I don’t consider tankies lefter than me.
Seriously. Tankies are authoritarians who consider themselves leftists.
Authoritarian / libertarian is on a completely different axis from left / right, no?
Only on the political compass, which uses a definition of left vs right that a lot of leftists disagree with. Really, the entire history of “left wing” politics has been about questioning and dismantling authority. The terms “left wing” and “right wing” come from the French revolution, when the people in favour of simply reforming the monarchy sat on the right side of the room, while the people who wanted to fully dismantling the monarchy sat on the left. A lot of more modern leftist thought is about questioning the power that capitalist businesses have.
Well said. Still; can you not have authoritarian left and libertarian left viewpoints? I just don’t see how questioning the power capitalist businesses have is limited to the libertarian left.
What’s wrong with the definition of left & right on the political compass? I’m not super tuned into political science but this is the first I’ve heard that many leftists have take issue with it. I have seen the authoritarian left referred to as “red fascists”, but do they not also take issue with the power capitalist businesses have?
I suppose I’d consider myself a left libertarian. The power of the state should be limited and what power is granted to the state should be used to improve the life of the people.
can you not have auth left and lib left viewpoints?
Yes, but actually no. The distinction is fundamentally unstable. If the left is constantly questioning power structures, it will inevitably turn to whatever structure the auth left comes up with.
what’s wrong with the definition of left and right on the political compass?
It’s specially economic left/right, which is almost always defined by taxation, government spending, and social welfare. While leftists usually say social welfare is a good thing, it’s not changing the fundamentals of how capitalism works, which is the current dominant power structure that leftists are against.
do auth left not also take issue with the power capitalist businesses have?
Yes, but they usually put something just as bad in its place. You might have heard people saying that the USSR was “state capitalist rather than communist”. This means that the workers and customers had just as little say in how things are run than they would under capitalists, only is was directly with the state rather than individual business owners.
Thanks, I appreciate your replies.
Worthwile to note here that the left of the French revolution, the Jacobins, did develop authoritarianism.
Which should have been a warning sign for all leftists to come, but alas…
Very well said, thank you.
They’re on the Leftest off-ramp that heads back the other way.
Shit, there’s plenty of Non Tankies to my left. Tankies want to use force to control people’s thoughts and actions.
Tankies are drunk on hierarchy and violence.
Tankies aren’t leftists in reality.
Maybe left of Nazis, but they aren’t leftists.
The political left and authoritarianism are inherently contradictory.
Its the political right that embraces authoritarianism. Hence why we call them “Red Fascists”
The political left and authoritarianism are not contradictory. Leftists are not always Libertarians, and many of them will and do trade freedom for safety regularly.
For safety, or for power.
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The political compass isn’t an objective model
Found the tankie.
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Accurate
Forgive my ignorance, what is a tankie?
Someone you dont like, with a vaguely leftist connotation.
It’s essentially a pejorative for “communist.” I recommend the Prolewiki article on “Tankies,” as well as Nia Frome’s essay “Tankies.”
“Tankie” was a pejorative for Marxists that support socialism in real life then as well as now. It originated in the Communist Party of Great Britain. The term was coined because of the British tendency towards silly-sounding insults, and because the Soviet Union sent in the Red Army to stop the western-backed fascist insurrection. This caused a split in the party (as it always does in western orgs).
The Hungarian revolt in 1956 was infested with anti-semitic pograms. MI6 funded, supplied, and trained the Hungarian counter-revolutionaries. These counter-revolutionaries were allied with fascists who were lynching Jewish people and Communists. The Truth About Hungary by Herbert Aptheker heavily relies on citing western sources like the New York Times. Aptheker backs up his claims heavily.
"The special correspondent of the Yugoslav paper, Politika, (Nov. 13, 1956) describing the events of those days, said that the homes of Communists were marked with a white cross and those of Jews with a black cross, to serve as signs for the extermination squads. “There is no longer any room for doubt,” said the Yugoslav reporter, “it is an example of classic Hungarian fascism and of White Terror. The information,” continued this writer, “coming from the provinces tells how in certain places Communists were having their eyes put out, their ears cut off, and that they were being killed in the most terrible ways.”
“But the forces of reaction were rapidly consolidating their power and pushing forward on the top levels, while in the streets the blood of scores of massacred Communists, Jews, and progressives was flowing.”
“Some of the reports reaching Warsaw from Budapest today caused considerable concern. These reports told of massacres of Communists and Jews by what were described as 'Fascist elements’ …” (N.Y. Times, Nov. 1. 1956)
“The evidence is conclusive that the entry of Soviet troops into Budapest stopped the execution of scores, perhaps thousands of Jews, for by the end of October and early November, anti-Semtic pogroms - hallmark of unbridled fascistic terror - were making their appearance, after an absence of some ten years, within Hungary.”
"A correspondent of the Israeli newspaper Maariv (Tel Aviv) reported:
During the uprising a number of former Nazis were released from prison and other former Nazis came to Hungary from Salzburg . . . I met them at the border . . . I saw anti-Semitic posters in Budapest . . . On the walls, street lights, streetcars, you saw inscriptions reading: “Down with Jew Gero!” “Down with Jew Rakosi!” or just simply “down with the Jews!”
Leading rabbinical circles in New York received a cable early in November from corresponding circles in Vienna that “Jewish blood is being shed by the rebels in Hungary.” Very much later-in February, 1957-the World Jewish Congress reported that “anti-Semitic excesses occurred in more than twenty villages and smaller provincial towns during the October-November revolt.” This occurred, according to this very conservative body, because “fascist and anti-Semitic groups had apparently seized the opportunity, presented by the absence of a central authority, to come to the surface.” Many among the Jewish refugees from Hungary, the report continued, had fled from this anti-Semitic pogrom-like atmosphere (N.Y. Times, Feb. 15, 1957). This confirmed the earlier report made by the British Rabbi, R. Pozner, who, after touring refugee camps, declared that “the majority of Jews who left Hungary did so for fear of the Hungarians and not the Russians.” The Paris Jewish newspaper, Naye Presse, asserted that Jewish refugees in France claimed quite generally that Soviet soldiers had saved their lives."
Further, the CIA also backed Hungarian resistance forces:
Prague in 1968 was a similar fascist uprising in both cases there were some elements of progressive protest, but these were greatly overshadowed by the fascist movements. Dubcek wanted to sell out to the IMF, and restore capitalism. The idea that any of this was about “democracy” or “freedom” is silly, it was always about Cold War tactics to destabilize socialism.
TL;DR imagine if the January 6th rioters were armed and trained by foreign governments, started lynching officials and Jewish people, and the US sent in the army to put down the insurrection. The MAGA chuds would claim that it was about “freedom” and “democracy,” but we all know that they just wanted Trump in office.
Nowadays, it’s used by any random anti-communist to refer to anyone that supports socialist states or doesn’t buy into the imperialist narrative about global south countries. It was the ones they call “tankies” that knew the stories of WMD and Saddam’s forces leaving babies outside of incubators were both bullshit to manufacture consent for war, but now that its decades later the anti-communists all suddenly have collective amnesia about their willing participation in spreading the lies of empire to murder hundreds of thousands of people.
A person who believes that an authoritarian state is righteous and justified as long as it calls itself communist (even if it’s not), examples being the USSR, North Korea, China, and oddly the current capitalist Russian federation. You can find a more in-depth answer here.
Nobody actually believes anything that calls itself socialist/communist is justified axiomatically. In reality, socialists supportive of what’s called “Actually Existing Socialism” support these states for their progressive advancements and socialist economies, being defined by their actual characteristics. These actual characteristics include having public ownership as the principal aspect of the economy (ie, that which is dominant, rising, and in control of the economy, typically by commanding the large firms and key industries at a minimum) and the working classes in control of the state.
Examples of AES include the PRC, DPRK, Laos, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, and depending on who you ask, Vietnam. Formerly existing socialism includes the USSR. No communist considers the Russian Federation to be AES. You’re confusing (or deliberately misleading) critical support for bourgeois states against imperialism, such as Iran, Palestine, etc, with AES.
Notably, your theory that simply calling oneself socialist/communist is enough to be considered AES falls apart immediately once considering the Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot’s Cambodia considered itself communist, yet they were stopped by the Vietnamese communists, and no Marxists really consider them to have been genuinely communists. The National Socialist Party of Germany is another example, no communist supports the Nazis despite their claims of being socialists. It isn’t the name that matters, but the structure. This isn’t even getting into disagreements between Marxist-Leninists and Maoists on groups like the Shining Path, the Naxalites, CPI (M) vs. CPI (ML), etc.
In reality, you just maintain a stance on AES that runs counter to Marxist consensus, and rather than argue against the actual reasons for that consensus, you try to sidestep that entire exercise by claiming it has to do with naming. I already explained how this is full of holes in the prior paragraph, but further emphasis is necessary: you’re describing someone that doesn’t exist.
Tankies are left?
No.
Communists are left, yes.
They’re really not.
On what planet are communists not left-wing?
This one.
By whose standards? Communism is pretty definitionally left wing.
If you believe in the horseshoe theory they aren’t. I believe in the horseshoe theory
E: uppon more research i don’t believe in the horseshoe theory per se. But in speaking to many tankies, they exhibit many traits that the far right has.
I certainly reassessed.
Hey, horseshoes aren’t a theory, they’re custom cut and nailed in place…
Yes, but horseshoes invented the theory
Sir Alex horseshoe Who was, in fact a horseshoe
Crabs truly are talented.
The biggest similarity is that we are both willing to use violence to oppress our enemies. The difference is that the enemy of communists are our oppressors and the enemy of fascist is whoever they decide to not like at the moment. The ultimate attack on capital (communism) is materially different than the ultimate defense of capital (fascism).
Fun fact though, liberalism also supports violence (or at least passively accepts it) as long as it is mostly external. We don’t get to choose non-violence. You can attack the people doing violence, join the people doing violence, or accept the people doing violence.
With the slight clarification that communists will redifine oppressors at their will, making them effectively the same in practice.
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You are a worker that doesn’t support the movement? Class traitor, gulag.
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You made a joke about dear leader? Traitor, gulag.
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You would like free elections? Foreign agent, gulag.
Anything’s possible when you make shit up
Yes, holodomor is western propaganda.
…no
Yes actually, and like all the best propaganda it’s partially true. Famine happened, people died, both verifiable facts. The extent is drastically exaggerated by western sources, allegations that it was an intentional act of genocide are baseless and hilariously hypocritical coming from the US & friends.
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I appreciate your point of view, but from my interactions here, that’s not my experience.
To be clear I am not trying to argue with you here I’m just curious what you think.
What part of what I said have you found to be untrue? What sort of interactions led you to this conclusion?
Not ignoring you, but I want to give you a proper reply, not on my phone, so I need to get on a computer, ill write you back :)
No worries, take your time
I think, it needs to be clarified, that not everything you said I would say is “untrue”, and I want to thank you for approaching this conversation constructively. I think we agree on many points, e.g. housing is a human right, as is access to food, Healthcare, water, etc.
The biggest similarity is that we are both willing to use violence to oppress our enemies.
I can’t speak to that point, so I will defer to you.
The difference is that the enemy of communists are our oppressors and the enemy of fascist is whoever they decide to not like at the moment.
I do know that fascism needs an enemy in order to function, but, from my interactions with various people who claim to be communist, they are just as happy to view anyone who dissent with their views as a sheep, or, an enemy to their cause. For example, we both agree that Israel is committing genocide, we both agree that, at the very least, Israel is certainly on its way to doing the same in Lebanon. We both agree that what the US did in Iran, and Vensuela is inexcusable (keeping it recent). Now when another country, russia, does something similar to ukraine, and, it’s called out, well now im a shit lib who is pro Imperialism and the enemy of what is “communism”
The ultimate attack on capital (communism) is materially different than the ultimate defense of capital (fascism).
If you mean communism, and not whatever russia and China are, then yes, no argument here.
Fun fact though, liberalism also supports violence (or at least passively accepts it) as long as it is mostly external.
I think liberals, generally are ok with it, as you said, externally, there was a lot of liberal support for the Iraq bullshit.
We don’t get to choose non-violence. You can attack the people doing violence, join the people doing violence, or accept the people doing violence.
Yes, boiled down, that is very unfortunately the case, and from an idealistic point of view, we need to collectively move past that stupidity.
Oh, I know better than to participate in this discussion.
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Yeah, lots of pointless arguing further down in here. Like arguing about whether authoritarianism is left or right like that even matters. There are no set of single labels that can describe everyone’s motivations, goals, and what they are willing to do to get them, so arguing about the labels is pointless.
are you pro or anti sea piracy?
Probably anti overall, though context could change that. It’s just sea banditry and most bandits aren’t Robin Hood.
The digital version shouldn’t even be compared by using the same name, but if it was honest, then it wouldn’t work as propaganda (not that it seems to be working anyways).
Bruh tankies aren’t further left than me
You are a liberal
That doesn’t make what he said wrong.
It does tho, liberals are center-right at best
I’m not saying they aren’t. It’s still correct, though.
Nope
Oh fuck, the MAGA crowd has started posting. Get ready for made up stupid shit to distract / confuse you as they are.
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Ok good lol
It’s hardly a secret that screaming The Eptein Files works like a dragon shout.
A one dimensional political spectrum! Proper shit post, sir!
Feline anarchy is the only valid. Human whole purpose is to server cats. Fuck everyone else.
Fuck capitalism, fuck communism, fuck fascism, fuck everyone. FELINE ANARCHY!!!
server cats
I tried to do that, but they wouldn’t let the cats in the colo.
I heard about arachno communism but this is new to me
Isn’t that just ancient Egypt? At any rate, based AF.
The green bar is far too wide
And this is how those in power stay in power.
And this is how those in power stay in power.
what do you mean?
Divide and conquer.
Yup. Anyone writing off the majority of their fellow working class is just playing into hands of fascists.
I would strongly contest the idea that tankies are durther left than anarchists. This only make since if you’re a shitlib.
I felt similarly until I discovered anarchism
