• Krono@lemmy.today
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    47
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    1 day ago

    “Tankie” does not come from Tiananmen Square, that is a common misconception. The term “tankie” is 33 years older than the Tiananmen Square massacre.

    It originated to describe people who supported the 1956 Soviet Union military intervention in Hungary. Stalin sent in a bunch of T-35 tanks to crush the Hungarian Revolution. He was successful, and thousands of people died in the process.

    Ever since then, “tankie” has been used as a derogatory term against Stalinists, Marxist-Leninists, communists, and leftists in general.

    • unfreeradical@slrpnk.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      46 minutes ago

      The term mostly had been invoked by anti-authoritarian leftists derisively toward anyone who still supported the Soviet Union. In time, the usage generalized to apply broadly to authoritarian leftists, such as Marxist-Lenininsts (or Stalinists).

      Now is it largely misused by liberals to designate anyone strongly critical of Western imperialism, which includes everyone from anarchists to campists.

    • Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      17
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 day ago

      To be fair, tanks seem to be a favored tool of these oppressive regimes. I’m personally not against communism, they have some good ideas like universal child care, guaranteed jobs, and housing (even though the latter may be considered sub-par by some). The problem comes when these fucking authoritarian cheerleaders come out and say communist governments were never oppressive.

      • Tatar_Nobility@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        20
        arrow-down
        11
        ·
        edit-2
        15 hours ago

        The “oppression” you’re referring to is confiscating the properties of bourgeois capitalists and landlords, and imprisoning them and their accomplices in case of resistance. This confiscation and appropriation by the state is what makes free, universal care and other social benefits possible. It’s absurd to expect the features of communism without the policies behind them.

        Also, the idea that authoritarian socialist governments just have a sadistic tendency to oppress and torture poor peasants is deeply unserious and a work of imagination created by western capitalist propaganda.

        • TheObviousSolution@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          45 minutes ago

          Citations in an uncensored medium needed.

          “Confiscating the properties of <insert populist excuse here>, imprisoning them and their accomplices in case of resistance. This confiscation and appropriation by the state is what makes <insert idealistic talking points that funny enough always seem to fall by the way side in terms of a priority to rounding up people yet is always the goal supposedly being reached> possible.”

          This seems like an instantiation of neocolonialism adlibs. Is your name Trump, Netanyahu, or Putin by any chance? The fact that you imply that these are in any way a requirement for universal care or social benefits gives your game away.

        • belluck@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          13
          arrow-down
          7
          ·
          14 hours ago

          The oppression they’re referring to is shooting at protestors wanting democratic reforms. The comment before that literally gives an example, the least you could do is look into it.

          • Tatar_Nobility@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            12
            arrow-down
            7
            ·
            edit-2
            14 hours ago

            First of all, socialist governments, like any other government, did not use force on protestors unless provoked by seditious behavior (i.e. coup attempt or political unrest), and only in proportion, which was the case in Hungary and in China. Stories about tanks crushing the bodies of protestors is fictitious. Also, the history of the Soviet Union, the PRC and other socialist polities is filled with workers protests that were left unaltered because they are a natural part in the process of building socialism. Thus, the idea that freedom of expression was inexistent under socialism is false, which leads me to my second point.

            The claim that the riots in socialist states called for “democratic” reforms is the furthest thing from the truth. In the case of Hungary, the 1956 uprising was orchestrated by the Prime Minister in order to establish a capitalist multi-party system and restore the property of the big landowners after they were purged in the preceding decade and their industries nationalized by the state. If you consider this to be “democracy” then you cannot consider yourself to be a leftist.

            • unfreeradical@slrpnk.net
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              27 minutes ago

              Thousands were killed in the uprising.

              The demands largely emphasized national sovereignty and labor conditions, not restoration of appropriated property to the bourgeoisie.

              Justifying an invasion, an act of aggression over international borders, under the characterization of sedition is simply begging the question of the legitimacy of the established structure of governance.

              By this point, Soviet governance was failing to produce improved conditions for workers, and much of the working class was disinterested in further personal sacrifice for a prolonged struggle against the capitalist core.

          • Tatar_Nobility@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            11
            arrow-down
            7
            ·
            13 hours ago

            300 communists were arrested and imprisoned by the Provisional Revolutionary Committee but hundreds of others escaped. The prison warden, Shustov, claimed to be an anarchist and planned to execute 23 Bolshevik prisoners, although the execution was prevented by the arrival of the Red Army.

            The mutiny was supported by members of the White Army and British foreign minister George Curzon encouraged the Finnish government to intervene against the Bolsheviks.

            On 17 March, the mutiny was defeated and Petrichenko ordered the crews of Sevastopol and Petropavlovsk to destroy their ships and go to Finland. The soldiers did not follow orders and arrested many members of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee. In May, Petrichenko went to Finland and joined the White Army under General Pyotr Wrangel.

            Source.

      • InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        9 hours ago

        I’m personally not against communism, they have some good ideas like universal child care, guaranteed jobs, and housing (even though the latter may be considered sub-par by some).

        Tankies never seem to get that that part is not being critized, but the subversive of the movement by authoritarians.

      • Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        5
        ·
        11 hours ago

        Except you’d not get that healthcare and the rest if you didn’t pay people off.

        In theory it might seem fine, but in reality it was just a dictatorship, and quite a brutal one too.

        • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          4 hours ago

          Except you’d not get that healthcare and the rest if you didn’t pay people off.

          eh docs and nurses are pretty fucking cool but don’t work for free. of course you’re going to pay people off, they need wages ffs

          • Subdivide6857@midwest.social
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            2 hours ago

            Communism = no currency. There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of knowledge regarding communism in here. A bit of an echo chamber. It’s funny how so many can hate something so much without actually knowing what it is they’re hating. Ha.

      • OpenStars@piefed.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        9
        ·
        23 hours ago

        Extremists like to use “alternative facts” or whatever other tactics achieve their goals. The means does not matter to them, only the ends, which they feel self-righteously justifies anything to achieve.

        And then separately from that, gullible people also exist too. It is a bias that we all could fall prey to, though some of us seem more on guard against it than others.

        (Tbf, many of those claiming those alternative facts are quite aware of just how nonfactual they actually are - they simply do not care as power, rather than correctness, is all that there is to them.)

    • Cris@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      1 day ago

      Thats a really interesting bit of history, thank you for the additional context

            • Cris@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              3 hours ago

              Ohhh. I think you may have gotten confused about where you’re replying to. I hadn’t even seen them, as they weren’t in the direct chain of comments I was replying in. I was thanking Krono for explaining that tankie came from violence carried out in the Soviet Union long before the tianamen square massacre, and so the name predated that particular act of violence

              Anyway, I hope you have a lovely day :)