this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2023
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Tankiejerk
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Dunking on Tankies from a leftist perspective.
A tankie is someone who defends/supports authoritarian or even totalitarian regimes who call themselves "socialist". The term originated from people supporting the 1956 invasion of Hungary by the Soviet Union. Nowadays they are just terminally online, denying genocides, and falling for totalitarian propaganda and calling such regimes "true democracies". remember to censor usernames when necessary.
Please be sure to obscure usernames on posts to prevent doxxing.
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That's actually Leninist theory, Marx never went that direction. And Lenin was the one who betrayed the revolution to seize power, followed by a true despot in Stalin.
The actual origin of the terms Left and Right go back a bit further than Marx, they go back to the French Revolution. There was a vote, the question was, "Should the king have an absolute veto over new laws passed by the assembly" Those who said yes sat on the right of the podium, those who said no sat on the left.
Those on the left wanted no king at all, they wanted the people to have the power.
Communism was only deemed a left-wing ideology because the people held the power, not the wealthy few.
As a note, conservatism was also created out of the French Revolution, as a sort of blowback against it. It uses wealth to create and enforce social hierarchies.
Anyway, once you've betrayed the revolution and installed a dictator, communism is not considered left-wing, it's a tool of authoritarianism, where the king owns all and merely allows the peasants to live in his kingdom.