I wish I had the patience to go and post this in reply to every tankie I’ve seen today defending the “honour” of this piece of shit in the name of Iranians who they’ve convinced themselves they can speak for (yet somehow never speak up for their best interests, only in defence of their “great leaders” interests, curious… 🤔🙄).
The only regret of the people of Iran and the families of the survivors of the horrific crimes committed by the mercenaries of reaction and tyranny, over the death of Ebrahim Raisi, is that the opportunity for his historic trial in the not-too-distant future has been lost.
Right, and they call anyone who disagrees with them, even actual communists, “McCarthyists” 🤦♀️🤦♀️
Seriously though, anyone who sees any reason whatsoever for communists to support the Iranian government mustn’t have a single fucking clue what communism is about… They’re a fucking joke (if only they didn’t go around giving leftists such a bad name)…
That’s a fantastic, and not at all surprising piece of information though, thanks for sharing!
Tankies are people who claim to be communists, but who exclusively support authoritarians and their oppressive regimes, past and present, because these authoritarians call themselves communists (think believing Nazis were socialists because it was in their party name), even though their actions have nothing at all to do with communism, and fascists co-opting leftist language to gain power being a well documented phenomenon.
It’s pretty easy to tell really: if a project is/was stateless, classless, and moneyless - congratulations, it’s almost certainly communism, and those who support it are communists (or possibly one of several varieties of anarchist, like myself).
However if one or any of those conditions aren’t met, and/or there is a single dictator or a small group of cronies holding on to power claiming they’ve been met, but the reality is clearly different - congratulations, you basically have run of the mill fascism on your hands and those who support it are tankies (who, as I pointed out in OP, almost always speak up and in defence of a “dear leader” but never in defence of the people themselves, because all they care about is the regime, not the people living under it).
In the case of the fediverse, there are a couple of dedicated instances almost exclusively occupied by tankies, who have made it their goal to essentially troll and brigade anyone who doesn’t agree with their, frankly bizarre, views (calling it “dialectics” to make themselves feel better). They’re generally easy to avoid though, by blocking individuals, or their entire instance.
From what I’ve been told, it originally was communist countries that use tanks against their people (like Tienanmen Square). It’s getting muddled by the countries that use tanks against their people, so I don’t know what it has become.
To my understanding this means historically a western communist who supported the USSR’s interventions (with tanks, hence the name) in Eastern European countries (Hungary, Czechoslovakia, maybe also East Germany) when the Warsaw Pact was a thing. More broadly someone who thinks the Soviet Union was a good regime.
I wish I had the patience to go and post this in reply to every tankie I’ve seen today defending the “honour” of this piece of shit in the name of Iranians who they’ve convinced themselves they can speak for (yet somehow never speak up for their best interests, only in defence of their “great leaders” interests, curious… 🤔🙄).
Yeah, western tankies especially can be very weird. Meanwhile, the actual communist party of Iran has nothing good to say about him.
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Right, and they call anyone who disagrees with them, even actual communists, “McCarthyists” 🤦♀️🤦♀️
Seriously though, anyone who sees any reason whatsoever for communists to support the Iranian government mustn’t have a single fucking clue what communism is about… They’re a fucking joke (if only they didn’t go around giving leftists such a bad name)…
That’s a fantastic, and not at all surprising piece of information though, thanks for sharing!
Damn, based.
It should be noted that the Tudeh party has it’s HQ in Europe, hence them being all Bertie Big Bollocks about this news. They are banned in Iran.
The communists also helped overthrow the CIA puppet regime in the first place, which seems to have helped them not one jot.
What’s a tankie? I keep seeing that term on Lemmy and nowhere else. I feel like I should know it by now.
Tankies are people who claim to be communists, but who exclusively support authoritarians and their oppressive regimes, past and present, because these authoritarians call themselves communists (think believing Nazis were socialists because it was in their party name), even though their actions have nothing at all to do with communism, and fascists co-opting leftist language to gain power being a well documented phenomenon.
It’s pretty easy to tell really: if a project is/was stateless, classless, and moneyless - congratulations, it’s almost certainly communism, and those who support it are communists (or possibly one of several varieties of anarchist, like myself).
However if one or any of those conditions aren’t met, and/or there is a single dictator or a small group of cronies holding on to power claiming they’ve been met, but the reality is clearly different - congratulations, you basically have run of the mill fascism on your hands and those who support it are tankies (who, as I pointed out in OP, almost always speak up and in defence of a “dear leader” but never in defence of the people themselves, because all they care about is the regime, not the people living under it).
In the case of the fediverse, there are a couple of dedicated instances almost exclusively occupied by tankies, who have made it their goal to essentially troll and brigade anyone who doesn’t agree with their, frankly bizarre, views (calling it “dialectics” to make themselves feel better). They’re generally easy to avoid though, by blocking individuals, or their entire instance.
Thanks for the in-depth explanation.
No problem, glad I could help.
Just to add, pelespirit is more or less right about the origin of the word, you can read more on the wiki
So would someone who thinks North Korea is a democracy because it’s in the name, “Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea” be a Tankie?
From what I’ve been told, it originally was communist countries that use tanks against their people (like Tienanmen Square). It’s getting muddled by the countries that use tanks against their people, so I don’t know what it has become.
To my understanding this means historically a western communist who supported the USSR’s interventions (with tanks, hence the name) in Eastern European countries (Hungary, Czechoslovakia, maybe also East Germany) when the Warsaw Pact was a thing. More broadly someone who thinks the Soviet Union was a good regime.
I’m so glad I don’t really see them much anymore