I keep hearing the term in political discourse, and rather than googling it, I’m asking the people who know better than Google.

  • SpookyBogMonster@lemmy.ml
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    1 hour ago

    The word Tankie originates from 1950s British Communist circles. Specifically, it was used by British Communists to derisively describe their comrades who supported the 1956 invasion of Hungary by the Soviet Union.

    Images of the Soviet invasion featured a lot of tanks, hence, “Tankie”.

    After that died down, the term didn’t come back into use really, until the 2010s, when leftists on the internet started using it in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way. It was fun to bring back a stupid sounding, incredibly niche, British slang word.

    At some point the word breached containment and started to be used by liberals, in a very cavilier sort of way. I’ve seen people use Tankie to describe anyone from Marxist-Leninists, to Marxists generally, to Leftists generally, weird right-wingers who converted to Russian Orthodoxy, pro-Palestine activists, mods of Lemmy instances someone doesn’t like.

    Shit, I’ve seen literal Anarchist get called Tankies.

    Basically, it’s a meaningless nothing word now, that’s a bit like your boomer grandpa who still thinks it’s the Red Scare, calling Joe Biden a Commie Pinko.

    So don’t worry about it too much.

  • Alsjemenou@lemy.nl
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    22 minutes ago

    It’s a derogatory term used by leftist to denote other leftist that are uncritically promoting authoritarian communist power structures (For example present in China, and Russia). They accuse tankies to be more interested in the optics of communism, than in socialist ideals. Since that’s what authoritarian regimes do, they hide behind the optics of communism/socialism.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      2 hours ago

      Not a single communist is “enamored by” the Russian Federation, we all wish the USSR had never dissolved. Communists do tend to support China, as it’s the world’s most developed socialist country. Further, all states are “authoritarian,” in that all states are means by which one class exerts its authority over the others. Communists support the working class being in charge of that authority, all communists (unless you count anarchists) support the use of the state against capitalists and fascists, and the majority of practicing communists support socialist states.

  • redhilsha@lemmy.ml
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    8 hours ago

    When a South Asian calls the British monarchy fascist or Churchill a genocider in my experience.

  • IWW4@lemmy.zip
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    7 hours ago

    OP I am glad you asked this because I don’t know. Also based on the horseshit answers you have gotten in this post it seems like no one else does either.

      • ☭RedArab🇵🇸@lemmygrad.ml
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        2 hours ago

        Come on lib send me the Tiananmen Square video of tanks doing the things you claim they do. @Williama:Genzedong

        Some answers haven’t “disappeared for mysterious reasons”, it’s for spreading misinformation. If you disagree then come on, send me a video of the “horrendous crimes committed by China in Tiananmen Square”. I fully consent. @Williama:Genzedong. Surely at least one of the “victims of the massacre” would have recorded something the “ruthless military regime” and their oh so very “despicable acts of massacre”.

        If you and other libs are annoyed that the devs are “tankies”, then go back to reddit.

        • Senal@programming.dev
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          2 hours ago

          @Williama:Genzedong

          I’m not sure what this means, is this a reference i’m supposed to know?

          Come on lib send me the Tiananmen Square video of tanks doing the things you claim they do. @Williama:Genzedong

          Not sure if this is aimed at me, but i haven’t claimed anything to do with tanks, at any point, ever.

          Some answers haven’t “disappeared for mysterious reasons”,

          That’s fair , i meant “mysterious reasons” in a less factual and more sarcasm way, but i can see how that might have not come across.

          it’s for spreading misinformation.

          That’s subjective, which is what that whole thread is about no?

          I wasn’t really emphasizing the subjectivity of the claims, as much as just pointing out that answers had been removed and they might be found in the modlog.

          You seem to have a strong opinion on this, i do not.

          If you disagree then come on, send me a video of the “horrendous crimes committed by China in Tiananmen Square”

          I’m sure you can search for whatever videos you need, i haven’t made any claims i would need to provide video evidence for.

          I won’t be providing evidence of positions i haven’t taken or claims i haven’t made, that would be silly.

          I fully consent. @Williama:Genzedong.

          Still not sure what this reference is.

          Surely at least one of the “victims of the massacre” would have recorded something the “ruthless military regime” and their oh so very “despicable acts of massacre”.

          See the above section about there being no claims or positions taken.

          If you want to imagine i’ve sent you proof of this imaginary claim i’ve made so you can be upset in your imagination , feel free.

          If you and other libs are annoyed that the devs are “tankies”, then go back to reddit.

          See above re: claims that never happened

          • AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.ml
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            6 minutes ago

            You really chopped up that comment into tiny pieces just to respond line by line and say absolutely nothing worth reading.

            What a giant eyesore waste of time

      • Senal@programming.dev
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        3 hours ago

        edit: damn, that’s a high percentage of sodium for pointing at a thing that provably exists in the modlog.

  • wieson@feddit.org
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    6 hours ago

    This term goes back to the 1968 Prague spring.

    It was an uprising, an attempt by the Czechoslovak communist party at reformation towards more democracy and freedom of the press. Then troops from other members of the Warsaw pact marched in and subdued it.

    From then on, communists who supported more democracy and freedom called the pro-quelling communists “tankies” as they marched in with tanks.

    • CommanderCloon@lemmy.ml
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      2 hours ago

      Wasn’t it recently declassified that the ~velvet revolution~ was indeed a CIA plot?

      Edit: oof wrong one, I was talking about 1956 not 1989

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      4 hours ago

      It was actually the 1956 fascist counter-revolution in Hungary, not the 1968 fascist counter-revolution in Prague, where “tankie” originated in the Communist Party of Great Britain. The term was coined because of the British tendency towards silly-sounding insults, and because the Soviet Union sent in the Red Army to stop the western-backed fascist insurrection. This caused a split in the party (as it always does in western orgs).

      The Hungarian revolt in 1956 was infested with anti-semitic pograms. MI6 funded, supplied, and trained the Hungarian counter-revolutionaries. These counter-revolutionaries were allied with fascists who were lynching Jewish people and Communists.

      "The special correspondent of the Yugoslav paper, Politika, (Nov. 13, 1956) describing the events of those days, said that the homes of Communists were marked with a white cross and those of Jews with a black cross, to serve as signs for the extermination squads. “There is no longer any room for doubt,” said the Yugoslav reporter, “it is an example of classic Hungarian fascism and of White Terror. The information,” continued this writer, “coming from the provinces tells how in certain places Communists were having their eyes put out, their ears cut off, and that they were being killed in the most terrible ways.”

      “But the forces of reaction were rapidly consolidating their power and pushing forward on the top levels, while in the streets the blood of scores of massacred Communists, Jews, and progressives was flowing.”

      “Some of the reports reaching Warsaw from Budapest today caused considerable concern. These reports told of massacres of Communists and Jews by what were described as 'Fascist elements’ …” (N.Y. Times, Nov. 1. 1956)

      “The evidence is conclusive that the entry of Soviet troops into Budapest stopped the execution of scores, perhaps thousands of Jews, for by the end of October and early November, anti-Semtic pogroms - hallmark of unbridled fascistic terror - were making their appearance, after an absence of some ten years, within Hungary.”

      "A correspondent of the Israeli newspaper Maariv (Tel Aviv) reported:

      During the uprising a number of former Nazis were released from prison and other former Nazis came to Hungary from Salzburg . . . I met them at the border . . . I saw anti-Semitic posters in Budapest . . . On the walls, street lights, streetcars, you saw inscriptions reading: “Down with Jew Gero!” “Down with Jew Rakosi!” or just simply “down with the Jews!”

      Leading rabbinical circles in New York received a cable early in November from corresponding circles in Vienna that “Jewish blood is being shed by the rebels in Hungary.” Very much later-in February, 1957-the World Jewish Congress reported that “anti-Semitic excesses occurred in more than twenty villages and smaller provincial towns during the October-November revolt.” This occurred, according to this very conservative body, because “fascist and anti-Semitic groups had apparently seized the opportunity, presented by the absence of a central authority, to come to the surface.” Many among the Jewish refugees from Hungary, the report continued, had fled from this anti-Semitic pogrom-like atmosphere (N.Y. Times, Feb. 15, 1957). This confirmed the earlier report made by the British Rabbi, R. Pozner, who, after touring refugee camps, declared that “the majority of Jews who left Hungary did so for fear of the Hungarians and not the Russians.” The Paris Jewish newspaper, Naye Presse, asserted that Jewish refugees in France claimed quite generally that Soviet soldiers had saved their lives."

      Further, the CIA also backed Hungarian resistance forces:

      Prague in 1968 was a similar fascist uprising in both cases there were some elements of progressive protest, but these were greatly overshadowed by the fascist movements. Dubcek wanted to sell out to the IMF, and restore capitalism. The idea that any of this was about “democracy” or “freedom” is silly, it was always about Cold War tactics to destabilize socialism.

      TL;DR imagine if the January 6th rioters were armed and trained by foreign governments, started lynching officials and Jewish people, and the US sent in the army to put down the insurrection. The MAGA chuds would claim that it was about “freedom” and “democracy,” but we all know that they just wanted Trump in office.

  • BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world
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    12 hours ago

    Like most words it can mean different things depending on context. I’ll do my best to cover a few without spoiling it with my own opinions.

    The most common usage is as a blanket pejorative aimed at anyone who identifies as leftist but also openly endorses authoritarian means or ends.

    There are also those who embrace the term and they are also not all the same. There are Marxist-Leninists who believe the only path to a stateless egalitarian society is through a revolutionary vanguard party. There are also those who argue that egalitarian society can only be achieved and maintained through benevolent authoritarianism.

    In any case, the term carries an implication of authoritarianism and/or revolutionary violence, hence “tanks.”

  • RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz
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    8 hours ago

    Something funny about posting the question to .ml and seeing the renoved comments at the top hah

  • Korkki@lemmy.ml
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    16 hours ago

    A slur mainly on the internet against those leftist (usually Marxists-leninist) who oppose western interventions, sanctions, coups and wars against countries and governments labeled as “authoritarian”.

    originally used by UK communists party trotskyist wing in support of Hungarian -56 crushed uprising against those who opposed it, calling them tankies. Vaguely same as “stalinist”, but it pretty much has lost that meaning in modern use.