this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2024
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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.
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Yeah i like communism and all but can't for the life of me figure out why they like russia and china . Is it because there used to be (a kind of) communism there ? I stand for the idea of communism not the people or places that are (kinda) associated with them .
Tbh I can see how communism is a pretty romantic ideal utopia but when you look at the people proposing communism it's consistently been used as a sort of scam to take power and the freedom of the people that they rule over its like the geopolitical version of saying hey I've been trying to contact you about your cars extended warranty
Even when there are serious people reforming systems to provide more rights and equality they jump in and sell a more radical version to take power. It also doesn't help that the KGB used that as a signature move to install pro soviet dictatorships. Personally I've always thought democracy would be the stable way to move to the left. But we need to have actual education and get past the neo liberals drip feeding us reforms.
Cowbee explains this.
i can understand if you hate china if all you know about it is western propaganda.
i dont think many tankies "love" modern day russia
Well care to cmv i am not the one to act like i am very good at politics or know everything and i am open to changing my views if i am presented with information that proves me wrong .
i wrote this in this thread but basically we use the term "critical support", meaning we dislike modern russia in general but support its current goals of pushing back US influence.
this helps us because every time the US interferes anywhere that isnt the west, we end up much worse off than before. this can be for a variety of economic and political reasons, but we generally call it imperialism or neocolonialism.
my own country was interfered with recently and we are still reeling from it.
China is basically still communist, though apparently they have mixed with capitalism as well, and so is Russia basically, with the Russian communist party still a party in Russia and is the 2nd largest party in the country.
Wut?
Russia sold off all of the publicly owned industries to their now plutocracy, and China having a mixed economy is exactly not communism.
The United States has a communist party and a mixed economy, no one would ever argue the US is Communist (expect maybe Republicans when a Democrat takes office.)
china is a market socialism or dengist, which means taking a couple of steps back from building socialism to be able to participate in the (capitalist) global markets until they have self sufficiency to fully cut back on the capitalist aspects currently pervading it, and survive the sanctions that will invariably come.
they currently have the goal of being a fully socialist economy by the 2050s. xi is already taking some action in this direction but we don't expect it to happen overnight.
on the other hand, russia is currently fully capitalist, yes, but they dont kneel for the US hegemony which is why we support some of their goals.
Dengism as it really exists is not market socialism, it's not even a proper social market economy (broadly speaking the EU model). Welfare is full of cracks people fall though, billionaires exist, arguably to a larger degree than in Europe. Neither is the case under market socialism which you should rather understand as "communism without central planning and councils relegate decision making to the market in certain areas" than the half state capitalist half private capitalist system China has going on.
Actually, France comes close: China is dirigisme without unions, worker's, or generally human rights. And infinitely more corrupt.
im not 100% in agreement with it, but yes dengism is the doctrine that gave rise to the current market socialism in china, still very much in line with marxism if much slower than the transition in the ussr. very much on track to a fully socialist economy.
you trying to argue france is more socialist than china? what?? france is literally one of the most capitalist and imperialist nations on earth. are you aware africans have to be exploited for some of france's nuclear reactors to be powered on right? shit, most of the continent is in as bad shape as it is largely because of france...
im sorry but im struggling to see much sense in what you said. are you just trolling? in any case let me just say "welfare state" or "assistentialism" isn't what socialism is at all, and you should really look into how the so-called developed nations in the EU acquired their wealth...
France has, for European standards, a very large state sector. That's what I was saying: They very much don't shy away from taking state money and whipping it around in the economy to direct it -- hence the term dirigisme. And no all those state-run nuclear power plants don't need Nigerian uranium to run, they run on uranium from anywhere, and in fact do. Kazakhstan, Australia and Canada are all giant producers which don't happen to be Russia or Nigeria.
By and large colonialism has been a net economical loss for France.
And don't get me started on China and imperialism, just like Russia China, in its current form, is an imperial empire. France's attitude towards its colonial history is a whole other topic but at least they don't currently have a genocide going on.
Also France has better healthcare, pension, heck even housing and that's despite of Banlieus.
socialism doesnt have much to do with how big the state is, and aims ultimately to end it. thats a very common strawman for comparing apples to oranges though.
ahahahahahahahahahahaha what the fuck. try to find out what european interests are doing to africa if you want to have a peek at actually real imperialism and genocide, happening right now. nothing about history here, this is still the present.
i was actually going to engage further but you are either trolling or need to seriously humble yourself and leave the bubble you are in, because the stuff you are saying is comically nonfactual.
I never claimed it did. I was comparing France and China. Both have a large state sector, and both have capitalist economies. Again, please, have a look at the number of Chinese billionaires you don't get there without capital accumulation.
"It's only imperialism and genocide if it's profitable", is that what you're saying?
China has a Socialist Market Economy post-Dengist reforms. Russia is a borgeois dictatorship, the Communist Party in Russia is behind the current ruling Nationalist Party, as you've said, so it is not Communist or even Socialist.
They are authoritarian yknow the exact opposite of communism ?
Russia is a Bourgeois Dictatorship so it cannot be Communist. China has a Socialist Market Economy, which is a transitional state towards Communism along traditional Marxist lines.
You may want to read Engels' On Authority, strong government power isn't enough to consider something anti-Communist, at least according to traditional Marxism.
Note: that doesn't mean a strong government is good, necessarily, it just means that it is compatible with Socialism and thus not inherently anti-Communist.
But i do not thibk of mao or marxist as true communists as even tho they maybe considered as communists the things they did does not sit as good with me and seems a little anti-communist and i don't value their ideals or words because of that . I know i may not be a real communist as while i do like some communist ideologies i do not like the people or places that are often associated with it
You don't have to like or agree with Marx, Engels, Lenin, or Mao to still understand that they were truly Communists. At the same time, it's absolutely fine to not be a Communist. You might be a Liberal or an Anarchist or even a Conservative, as long as you think deeply about your views and study them as much as you're able, that's enough.
Hmm maybe definetly not conservative tho hate like 99.99% of their views and ideologies but i do usually vote for communists and encourage others to do the same .
In that case, I suggest studying Marxism and Anarchism. Try reading Marx, Engels, even Lenin for Marxism, and try reading Kropotkin and Goldman for Anarchism.
Reading Principles of Communism by Engels, How Marxism Works by Chris Harman, and The Conquest of Bread by Kropotkin might be eye-opening for you.
Will do .