Remember kids, Tankies wants to undermine democracy - same as facists.
this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2023
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They very much are, pretty much any western state has an ML party with practically military discipline. They're cultists, of course they have strict organisational structures -- see "democratic" centralism.
On the other hand they're also deeply fractional -- much more so than the liberal and anti-ideological left which may have more overt disagreements but actually manages to work across those boundaries because they don't consider each other literal fascists, what keeps tankies together is their capacity to ignore fundamental disagreements within their wider in-group, like, random example, ignoring China's backwards stance on sexual minorities. Maybe a bit cartoonish but if you fly a red flag, are an authoritarian and know the right combination of selective quotes (always watch out for [...] in anything a tankie says) they will believe that you're on the same side. But precisely that "ignore everything but the shibboleths" kind of approach means that they don't get shit done: If they tried to they'd have to face their fundamental disagreements.
The other thing that keeps them from doing things in the real world is that they're too busy wanking off to their own perceived superiority. Lemmygrad is simply an online version of that kind of cult.
No. They want to be landlords. They want all the power capitalists have and centralise it, that is literally what state capitalism means.
That's true, big-picture. But within the left tankies and adjacent styles of thinking, things like purity checking culture, are very much a problem that keeps the American left from being effective, in general and of course as chemotherapy against fascism. You won't see them participating in Antifa, feed the homeless, or get social housing or public transport built.
Unlike all the people commenting on this post!
This is just another stupid online factionalism post. None of what anybody says online (especially on a tiny niche forum) matters one fucking bit.
This is what matters. And I guarantee you there are MLs participating in black bloc protests, Food not Bombs, and all sorts of other useful things you can think of, but your tendency doesn't matter when you're actually out there helping people. Did you turn to your fellow protestors and ask them what they think about China or what they think about some shit that happened a hundred years ago? Or did you just do what needed to be done in the moment?
You sure you aren't a tankie or why else would you use the word with a negative connotation? When two actual leftists meet there's going to be three factions, yes, but shit is still going to get done. Factions means plurality, plurality means diversity of tactics, all that is good shit.
MLs, yes. As in Trots and stuff. But actual tankies? Nope. That would require a capacity to cooperate, they even discourage participation internally (mostly by claiming it's a waste of time, doesn't contribute to the revolution, whatnot) as it's dangerous to them, in the sense that people who have not yet completely bought into the cult might choose praxis over brainwashing: Those things are by and large run by Anarchists, with Anarchist organisation principles, and that shit working flies right into the face of democratic centralism.
...okay. I guess I missed the dude with the clipboard checking everyone's tendency at the protests but I guess you saw him.
I think posts like this are just emblematic of being too online. And if, like you're saying, tankies don't do anything because that would be counterrevolutionary or whatever, then what's the problem? Keyboard warriors aren't changing shit.
I find all this weird exclusively online rhetoric around what's an acceptable type of communist to be exhausting. My metric of whether or not someone is a good communist is if they help their community and help workers. You can have whatever takes you want on the kulaks or the Hungarian revolution as long as you're standing next to me at the soup kitchen. You know why? Because nobody's thoughts about the Hungarian revolution or even the war in Ukraine matter one iota. In the west we're all so far from even seeing a lever of power that it doesn't matter one whit what any of us think. There's not about to be a tankie coup d'etat of the American government any sooner than an anarchist one.
All this post and the responses to it are are leftists wrestling in the mud to see who can have the fewest allies when they get crushed by global capital.
Oh it's not at all exclusively online. Like, I'd prefer not to be put into a gulag, thank you, or have a vanguard start revolutions when conditions aren't met, ultimately delaying the actual fall of capitalism. This shit has real-world implications, and them being tolerated in online places gives them power to recruit, to propagandise, ultimately to act like that AFK so we can't have that.
Yes I'm saying tankies should be deplatformed. Deal with it.
See? This is the shit I'm talking about. All of your fears of tankies throwing you in the gulag are predicated on some sort of revolution happening. Do you really think that's imminent? Like, look around. Name a prominent tankie who is poised to lead the vanguard and replace the government of whatever country you live in.
You're just telling yourselves ghost stories.
"Deplatform" whoever you want, but none of this online shit matters. There's no class consciousness in the US, there isn't likely to be any anytime soon, and should it ever materialize they won't be third-worldists.
Irrelevant. Utterly irrelevant. The proper revolution requires there to be no people who would put people in gulags, or people who would need to be put into gulags. Advocating for, justifying, or excusing gulags in the name of the revolution thus is counterrevolutionary. And yes it's not imminent, it's beyond several horizons. (inb4 you call me gradualist and think that's an insult).
Largely because McCarthyism, the perpetuation of which tankies play right into with their Soviet nostalgia and authoritarian state capitalism. If in 50 years files get declassified and it turns out that the US government has been pushing tankie idiology and structures as some kind of COINTELPRO operation to disparage the broader left I wouldn't be surprised. The consequences of you actions, man, have a look at them.
Talk about irrelevant. You yourself recognize it's not happening anytime soon. So explain why any of this matters. Go do what you can to help your community. There's no revolution coming, so we should all just be doing what we can to ameliorate the effects of capitalism. If it's your hobby to have little arguments online that's fine (it's one of my hobbies too!), but don't pretend you're actually laying the groundwork for anything.
You think the reason there's no class consciousness in the US is because tankies enjoy Soviet aesthetics? Buddy that's not even top 50 on the list. Fucking Marvel movies are higher on the list of reasons why there's no class consciousness in the US than the online weirdos who wear ushankas.
I already did. Somewhat curiously, you ignored it all in favour of dreaming up a point about fucking aesthetics (that's not what nostalgia means) and... hats. Which aren't even Soviet, the general idea (ie. hat with ears) existed since practically forever from Russia to the Balkans and Scandinavia, the current form was thought up by the white army, and the red army refused to copy it until getting their asses kicked in the winter war, finally realising that reciting Marx doesn't keep soldiers warm.
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I agree that the purity check politics is counter intuitive, and also why they pose no threat of violent revolution in the west. The real threat to Western Capital comes from what the they have labled Cultural Marxism because the glaring hypocrisies of Capitalism are impossible to logically refute, hence the rise of Fascism. Also:
State capitalism is not worker ownership. Hence the "capitalism" part. Say what you want about Lenin but he used accurate terminology, there.
I mean literally literally means literally not 'kinda a bit if you look with a squint and ignore the rest'
I get the urge to make your point but imagine you see someone talking about baking and they say 'sugar is just dry salt' you're not going to listen to anything they say