over the US and are illegally abducting minorities.
-
I think the DRPK is very problematic, but they seem to be doing well despite the US putting such ridiculously excessive embargos and sanctions on them. Overall they are probably no worse off than capitalist India and they are probably better off than most 3rd world capitalist nations like Iran, Brazil, Haiti, Afghanistan, etc…
I don’t know the rest of your political beliefs, but from this you don’t seem to be a tankie from this.
-
Most Marxists do not uncritically support Russia, though opposition to the Nationalists like Azov in Ukraine is something common on the Left, and believe Russia’s anti-US stance is beneficial for the Global South (see the string of African liberation movements in the past few years). Most Marxists can agree that the Uyghur people have been placed in re-education camps, but most do not believe they are being systemically murdered en masse like many people report. Most Marxists think the DPRK is doing surprisingly well for a country under extreme embargoes and was subject to more tons of bombs than the pacific front in World War II, not that it would be preferable to live there than in a highly developed country free from those problems.
Maybe they should stop playing devils advocate for Russia in general, If you have to have a conversation about the Genocidal Mob state, and throw a bunch of ifs, ands, or buts in the discussion. You’re already stoking trouble.
America can be bad, and Russia can be equally bad in the same instance.
Russia is not a global Hegemon. Even if it wanted to be as bad as the US, it physically can’t do nearly the damage the US does on a daily basis.
Even if it wanted to be as bad as the US
They are currently invading and occupying multiple neighbouring countries.
And unlike the places the US goes to, life is far worse under Russian occupation.
Oh, sorry, I forgot. They only practice corruption, warmongering, barbaric mass murder and ethnocide on a regional scale. I apologize
equally bad
not by a long shot, and thats the point.
Most of the people you are talking about, are not who I am referring to in the post.
I am talking about the majority of the people people on Lemmy call “tankies.” Not everyone has your specific view and nuance of the word, yet when others see you use it to describe people, they think of the worst nightmare of McCarthy. It’s better to not use the word at all, unless you want to antagonize Marxists in general, because that’s what Marxists see it as.
What do you recommend I use instead?
Just FYI, I’m tagging you as “tankie” for future reference, because everything you’ve said so far is the most tankie of tankie takes.
Don’t bother with him, I’ve tagged him as “bad actor” because he might seem reasonable at first glance but if you start pushing him on topics you know better than him it quickly becomes clear he’s arguing in bad faith.
So you lost an argument to him and got salty about it.
No. He proceeded to say my argument is based on anecdotal evidence (which I had no problem acknowledging because personal experiences are subjective even if they are personal experiences of an entire group of people) only to turn around and present an even more anecdotal evidence than mine (the experience of a single individual) as something factual, and then double down defending it when called out about it being anecdotal evidence. He will dismiss or deflect any kind of argument he doesn’t agree with and then present his own arguments that are just as fallible to the reasons he uses to dismiss arguments. He’s not in discussions in good faith, he refuses to question his own beliefs and he only pushes his own beliefs onto others.
I’m not salty about talking to him, I simply don’t see any value in having a discussion where the only possible outcome is him being right about everything and me being wrong about everything. Just look at the thread here. I’ll give you an example. OP clarified who he meant by tankies.
People who
Support modern russia and/or are opposed to Ukraine Deny that the Uyghurs were mistreated by china Think the DRPK is a nice place to live right now.
and his response to that was:
Most Marxists do not uncritically support Russia, though opposition to the Nationalists like Azov in Ukraine is something common on the Left, and believe Russia’s anti-US stance is beneficial for the Global South (see the string of African liberation movements in the past few years).
Translation. We don’t fully support Russia but we do support Russia for reasons not at all related to the conflict in question.
Most Marxists can agree that the Uyghur people have been placed in re-education camps, but most do not believe they are being systemically murdered en masse like many people report.
Translation. We can (which doesn’t mean you actually do) accept Uyghurs have been mistreated, but we do (no longer can) not accept the systematical mistreatment. (which is the core of the criticism when it comes to the treatment of Uyghurs, not to mention the allegations of torture and sterilization etc. that are also completely glossed over).
Most Marxists think the DPRK is doing surprisingly well for a country under extreme embargoes and was subject to more tons of bombs than the pacific front in World War II, not that it would be preferable to live there than in a highly developed country free from those problems.
Translation. DPRK would be a nice place to live right now if not for those pesky embargoes and bombs (notice not a single criticism at the authoritarian government that is arguably the biggest reason DPRK is not a good place to live at)
And then when OP gives him an inch in good faith he takes the whole inch and pushes OP to “not call people tankies” even though he’s exactly the kind of person OP is calling out.
There are more examples of him being disingenuous, deflecting arguments that push him to admit even the slightest of mistakes and then pushing his own agenda on others. No examples of him dismissing valid arguments in this thread but I’m sure people can find those in other threads. And with that I think I’ve made my point to the people will listen.
The fact that you felt the need to write out - at length - your extremely one-sided and obviously self serving account of the argument makes me even more convinced that you lost an argument and are extremely salty about it.
He’s not in discussions in good faith, he refuses to question his own beliefs and he only pushes his own beliefs onto others.
Sounds like projection on your part.
Translation.
No, the comment was already in English. You’re just ignoring what he actually said so you can create a lazy strawman. I’m unsurprised that you were absolutely the one not discussing in good faith.
Translation
Again, no. You can’t address what he said, so you’re making up your own strawman.
And then when OP gives him an inch in good faith he takes the whole inch and pushes OP to “not call people tankies”
What, specifically, are you accusing him of doing wrong? Sounds like you just don’t like him disagreeing with you.
even though he’s exactly the kind of person OP is calling out.
OP has explicitly said otherwise, but you’ve already established you feel entitled to tell people their own opinions.
There are more examples of him being disingenuous,
Any actual examples though?
then pushing his own agenda on others.
Yes, that’s what arguing for your position is. What is he supposed to do, just automatically concede to you?
I’m sure people can find those in other thread
Uhuh. Still seems like you’re the one arguing in bad faith.
And with that I think I’ve made my point to the people will listen.
You have indeed demonstrated that your were arguing in bad faith from the start and that you’re just salty someone disagreed with you.
Removed by mod
I rest my case: you just consider anyone disagreeing with you in any way to be unacceptable.
Hey 👋🌈
That would be the preferable result rather than just getting banned or the comment/post deleted.
I think OP is upset that .ml accounts aren’t being banned or deleted.
But it’s all bait, regardless. Most liberals only know the word “Tankie” to mean “People who down voted me on Reddit and don’t want to glass Beijing”.
You’d be hard pressed to get anyone’s actual politics on the Hungarian Revolt of 1956 that goes farther than “Soviet Tanks Are Bad”.
Nah, it’s people who defend Russia mostly.
I haven’t seen this that often tbh. Is there really a lot of Pro Russia sentiment?
Genuine question, is anti-nato anti-imperialism the same as “pro Russian” I’m not anti-nato however I can understand the sentiment
In practice, they usually go hand in hand.
The people who are “anti NATO”, or claim it is an imperialist organisation, almost always proceed to make excuses for Russia’s actions, or blame NATO for trying to expand for the invasion of Ukraine.
Does that answer your question @ScrewCapital@lemm.ee? When they say “pro-Russian” they just mean opposing NATO.
You’re really not liking being called out, are you?
Why are you talking to yourself?
No, there’s no pro-Russian sentiment, the people crying about “tankies” just consider all anti-Western sentiment to be inherently “pro-Russian”
Real Red Scare Hours, who up?
i mean, you guys are constantly making entire threads about how you hate either our moderation rules, or our opinions…
Virtually every ban and removed comment found in the mod log from an .ml community gets a dedicated thread these days.
It has everything to do with how demanding to see the manager/admin/dev doesn’t auto-bypass moderation policies. Works on centralized social media where the owners and their employees get flummoxed over potential ad revenue.
Yeah, I think people constantly making those posts are a bit annoying, like they’re just trying to stir shit up, but a lot of users on grad, hex and ml will very agressively defend themselves under these threads, hence the meme.
edit: yet again downvoted by .ml for agreeing with them.
i mean, of course?
…what makes the downvotes come from .ml?
If you paste a link to a lemmy post into friendica, it lets you see the votes.
Is it pride month already?
It will actually look more like this:
Removed by moderator
Thank god for the modlog.
They purge the modlog too.
Thats interesting, and kinda goes against the point of a modlog in the firstplace. Does an instance’s local copy of the log keep the actions?
Thats interesting, and kinda goes against the point of a modlog in the firstplace
Kinda. It is to hold moderators accountable for their actions, but if you’re both a moderator and owner of an instance, you are God on you own instance and you can purge whatever the hell you want. In this case, the owners of lemmy.ml are the tankies.
Does an instance’s local copy of the log keep the actions?
A modlog is instance specific and does not get federated, so lemmy.ml’s modlog is entirely different from lemmy.world’s modlog.
But you can see the modlog for specific communities, and that federates.
Defederated instances aren’t federated to see the content that would be moderated from their instance to make it to a modlog.
Skipping across potholes of a fragmented fediverse will cause all sorts of screwy results, especially when you have communities and users instance banned navigating defederated instances in these topics.
Defederating unravels the Fediverse, which is the point for some demanding it.
Defederation is necessary for the fediverse to work. It will get abused, just like any other tool.
Some mod actions aren’t federated to other instances’ modlogs. I’m not sure if this is just a federation glitch, or if they’re running a modified version of the Lemmy backend that let’s them exclude individual mod actions from federation.
I think ml does, there was accusations of them doing that.
I though that each instance would just log whatever mod actions get sent to it.
10/10.
Completely accurate, no notes
Removed by moderator
You can’t fool me!
User was banned for this post. Reason: Encouraging voilence, jaywalking, and lewd behavior
Nah, it’s always
Reason: Rule 1
They also sometimes throw in Xenophobia as the reason, if you criticize the Russian or Chinese govt
Criticism of China’s government = sinophobia (somehow) = banned for bigotry
Nailed it.
exactly what happened last time lol and now I can’t load comments on one of their communities I don’t remember which
Trinitron
it’s so fucking true
Anytime they pull you into an argument, suddenly 5 more show up to try and overwhelm you. There’s no way it isn’t a deliberate tactic.
Lol, you’ve got some serious main character syndrome
Why is it that when I say something controversial in a normal conversation, that doesn’t happen? It only happens when I say something mean or, god forbid, factual, in a conversation with an .ml user.
Yeah, you’re right, it couldn’t just be that a lot of people disagree with you, it must be an organised conspiracy
Why would the 5 or so disagree so harshly about something factual. How come only they in the universe have the secret knowledge that is unattainable for others
Reading comprehension and organized harassment is such a problem for your community that the entire rest of the fediverse knows and jokes about it. I can appreciate that you might not see most of that because most instances defederate from yours and most users block you after the first interaction.
It’s totally normal and organic that entire groups of tankies show up at the same time to dunk on low-interaction comments in low-interaction posts, often several replies deep in a thread that nobody’s reading anymore, and it’s always the most meaningless shit where they clearly didn’t read the post and formed a cohesive rebuttal to any points but just spew the first vaguely relevant zinger they find in the text file of one-line zingers they seem to share amongst each other.
.
.
The answer is not to get dragged into convesrations with idiots. We used to call it “not feeding the trolls” and it’s something of a lost art.
its not a conspiracy to overwhelm you.
lemmy is not reddit, as in not a hivemind of 20-30yr old white male westerners.
I didn’t say conspiracy
what did you say then? because from here, you seem to think we are literally organizing targeted harassment.
That was Hexbear’s modus operandi when they federated with other instances to “dunk” on people. Seeing as many HB users have .ml accounts to bypass defederation, it’s no surprise they keep up that behaviour on .ml. I’ve seen numerous threads where the vote count suddenly plummets right when a bunch of tankies show up at once to yell at whoever they consider a shitlib. Which is everyone who isn’t authoritarian.
I had three at once ask me why no one was defending me. I just said i didn’t need anyone to brigade for me. They didn’t seem to like that answer lol
That is a tactic they learned from real life tanks. Argue with one tank, more tanks show up.
Tanks are pack hunters, after all.
Plot twist. All 5 are the same guy using multiple alt accounts.
The three notifications in my inbox before this one were .mls misreading my comment.
I think they can’t stand talking to each other unless it’s circle-jerking over how much “theory” they’ve read. So, they love getting a chance to scream at an outsider.
>talk to each other
“These tankies are caught up in an echo chamber, they never expose themselves to outside ideas or engage with criticism!”
>talk to other people
“These tankies can’t stand talking to each other and just want to scream at outsiders!”
Can’t win.
During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them.
If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.
-Michael Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds
I was going to tell you to fuck off because I can’t stand talking to people who agree with me and just want to scream at outsiders, but I think this counts as “circle-jerking over how much ‘theory’ we’ve read” so that means we’re cool 😜
The arrogance of these people passing around their homework as gospel.
If you make them look bad they delete the thread. It’s happened to me twice. I consider it a win, but it is sad that others won’t see how wacky they are.
They even downvote you if you agree with them.
serious question, is there any chance a large portion of these users are acting in bad faith and don’t actually believe these things because the now threads i see, the more that seems to be the case
They are very agressive, to the point where the slightest disagreement will cause them all to collectively (no pun intended) hound your comment.
Then they complain about leftist infighting.Lol imagine complaining about straw men “complaining about leftist infighting” while you punch left against someone who isn’t even there. Weak ass shit
I don’t understand the constant liberal need to assume everyone who disagrees with you is acting in bad faith. Not everyone believes the same things as you. If you like, I can explain why I believe the things I do and what works or life experiences led me to those conclusions.
The platform you’re using was designed by Marxist-Leninists, it shouldn’t be surprising to find Marxist-Leninists on here.
I try to discuss stuff with you all in good faith, but its really hard to ngl.
Edit to add: Why do you assume everyone arguing with you is a liberal?
Why do you assume everyone arguing with you is a liberal?
In regards to the person I was originally replying to here, because this is a tendency that I notice especially among liberals, and which seems to track with their idealist ideology. They view their position as being “obvious,” “objective” and “rational,” and therefore expect everyone to agree with them unless there is some sort of irregular interference in the “marketplace of ideas,” like foreign subversion. Furthermore, since liberalism is the dominant ideology of the present world, it is easier for people to believe that it is the only thing any reasonable person would believe.
Leftism is comparatively fringe, and also has many different forms of analysis that account for people believing different things. Any leftist should be aware that people who have different material conditions and material interests are likely to arrive at different sets of beliefs. It is difficult to imagine a leftist thinking that anyone who disagrees with them must be disguising their beliefs and motivations, they would have to be paranoid and suspicious of virtually everyone they ever encounter in life. It makes no sense. Furthermore, there are many different leftist ideologies so even if a leftist did expect everyone to be a leftist, it raises the question of, “which tendency?” A Trotskyist and a Maoist will have a substantial number of disagreements with each other.
As for the others, well, because they say lib things and take offense when I talk negatively about liberals. I’m sure some of them style themselves as “anarchists” while supporting liberals and acting and thinking like liberals. Anarchism has some very cool aesthetics, after all.
Perhaps, if they start respecting our labels and bothering to understand what the difference is between a Marxist-Lenininst and a Maoist instead of just blanket labelling everyone to the left of Bernie as a “tankie,” then I’ll consider respecting the difference between self-identified liberals vs anarcho-NATOists instead of labelling them all liberals. But then, if they bothered to learn or understand the things my side actually believes rather than just making shit up about us whole cloth and dismissing us when we try to actually explain our positions, they’d hardly be liberals, would they?
“liberalism” is a confusing word with 3 different meanings: “economic liberalism”, “classical/conservative liberalism” or “social liberalism”.
Seeking “freedom” does not mean much without specifying what kind of freedom you seek and in which area.
In the USA, “liberal” is almost synonym with “leftist” since it’s always understood as “social liberalism” which actually relies on a strong government to defend social freedom.
This is an international forum, not an American one.
The reason “liberal” is synonymous with “leftist” in the US is that the left has retreated so ridiculously far. Left anticommunism has been a dismal failure that’s played into the right’s hands. People thought that if they just demonstrated their anticommunist credentials that people would stop accusing them of being “reds” or “pinkos,” but it absolutely has not worked and only emboldened the right to the point that even “liberal” became an accusation, a dirty word, while at the same time hurting and dividing the left.
I don’t accept that, and neither do people outside of the US. A liberal is a supporter of capitalism, liberals are, by definition, right wing.
the constant liberal need
Funny you qualify it as such. I saw that same behavior with the tankies and other ideologies.
Really? I’ve never seen a tankie write off anyone as a “Russian bot” or similar. Of course “tankies” recognize that the vast majority of people believe different things.
I don’t think there is many bots on lemmy.
Not Russian bots, they like those. Lol I have seen tankies write off people as liberals, funnily enough.
Calling someone a liberal is not the same as accusing them of acting in bad faith, of misrepresenting what they believe. If someone comes around talking about gassing the Jews, I’m going to call them a fascist and write them off as such, even if they deny the label, and hopefully you would too. Likewise, if someone says stuff that I perceive as liberalism, I’m going to call them a lib - but I’m not going to assume that they’re paid actors in some secret conspiracy who don’t really believe a word of what they’re saying. Those aren’t the same thing at all.
Can confirm. I get downvoted a lot over here.
This was literally my onboarding experience with a .ml account. I dunked on some power users out of the gate (by pointing out they clearly had not read the essay they linked) and was put on a short leash from then on. To the point where I’d catch new bans for posting anything even remotely political.
Oh man there should be a thing where people start taking screenshots periodically in case of thread deletion so they can be displayed in a hall of shame or something
Maybe they were all commenting on your spelling of “criticising”
meh, its one of 10-15 words I use often, but can’t spell properly for shit.
If only there was some kind of spelling check.
It doesn’t work for some reason:
Works on my secret alt on another instance though.
Only an oqho wdors ewql can call someone an oqho wdors ewql.
It’s really cool zooming in and out of the rainbow on your phone. You can’t tell the zoom is also happening. In the vertical direction, only horizontal, so it’s an odd effect I haven’t seen before.
Ok, what’s a tankie?
It’s an updated version of “commie”, means the same thing, but for people who don’t want to sound like cold war boomers.
Hey now commies are proudly to the left of them
“commie” and “tankie” mean the exact same thing
Originally, it meant people who supported the soviet union’s use of tanks to crush uprisings.
Now its used to describe people who support Authoritatian Communist regimes, like the ussr, north korea or china.
On lemmy.ml and lemmygrad.ml there is a high amount of them.Originally, it meant people who supported the soviet union’s use of tanks to crush uprisings.
And with the recent JFK declassified documents:
…it turns out the soviets were right to crush the Hungarian color revolution lmao
Damn, y’all are back.
Wait…you’ve been making post about us for the last several weeks, despite not being federated? What a nerd Loloolllooll
.ml and grad are still there.
Somehow they even support modern russia which is as far from communism as it’s possible to be without being US
I think the best evidence that “tankie” is a meaningless snarl word is the way the people who use it just make up what ever positions they like to ascribe to the mythical “tankie”. Like, none of the people you call “tankies” support modern Russia, but you’re going to insist that tankies support modern Russia anyway, because it’s not meant to an actual descriptive word, just a way to punch left.
There are people in this thread that support Russia.
Or at least are busy telling people they’re not actually that bad.
There are people in this thread that support Russia.
No there aren’t.
Or at least are busy telling people they’re not actually that bad.
Oooooooh here we go, watch that goal post sail away. How completely unsurprising that by “support Russia” you really meant “don’t hate them enough”.
Does it not bother you that you have to resort to this kind of wilful dishonesty?
Don’t play dumb, it’s the geopolitical version of “I’m not racist, but…”
People who know their views are reprehensible to most reasonable people, so aren’t willing to outright say what they believe, but will still argue the point.
And if you press them hard enough, you almost always find out they somehow blame Ukraine for being invaded.
People who know their views are reprehensible to most reasonable people, so aren’t willing to outright say what they believe, but will still argue the point.
Yes, like what you did, when you lied about people supporting Russia when you just meant that they aren’t as opposed to them as you think they should be.
People who support russia and communism are tankies.
Communists aren’t necessarily tankies.Can I reference you here when I get called a tankie despite not supporting Russia?
Thats not what I meant, there is other “criteria”.
Yes, I’ve noticed that the “criteria” are extremely malleable and impossible to pin down. That’s why I concluded that it’s just a snarl word that ultimately means “anyone to the left of me”
Ok, good news then: there aren’t any tankies on hexbear
I lurk on hexbear from time to time, and there is definetely people there who believe some of those.
Yeah, out of “supports Russia” and “are communist” there are indeed people who support some of those two things
Their reasoning is that its anti-us imperialism, despite russia being pretty imperialistic itself.
That’s such an oversimplifcation that it can just be dismissed as wrong. Here is someone who actually asked and didn’t just assume
Hey, y’all got federation working again.
yee the specter haunts again
You guys have great emojis, I’ll give you that.
And I’ll form the head!
What ghoulish logic. 50.000 civilian casualties, 6 million refugees, a country and a future in ashes, 1.5 mothers mourning their mutilated sons. And you talk about them as pawns in your imaginary game.
You are no better than the Hawks in the Pentagon. Not one bit.
Ah, the classic “only western countries can be imperialist”
Love making up quotes
It’s not a classic because no one says that. Japan did it for sixty years, until it was made a vassal of the US, which it still is today[1][2].
Don’t forget that only US Capitalism is the root of moneys evils
the other vein of pro-russian tankies i’ve seen is that it’s impossible for a once communist country to backslide into fascis. how they square that and russia’s claim that they must destroy Ukraine, a country that was once not just communist, but anarcho-communist, in order to stop their backslide into fascism, i have no idea. perhaps if a person is actually familiar with history and not just a single pro-hegemonic propaganda, they wouldn’t be tankies.
i’ve been developing a theory, more of a hypothesis, really, that tankies, hoteps, white feminists, etc have figured out a part of the puzzle of oppression, and in their anger at waking up to that aspect of their reality, reject all other discourse surrounding the system of oppression that doesn’t mesh with their experienced oppression. this, in many ways, is the root of leftist infighting. everyone sees everyone else’s fight for liberation as a distraction from their own fight for liberation. the trick is, none of them are. they are simply different expressions of how the ruling class controls us.
when a tankie says shit like “the trans issue is a distraction” the are sparking leftist infighting, charitably unknowingly. our trans brothers, sisters, and thembers are our allies in this, and are generally speaking (not universally of course, i don’t want to give the impression anyone is a homogenous group) left as hell. we need them to help us in our fight because they are experienced, battle hardened, and see things the rest of us don’t see because they are tuned in.
the thing is that… yes. the culture wars are distractions. but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t fight in them. that’s like saying the best response to being bullied in school is to take your beating and tell no one because you’re focused on a bigger issue. that’s a great way to get your legs broke. the answer is to push back against the culture wars and say why we push back, and say that our enemy combatants are distracted from the real war. that they are acting as class traitors from a deep system of manipulation.
tankies don’t realize it, or maybe they do, but they’re conservatives. they seek to maintain a hegemony that oppresses us, the working classes, that has been shown not to work. authoritarian communism is still authoritarianism, and also expresses somewhere between most and all of the features of ur-fascism. it will never save us from our oppression. they also tell on themselves when they say “read theory” and all the books they reference were published before WWII. the world has moved on. we have learned more about our oppressors. they’re leaving out a century of theory when they say to read theory. they are practitioners of the religion of Marxist-Leninism
A lot of people don’t realize they are being manipulated to fight each other instead of dealing with the people who are actually causing the problems, the ones pulling the strings and syphoning off all the wealth for themselves and their friends.
It’s way simpler than this. They simply cannot admit that Lenin, Stalin and Mao just got communism wrong. They refuse to move on from those authoritarian traditions. That’s really it.
Marxism, in general is a very modernist political theory. For most of the 20th century, we extended most modernist ideals beyond that rigid structuralism. Leftism is no exception, but MLMs in general refuse to move past that way of thinking. As you say, it is very similar to the way that modern conservatives seem to hold that early 1900s thinking up as some philosophical ideal.
the other vein of pro-russian tankies i’ve seen is that it’s impossible for a once communist country to backslide into fascis.
You haven’t seen that because literally no one says or believes this. It’s entirely your own invention, a blatant strawman.
As I always say, “If someone claims something happened on the fediverse without providing a link, they’re lying.”
Didn’t read anything after that because you started with such a blatant lie.
I really haven’t seen that? A while ago I looked into HexBear’s opinion on it and it wasn’t good.
Check out this thread, there really isn’t any Putin worship in these spaces.
https://hexbear.net/post/148426?scrollToComments=false
In this one some of the top comments are hoping Putin gets shot in the face. https://hexbear.net/post/3270551
shhhh! They haven’t finished building their strawman
Plenty of examples from .ml. Not sure how one 3 year old thread disproves it?
I gave you two links, one which is much newer.
I’m looking at this community you linked I’m not sure I can see how you’re proving that “tankies” admire the modern Russian government.
The part where they ban people for being critical of it?
Just because we don’t suck off Azov toes doesn’t mean we do suck the FSB’s. Go back to reddit, liberal.
This recent thread is pretty insightful on lemmygrad.ml’s position. Their own users repeatedly emphasize that they are critical of the RF, which shouldn’t be a surprise given that it’s a capitalist country with plenty of reactionary domestic policies. (OP didn’t get banned)
Yeah, some are getting paid and those sucking on their teats are just thick as 2 short planks and/or naive
What people tend not to realize is they don’t support Russia because they think it’s still communist, but because of a combination of campism, accelerationism, and revolutionary defeatism. If you want to argue with someone in good faith you should try to understand their position first, otherwise they will just see you as a reactionary and dismiss what you say. I still occasionally get my comments removed from .ml but I’ve been able to get through to people somewhat by leading with an actual understanding of where they’re coming from.
I don’t think it’s fair to categorize it as accelerationist, although definitely campism and critical support (that is, taking a side while remaining critical of it) - like you said, they know and despair that Russia is no longer socialist, they only side with the RF in this conflict as a ‘lesser evil’ than the dominant NATO camp. We saw the US prolong the proxy war (it’s not their soldiers dying) until the they openly threw Ukraine away and negotiated terms with the RF when the war seemed no longer useful (this part usually happens more diplomatically and privately in a proxy war, but it usually happens).
If you want to argue with someone in good faith you should try to understand their position first, otherwise they will just see you as a reactionary and dismiss what you say.
Absolutely. The .ml instances are stricter than most and don’t cater to anyone they perceive as ignorant and parroting propaganda in bad faith. From their point of view, it’s just as simple as how most instances would ban conservatives coming in and starting bigoted, ignorant oft-debunked Fox News arguments about racism and transphobia. Why bother platforming it?
A non .ml user arguing in good faith? That’s as rare as it is welcome!
Also, I think you forgot anti-Americanism and anti imperialism in your list.
Campism is Trotskyist criticism and not a term we use. Accelerationism is an edgelord meme that some baby leftists might subscribe to, but is generally a very dumb concept.
However, I’ll give props for knowing about revolutionary defeatism, which is a factor in our analysis. It was, pretty indisputably, the correct position to take in WWI, when it was developed. In fact, before the war, socialist parties across Europe came together and, seeing the possibility of the war on the horizon, agreed that in the event of such a war they would work together against their own governments. Once the war actually started, however, “socialists” in Britain, France, and Germany all fell in line behind their government in support of their own side in the imperialist war. They either succumbed to pressure or sought to advance their own positions as careerists and opportunists. Only in Russia did the socialists stay true to their promise and used the opportunity to turn the imperialist war into a civil war, and eventually managed to nope out of the meat grinder everyone else was stuck in.
Whether revolutionary defeatism is generally applicable is another question, but it is sort of our, “null hypothesis,” you might say. But more important are the underlying ideas that support revolutionary defeatism. We don’t just agree with it because Lenin said it, but because it tracks with our own analysis, which is based on class and realpolitik. Furthermore, history cautions us to be skeptical when our country tells us a war is justified, as we see many examples throughout history where people fell in line behind narratives that did not hold up, whether it was WWI or Vietnam or Iraq - whenever any country goes to war, there is a strong pressure and lots of propaganda that is able to convince the vast majority of people to support it, everyone always thinks, “but this time, it’s different,” and more often than not, they’re wrong.
Generally speaking, arguments that are grounded on things like territorial integrity or national sovereignty don’t really have traction with us. Revolution involves aggressively violating national sovereignty, after all. If you want to speak our language, then you have to frame your arguments in terms of the benefit to the common people.
Campism is Trotskyist criticism and not a term we use.
That’s not a response to the criticism, just a dismissal of it based on who it originated from. I personally think it’s a valid criticism of many who consider themselves marxist-leninists, and I am not a trotskyist. People I’ve spoken with in the past have had a tendency to dogmatically subscribe to a campist mindset in total disregard for the particulars of any given situation, and for how much shit MLs give liberals for practicing lesser-evilism, many sure seem to love their own version of it.
Accelerationism is an edgelord meme that some baby leftists might subscribe to, but is generally a very dumb concept.
It’s far more prevalent than you’re giving it credit for, and in my experience many MLs’ understanding of revolutionary defeatism tends to boil down to accelerationism when questioned.
However, I’ll give props for knowing about revolutionary defeatism, which is a factor in our analysis. It was, pretty indisputably, the correct position to take in WWI, when it was developed.
Indisputable suggests it’s largely undisputed now, which you must know is absolutely not the case. I am currently disputing it. There is no significant historical pattern of countries that faced a military defeat becoming socialist or even having better revolutionary conditions afterwards.
Only in Russia did the socialists stay true to their promise and used the opportunity to turn the imperialist war into a civil war, and eventually managed to nope out of the meat grinder everyone else was stuck in.
Starting a civil war while the country is in the middle of an imperialist war is not an example of revolutionary defeatism working. If Russia had been defeated in their imperialist war and then had a socialist revolution that would be an example, but even then one example is not a pattern.
Furthermore, history cautions us to be skeptical when our country tells us a war is justified, as we see many examples throughout history where people fell in line behind narratives that did not hold up, whether it was WWI or Vietnam or Iraq - whenever any country goes to war, there is a strong pressure and lots of propaganda that is able to convince the vast majority of people to support it, everyone always thinks, “but this time, it’s different,” and more often than not, they’re wrong.
I agree completely, but this is just an argument for being anti-imperialist and anti-war, not an argument for revolutionary defeatism.
Generally speaking, arguments that are grounded on things like territorial integrity or national sovereignty don’t really have traction with us. Revolution involves aggressively violating national sovereignty, after all.
Those sorts of arguments don’t have any traction with me either, I’m an anarchist. I don’t believe I have made any such arguments, unless you conflate collective self-determination with national sovereignty.
That’s not a response to the criticism, just a dismissal of it based on who it originated from.
many MLs’ understanding of revolutionary defeatism tends to boil down to accelerationism
If you want to argue with someone in good faith you should try to understand their position first,
It seems kind of contradictory to talk about “trying to understand our position in good faith first” before criticizing it, and then characterizing it in critical terms that we don’t use. If you want to “understand a position in good faith first” then you should describe that position in a way that the people who hold it would find fair and agreeable - and then you can tear into it all you want. It seems that you don’t actually want to understand our position or explain it, but rather just jump into criticizing it.
If you actually followed your own (good) advice, the form of your argument should look like:
Here’s a neutral description of what they say:
And here’s my critical view of what that position actually amounts to, and the reasons why I see it that way:
The issue I take with you using the terms “campism” and “accelerationism” is that they belong in the second part, but you’ve presented them as being in the first.
Indisputable suggests it’s largely undisputed now, which you must know is absolutely not the case. I am currently disputing it. There is no significant historical pattern of countries that faced a military defeat becoming socialist or even having better revolutionary conditions afterwards.
What you’re describing is not revolutionary defeatism, it is accelerationism. I have to withdraw my props for only learning the term without actually understanding what it means. You’re not really disputing it, you’re disputing a completely different concept that you’ve incorrectly labelled.
Revolutionary defeatism is not the descriptive belief that a country facing a military defeat will always or even generally become socialist, rather, it is the proscriptive tactic that, when both sides of a conflict are roughly equally enemies of the people, socialists should primarily oppose their own country’s side, with the aim of turning it into a revolution/civil war, taking advantage of the difficulties faced by the state.
Starting a civil war while the country is in the middle of an imperialist war is not an example of revolutionary defeatism working.
That is literally what revolutionary defeatism is. Again, you demonstrate that you don’t understand the concept. Turning the imperialist war into a civil war was Lenin’s very explicitly stated goal.
Your own Wikipedia link explains this:
“Workers would gain more from their own nations’ defeats, he argued, if the war could be turned into civil war and then international revolution.”
If Russia had been defeated in their imperialist war and then had a socialist revolution that would be an example, but even then one example is not a pattern.
Again, that’s accelerationism, not revolutionary defeatism.
I don’t know where you picked up this idea that revolutionary defeatism just means accelerationism, but it’s certainly not from reading theory. If you want to practice what you preach and make a good faith attempt to understand it, Lenin spells out the concept very clearly here
The authoritarian part waxes and wanes, there’s a few anarchists in their ranks who have no real solution after “tear it all apart”.
What then, boys?
“Tear it all apart” is only aimed at Western democracies. The then is that the authoritarian “communist” countries invade and subjugate you.
I’m sure there’s a couple of genuine ones but tbh any anarchist who mostly hangs out with tankies is pretty sus imo
Thanks for taking the time to explain. Much appreciated.
deleted by creator
Anyone to the left of morning Joe?
Half a century ago it meant people who supported the soviet union using tanks to put down a cia backed coup in Hungary.
Modern times in the west it means anyone left of AOC.
More like anyone left of Regan or when something I disagree with
Or, hear me out, it actually means people who support authoritarian communism. Especially focussed on Stalin and Mao.
Mao was right about landlords. If nothing else. He was right about landlords.
Whoa, watch out, you might hit someone with that goalpost, swinging it around like that
Do you know who else was right about landlords? A shit ton of people that didn’t get millions of their own citizens killed through incompetence and mismanagement.
Everyone who ever killed one.
Rare Pol Pot W
It’s actually especially focused on Khrushchev, who was the one who sent tanks into Hungary which is where the term originates. It’s notable that it focuses on him rather than Stalin, because the real point of the term was to guard against people who might be more sympathetic towards the USSR after “destalinization.” The literal meaning may be, “people who support socialist countries no matter what they do,” but the actual meaning has always been more like, “people who support anything any socialist country has ever done.”
I would never call a leftist a “tankie” because they are a leftist. People who do that are idiots. The important part of the word is the support of authoritarian regimes.
Which is pretty weird nowadays because neither Russia, China nor North Korea are even communist/leftist anymore.
That isn’t true though: the Nordic countries are undeniably authoritarian from a leftist perspective, but you never see Nordic model socdems being called “tankies”. Failed leftist projects like Catalonia or the Paris Commune were also undeniably “authoritarian” by the definition applied to more successful projects, but supporters of them are never called tankies. The Black Panthers, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, all supported “authoritarian regimes”
What it really boils down to is serious opposition to Western liberalism.
China and the DPRK are still Socialist, though different forms. China has a Socialist Market Economy, the DPRK is closer to the Soviet model. Russia is no longer Socialist, that is correct, but is occasionally seen as a temporary ally as they seek to destabilize US Hegemony, a goal they seek for profit and Leftists seek so that Socialism has a better chance worldwide.
If you define leftism as a pure economy model, then you could call right-wing authoritarian countries with state-controlled economies “socialist” which makes no sense.
I don’t know what you mean by a “pure economy model” or how a fully publicly owned economy would be right wing, unless it’s a different form of ownership like Monarchism.
China is communist, and there’s a reason authoritarianism exists in those spaces. That reason is the US, which spends unlimited amounts of money to upkeep their war economy that they haven’t cooled off since ww2.
Absent constant attacks there’s a good chance authoritarianism wouldn’t have ever developed in those spaces. But since someone keeps funding scorned previously rich fucks to start counterrevolutions, it has to exist. A necessary evil until the us and west kill themselves.
China isnt communist, not with their actions, not with their economy, not with their society, not with their diplomacy and not even with their politics, communist in name and propaganda only
China is Socialist, and is still trying to build Communism. I am not sure what you are referring to by their “actions.”
Their economy has large firms firmly in the public sector, with the private sector being made up primarily of sole proprietorships and small businesses or cooperatives. This is classical Marxism, you can’t kill an economy into being developed enough for public ownership nor can you outlaw small businesses into large ones. Marx believed markets were the key to laying the foundations for public ownership, and here we are.
Not sure what you mean by “their society,” if I were being dishonest I would say that smells of Western Exceptionalist chauvanism.
Their diplomacy is pretty damn peaceful, they have only a handful of millitary bases worldwide, and instead go for multilateralism.
I don’t know what you mean by “politics,” here, this is more vagueness.
60% of the economy being owned by the people exclusively for the benefit of the people isn’t communist?
Please point out where in the manifesto you dozed off.
60% of the economy being owned by the people exclusively for the benefit of the people isn’t communist?
No
Percentage wise doesn’t determine it, correct, but China is Socialist because the vast majority of its large firms and key industries are Publicly Owned, and the private sector is mainly cooperatives, sole proprietorships, and small businesses. Marx believed markets centralize themselves, meaning over time more can be publicly planned in an efficient manner.
ask me for citations if you want to see why I think this
Communism is a classless stateless society. China has a vanguard party, and any attempts to protest. Run against it, or run outside it will result in torture, imprisonment, and death. The vanguard and their oligarch pals are a separate class from a Chinese citizen. Not classless, not communist. China is a state. Literally not stateless, literally not communist.
The reason authoritarianism exists there is because the military overthrew the emperor/tsar and put themselves in power. And militaries function via authority. It’s got nothing to do with WWII or western powers. They did it to themselves.
It’s funny how leninist etc clutch their pearls and bemoan the wests trepidation towards them. When they’re perfectly innocent. After all, who doesn’t forcefully annex much of Eastern Europe?
Not saying the west has never overstepped it’s bounds or fucked up. Not at all. Just that leninist are the wests hypocritical equal.
China has not achieved a global, publicly owned and planned economy, no, but is still working towards that, as Marxists would, through Socialism.
First of all, the state and government are not the same thing, and parties are not classes either. The State is the aspect of society that enforces class distinctions, classes themselves being relations to ownership. The way Marx believed we could get to statelessness is by nationalizing the large industries and firms that are already built up enough for central planning to work, and let the small firms compete and grow until they reach that point. This is what China’s economy looks like.
I think if you listened more to what Marxists believe, you’d be more likely to succeed in leftist organizing in real life (if you do any).
Of course, China is not a “communist country” in the sense that it has achieved communism - in that sense, “communist country” is a contradiction in terms and no country could ever be communist, because communism is stateless. When people describe countries as communist, what they mean is that the leaders profess belief in communist ideology, that is, a country that is run by communists.
Stop. Bad radlib.
Read chinese history. Try again. When you can’t even use wikipedia to support your ridiculous misconception of history I don’t care about anything else you say.
I’m a communist / anarchist. Try again? Or are strawman all you have?
Cool. So you’d support a popular, citizen lead uprising that had to convince illiterate farmers to take up arms against western funded and armed authoritarian monarchists and then establishing a state to deal with the now 1 billion people that statistically knew nothing but farming while introducing them to higher level concepts like the existence of police or government they can participate in or what their taxes even do, right?
Hell if you were a communist you’d have some response to how to deal with an international, infinitely funded threat actor right?
You wouldn’t be stuck at the idea that you can go from agrarian subsistence farmers to post scarcity mutual aid communes, right? You wouldn’t be dumb enough to think that you even have the capability to defend yourself and you local community, much less a revolution, without a clear state hierarchy in place for mass coordination and communication, right? You’d be smart enough to know why stateless communities cannot exist in any world where a single stated capitalist actor exists, right?
There was no strawman, by the way, cosplayer. You repeat the empires propaganda like a lib, you repeat their ideology word for word, it doesn’t matter what you call yourself.
Modern times in the west it means anyone left of AOC.
That would be a large swathe of Europe, so… no.
Oh I meant the US framing.
Here. Bernie Sanders is literally Stalin. In Europe he’s what? Left leaning moderate?
Fairly normal social democrat.
Sort of person that, in the UK, might be just to the left of the current Labor party leadership (but right of a lot of the party) or on the SocDem end of the LibDems.
Naaah. It still means the same thing.
