After seeing a megathread praising Mao Zedong, an actual mass killer, and a post about a guy saying “99% of westerners are 100000000000% sure they know what happened in ‘Tiny Man Square’ […] the reasons for this are complex and involve propaganda […],” I am genuinely curious what leads people to this belief system. Even if propaganda is involved when it comes to Tiananmen Square, it doesn’t change the atrocities that were/are committed everywhere else in China.
I am all for letting people believe what they want but I am lost on why one would deliberately praise any authoritarian system this hard.
Can someone please help me understand why this is such a large and prominent community? How have these ideals garnered such a following outside of China?
I’d argue that they functionally don’t exist.
Sure, here you run into them here in this universe…not a great sample size. I’m a really social person who spent years in deep leftist Canada…and I’m one of the most radical socialist (whatever you want to call it…all the terms are fraught) folks I’ve met. I’m definitely nowhere near a tankie.
I’ve met exactly one true “tankie”. Good friend…always making excuses for atrocities…it spills over into radical support for modern day Russia etc…but dude is also a silver spooner who works for his dads investment firm.
I honestly wish there were more tankies…and among the lower classes where they should be…but many of the poor people I know are conservatives or nihilists/anarchists.
that friends sounds more like bourgeois, oligarchy than a leftist. kinda like how “hasan” pretends to be a leftist on his streams, hes a grifter.
Too often these criticism’s of “tankies” involve calling questioning blatant cold war lies as tankie behavior and very often i get accused of being a tankie by both liberals and “anarchists” because i oppose the democrats its far past time to retire the word.
People deify their favorite State and overlook the bad it does. All States commit atrocities so it is easier for everyone to look away rather than say “I like x about how y nation handles z” and be specific about it.
Some people just have a Right Wing mindset. They’re drawn to concepts like loyalty & obedience to authority and gravitate to political doctrines that stress those values. If Communism makes economic sense to you but you’re politically uncomfortable with shallow/non-existent hierarchies or don’t feel that everyday people can be trusted with political power you gravitate towards being a ML. If you’re willing to force those views on others by threat of state violence you’re now a Tankie.
But anarchists are definitely also in favour of forcing their views on others by a threat of violence? Like, I’m a Spaniard, the anarchists famously resisted fascism in the Spanish Civil War using weapons. Projects often praised by anarchists such as the Rojava or Zapatistas also have plenty of violent power in their region, and exert it when needed to defend their project and ideology.
I don’t like your framing of “right wing essentialism” in Marxists, it sounds almost eugenicist the way you’re describing it, as “people predisposed to authoritarianism”. I’m a tankie not because I love state violence, but because the only large societies that have managed to actually collectivize the lands and resist western imperialism have been Marxist-Leninist. Failure to utilize such state repression mechanisms against fascists and capitalists is what led to the fascist coup in Spain, to the failure of the German revolution, or to the murder of Allende.
I agree with that “right wing” and “authoritarian” are two different things, but lots of people, including tankies are absolutely “predisposed to authoritarianism”. It has nothing to do with eugenics though, because the genetics behind it are universal to humanity. It’s all about how people are brought up, the social influences they encounter, and level of education.
the only large societies that have managed to actually collectivize the lands and resist western imperialism have been Marxist-Leninist.
I don’t think many non-tankies, or even anti-tankies, would disagree with this statement. However, it does seem to be a frying pan to fire situation. It’s no good escaping the grasp of “the west” if the cure is worse than the disease, and that’s almost always the case.
The Soviets are gone and modern Russia is little more than a Mafia state. China is ascendent, but it’s also growing more capitalist by the hour, and even with the current US administration, we still have more freedoms in America than in China. Whether that remains true is yet to be seen, but if America falls to authoritarianism and joins Russia as a second Mafia state, we know we can count on tankies to cheer it on, oblivious to how much worse that will be for pretty much all of humanity.
Right? We get to this place only after having exhausted all other options, not for bloodlust or a “will to power” or whatever-the-fuck horseshoe theory straw men people make up in their heads. The Paris Commune and other methods have all failed, and to this day no other method has been successful.
it’s the same mindset that has “good cops” backing “bad cops” no matter what. the idea that someone like them can be wrong is an affront to lots of people, because it makes them face the reality that they could be wrong some day as well. and nobody enjoys admitting they’re wrong. so instead of thinking critically, they circle the wagons and reject anything that criticizes anyone like them.
Interesting, is it difficult for people to admit they are wrong? As someone who’s almost always wrong, I cannot fathom why it would be so hard to admit wrongness.
because it’s shameful. it invites shame and ridicule.
being correct is good. being wrong is bad. people don’t want to be bad.
being comfortable with wrongness, fault, etc, requires a lot of education and maturity that very few people ever attain. and it also requires having an ego that can tolerate the ridicule/rejection that comes with admitting fault you will receive from a lot of people, which is kind of a lonely position. admitting you are wrong is opening yourself up to social rejection.
basically if you never admit you are wrong you can hang out with other like minded morons and never feel alone and sad. hence why such communities tend to be so emotionally compelling for people, and so hard to get out of. you have to be willing to go be alone to break out of such mindsets, and as social animals, a lot of human beings are pathologically afraid of being alone.
By reading and comprehending
Reading yes, but zero comprehension takes place. If they comprehended anything, they wouldn’t be tankies.
Anything’s possible when you make shit up kiddo
“Tankie” is just a pejorative for Marxist, I came to Marxism from anarchism precisely because I read and comprehend it. The assumption that people support socialism in real life because we don’t understand theory is deeply chauvanistic, and just serves as a way to mischaracterize those you disagree with to avoid having a conversation.
Marxist does not mean tankie. You can be a Marxist and a tankie, or you can be Marxist and not a tankie.
It’s just a pejorative for Marxist in practice. Everyone has their own version of what a “tankie” is and what a “true Marxist” is in their heads, but invariably tankie is levied most against those who uphold socialist projects as they exist in real life as legitimate.
No it’s not. I would also consider myself an ideological Marxist, but I am no tankie.
A tankie is someone who claims to value leftist ends of any kind (including Marxism-Leninism) but supports or defends authoritarianism, classism, stratification, or any of the inequitable historical socio-economic paradigms. Vanguardism is not meant to be perpetual, it is a means borne of desperation with the aim of a fundamentally opposite ends. It is not the ends itself, as it is a form of extreme rightism, but one specifically meant to be transient.
A tankie is someone who claims to value leftist ends of any kind (including Marxism-Leninism) but supports or defends authoritarianism, classism, stratification, or any of the inequitable historical socio-economic paradigms.
This doesn’t actually apply to the vast majority it’s applied to, though. Functionally, it’s a strawman with the characteristics you’ve described, applied to shut down conversation from those supporting socialist states.
Vanguardism is not meant to be perpetual, it is a means borne of desperation with the aim of a fundamentally opposite ends. It is not the ends itself, as it is a form of extreme rightism, but one specifically meant to be transient.
This is a misframing of vanguardism. Vanguardism is transient, but it’s by no means extreme rightism. All it means is that the most politically advanced of the revolutionary class should formally organize and prepare for revolution, a concept Marx himself participated in.
Some people’s needs aren’t being met in the west or they’re rightfully upset of the mistreatment of the global south so they decide to become contrarian to oppose the western oligarchs and politicians.
So they become contrarian. I don’t think it’s a decision.
Tribalism
They opposed one tribe so they joined another
This. Treating politics like team sports.
These kinds of answers are just the silliest. If you don’t know why we think the things we do—which you obviously don’t—then don’t “contribute” to the conversation with the first thing that pops into your head. It’s okay to not know things.
For the same reason people fall into fascism. Capitalism is putting the screws to people. Rent is too high, food is too expensive, people are on a treadmill, and dissatisfaction hangs in the air like miasma. People are mad, and they don’t know at what. They sense something is rotten, they dont have the words. Fascism co-opts leftist talking points, but pulls a bait and switch with the Jews and migrants and whoever.
Tankies also start from this choking miasma, you look at Tankie propaganda, its compelling. The US commited genocide and war crimes, and is more racist than you know. Capitalists are terrible, yadda yadda you know it. Tankie propaganda also frames politics as a team sport. When you look at the US (or you can look at it as the “Nato Empire,” which can be an interesting way to think about it), as the ultimate evil, can be easy to see anyone opposing them as good or worth supporting.
Pretty standard radicalization pipeline stuff I think. Groupthink gets enforced by mockery and removing dissenting views, accessible memes to get new people interested, sense of community and belonging that is conditional on being uncritical about the dogma. Everything gets framed as being about which side you are on, and discourse is seen as a means to advance the cause and not a way to consider what is true. They are visibly criticizing the US empire, people recognize that as correct and unfortunately buy into the idea that the other side must be the good guys.
I find myself endless reminding people that there isn’t always a “good guy”. Sometimes it’s bad guys vs bad guys or bad guys vs worse guys.
telling people they are bad people usually doesn’t go over well with those people.
most everybody wants to be the hero and be on the side of good. very few people actively seek to be evil, but a lot of them are totally ok doing evil if they think it’s for a greater good. mass murder and human suffering is totally justifiable if the goal of it is to advance your utopian beliefs, it’s not so justifiable for its own sake.
Yeah, this is spot on.
It’s all about playing into the bias of psychology and controlling the narrative. Truth is to be ignored, and everything/everyone is to be subordinated to the ‘cause’, which is usually a form of idealism wherein the ends justify the means, no matter how awful the consequences of the means would be.
Hence the ‘killing a few million folks is necessary for the ‘freedom’ of 100 million’ types of rationalizations.
Brother, you’re brainwashed and bigoted.
Hey can you explain to a person who thinks CIA is evil but also think CCP committed atrocities how I am brainwashed? It feels like extremism to believe one atrocity but not the other… in either direction.
Your underlying assumption is that if the US Empire is evil, then any meaningful alternative must be just as evil, or comparably so. This isn’t based on factual analysis so much as it is the baked-in distrust of the idea that others might actually be doing alright.
but there is no “assumption” I am operating under. My default position for any institution is distrust. People as individuals I empathise. People as groups I don’t trust.
I have no illusions that others are doing alright. On the contrary. I think “doing alright” is an insidious way of sweeping your dead bodies under the proverbial rug for the sake of “the greater good”. Easiest way to lose your humanity.
No amount of greater good can justify doing evil.
Factual analysis is a myth. People draw their own conclusions as they see fit, let alone assuming there is no bias or error in the data. Introspection, admitting to failure, looking out for one another are the missing gems to find nowadays.
This is just your own personal justification for not doing any investigation, yet feeling comfortable with repeating claims a group we already have established lies about their enemies. We aren’t talking about any sort of moralism here, but analyzing concrete reality and continuously engaging with it to further and deepen our knowledge of it.
There’s absolutely nothing insidious about me saying that the enemies of the US Empire are not the evil empires the US alleges them to be. To the contrary, my goal is to understand the world so as to change it for the better. Conjuring up ideas of dead bodies where they either do not exist or exist in far smaller quantities than portrayed by geopolitical enemies does a service to the far greater evil in legitimizing their demonization, furthering their goals.
This is just your own personal justification
the gaslighting continues.
You seem smug about your own “well learnedness” but fail to think about the claim
there is nothing insidious about me saying that the enemies of the US empire are not the evil empires the US alleges them to be.
But I am not the US am I. And I am not arguing this. I am saying atrocities are conveniently dusted off saying “there is no evidence” while also asking people to waste their time to provide said evidence only for you to dismiss it as hearsay.
My goal is to understand the world so as to change it
you’re unwilling to admit the skeletons in your own closet for which evidence exists.
Conjuring up ideas of dead bodies where they do not exist where they do not exist or exist in far smaller quantities than portrayed
which is it? as a neutral observer you’re just playing the same goalshifting and fingerpointing as western imperialist apologists. Don’t pretend you’re any different.
I’m not gaslighting you, your comment is assuming there’s concrete evidence we are not acknowledging. That’s the fundamental basis point, and your justification is that we know the US Empire is bad. I didn’t bring up the US Empire because of assuming you’re statesian, but because it’s the world hegemon.
Propaganda and self interest. Pick whatever story is being told that you feel like picking and that’s it.
I empathize with some of the thinking, but I don’t necessarily agree with it. To keep it simple, imagine how many different world powers are working to sabotage openly Socialist and Communist governments. What kinds of tools and resources might these world powers have at their disposal? I can’t imagine being part of a disfavored leftist government and not becoming haggard and paranoid beyond reason.
The world is too absurd right now and in order to best fit into it the easiest way possible you must take on the mantle of absurdity yourself. There is not a lot of self-awareness or self-knowledge within these lazy thinkers.
historically, it’s not absurd. it’s a return to the historical mean. it only feels absurd because people think post ww2 western prosperity is what we are suppose to have.
for most of history the nobility and wealthy and powerful controlled 99% of everything and everyone else has a existing of poverty and subsistence. the idea of a robust and large middle class is largely a product of industrialization and post ww2 order.
we are moving back into the historical norm of a subservient population who mostly exists to build the wealth of the elites with zero chance of ever obtaining any of that wealth themselves. and a lot of the tankies and other weirdos lean into this by mythologizing peasant/serf life as if it is so much better than modern middle class life. they claim they are going to bring in some utopia of utopia, but their vision ultimately will result in a highly unequal society that is more medieval than it is modern.
102·17 hours agoWhat the fuck are you talking about?
As a couple of poster here are already demonstrating, they discover that western nations have lied about communist nations, but they don’t learn the more fundamental lesson that they shouldn’t trust everything a nation says. So instead of adopting a nuanced view, they just counter believing everything a western nation says with rejecting everything a western nation says and instead believing everything a communist nation says.
Kinda like how when someone finds god, they go hardcore devout-mode, only surprisingly…. More ignorant.
instead believing everything a “communist” nation says.
Your comment is on point, but it is your username that makes it perfect
Burn the palaces, baby 😎
Not a tankie, but this kind of framing is reductionist and condescending. It’s possible for someone to study the spectrum of political ideology and rationally decide that Communism is the best system. It’s honestly disheartening that a non-falsifiable claim presented with zero evidence would garner this many upvotes on this platform.
Hey I can understand your frustration at their supposedly misplaced reasoning. But you have to let them have that view for some time so their own experience can align it closer to what you believe is happening. It shouldn’t be disheartening that people might have incorrect explanations of how the world works for some time.
THANK you. I was considering saying something similar here, and did in response to another ignorant, self-assuaging user elsewhere in the thread. So I’ll just say the same thing I said to them, as a response to WatDabney above:
If you read the many comments in this thread, not to mention other threads on this topic, a significant chunk of western leftists who are ML arrive at Marxism Leninism only after going through a more anarchist phase, and only through a lot of examination of the world and themselves, coupled with a lot of study and reading, do they move from anarchism to come to recognize the undeniable accuracy of Marxism Leninism to reflect the real world and to offer an actually-working methodology for revolution.
Your fallacious description of people’s process towards becoming Marxist Leninists as being the same sort of way that poor, ignorant, emotionally needy people latch onto a cult, is ridiculous, and the kind of things liberals like to say of all of us on the anticapitalist left to comfort themselves into maintaining their simplistic “I’m right but they’re wrong” worldview and avoid having to engage with the many real reasons people become anticapitalists. But that’s what you’re doing. Don’t be like the liberals. Try to understand the real why of things, don’t make up nice little bedtime stories that ensure you don’t have to examine your own misconceptions.
And some of them just get born into it.
No one is born into Marxism Leninism, anarchism, or any other ideology, and saying that is a grotesquely anti-anarchist thing to say.
And to add to that, when first coming to realize the lies you’ve been told by the state you live under, it is a lack of nuance to immediately jump to the false premise that just because your state is bad, that must mean all states are bad. That’s just the easy and childish answer. That doesn’t make it inherently wrong, but it does make it the one that requires further examination and sometimes a hard look at ones misconceptions. MLs are the ones who have done that hard work, not the ones who have fallen for the easy, un-nuanced end point. As someone else here went into a lot of detail describing but I can’t find at the moment, the typical and more easy trajectory for a young leftist is to go from disillusionment at their own state to anarchism. It is only after a lot more learning, examination, and recognition of nuance, that a person comes to see that the understandable kneejerk reaction that “all of them are evil!” is naive, simplistic, and totally lacking the nuance these things need.
It takes more internal work to conclude that “oh wow, all these other things I assumed were just the flat truth, common knowledge, - like how evil the communist states were and how bad they were for their people - were actually just more lies I was being told for a reason.” Which is why we have so many young anarchists who over time become ML’s but only rarely the other way around. @WatDabney@lemmy.dbzer0.com has it exactly backwards.
Uh, I don’t think you understood their point. Tankies aren’t communists, they’re authoritarians with a red paint job. We’re not talking about nuanced Marxist thinkers, we’re taking about people who think “Just line everyone who doesn’t accept my exact interpretation of communism up against the wall” is rational praxis.
There are plenty of ways to rationally arrive at Communism, but really the only way to get to Tankie is, as the top comment says, rejecting Western propaganda in favor of the propaganda of so-called “communists”.
You are right that we cannot know and understand the life of every individual in a group, but we may observe typical or aggregate behavior, and we may seek reasonable inferences.
Tankies express a general pattern of behavior that is bad faith.
They quote passages instead of explaining from personal comprehension. They attack individuals against an opportunity to discuss ideas. They defer to doctrine instead of reasoning independently. They anchor to absurd lies about anarchists. They lie and deny instead of admitting to problems. They rely on disingenuous rhetoric such as the motte-and-bailey fallacy.
Such observations converge on a pattern of anchoring to convictions for reasons that are unrigorous, prejudiced, and generally misguided.
Yep.
I’m perhaps older than some here, so I saw something similar after 9/11.
Western media, especially American media, were often blatantly biased in favour of the US government and the so called ‘war on terror’. Especially when stuff leaked out about torture, mass killings and abuses. People turned to alternatives and often found channels like Russia Today. And to be fair, at first glance Russia Today did (certainly at the time) appear to be far more nuanced than mainstream media. It was certainly and often justifiably critical of what the US and its allies was up to around that time. But people who spent a lot of time uncritically watching Russia Today, often ended up believing the Russian government propaganda mixed in with truths.
I think it’s also in large part due to the human tendency to simplify reality. Reality is often complex, but we prefer to thing in categories, like black and white. And so you often see people thinking in or blindly accepting false binaries. Side A bad, so side B
badgood. (e: brain fart)It’s surprisingly common. I mean, look how common it is to think of Germany as the bad guy in WWI, when the reality was far more nuanced. The British empire really wasn’t great.
And in WWII the nazis were obviously evil, but that doesn’t mean the allies were particularly good either. For example, Roosevelt didn’t do that much to stop the deportation of up to 2 million Mexicans and Mexican Americans, putting Japanese Americans in concentration camps wasn’t moral, America was still virulently racist, and contrary to what you may have been led to believe about the Soviets up to 1 in 4 rapes by allied troops were perpetrated by Americans. Churchill arguably helped kill up to 4 million Indians during the war. Etc. etc.
I think it’s also in large part due to the human tendency to simplify reality. Reality is often complex, but we prefer to thing in categories, like black and white. And so you often see people thinking in or blindly accepting false binaries. Side A bad, so side B bad.
Agreed.
Nuance is difficult, and arguably more to the point, it’s sort of vague and insubstantial, not least because an awful lot of it necessariky boils down to “I don’t know.” People generally prefer something more solid to which to cling, so tend toward absolutes and unjustified certainties. And the most attractive ones are binaristic, because then you don’t even have to provide support for your claimed position - all you have to do is find fault with the (generally falsely dichotomous) alternative.
The Post 9/11 situation with Mass Media and RT is why it’s so desperately important for a Government to not lie or cover up it’s actions. Another example of this is Al Jazeera. The US Government’s dedication to hiding its dirty deeds opened the door for AJ to establish credibility which they later used against the US and it’s Government.
