rule conditions

germanatlas@lemmy.blahaj.zone to 196@lemmy.blahaj.zone – 623 points –
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If those tankies could read, they'd be very upset!

Advocating for Communism is not Advocating for the USSR.

Hence why we call them Tankies and not communists

Edit: Stop defending Tankies. If you are truly a Communist that doesnt support Russia and China, then defending the Tankies by letting them pretend ALL communists get called Tankies is only making you look bad by comparison. If Tankie was synonymous with communist, it wouldnt need to exist as a word.

2nd edit: I'm giving some of you WAAAYYY too much benefit of doubt but heres a further point, at the moment there is two options

1: You help clarify that Tankie means "Communist who Supports Authoritarian Regimes and their use of violences to suppress dissent" for people who are using the word incorrectly

or

2: You help create a smokescreen for Tankies to hide behind and let Tankie and Communist blur so Tankies can claim that all Communists get called that so the word means nothing. And if you are successful in that, the vast majority of us with great distaste for the Chinese and Russian goverment will just switch to telling ALL communists to fuck off because we certainly arent going to grow more tolerance for regimes that have no issues violently suppressing minorities

There is no 3rd option

Final Addition: 9 communists are sitting at a table when 1 Tankie decides to join the table. No one rejects the Tankie from sitting. 10 Tankies sit at a table

I get called a tankie quite regularly advocating for Communism, like it or not the terms are becoming ubiquitous.

It's your ideal, we're giving communists who dont support Russia and China respect by labelling Tankies as Tankies, and not Communists, but if you want to give the Tankies a smoke screen to hide behind by letting the two terms blur, then its more your loss than its mine. Russia and China are not bastions of LGBTQ rights though, so I dont know why you'd want to help the Tankies

The old adage goes "if you meet an asshole once in the morning, you merely met an asshole. If you meet an asshole in the morning, at noon and again at night, you are the asshole"

Reassess your behavior and stance; if you're getting called a tankie it isn't because the whole world decided to shift a definition.

Eh it is a bit of a catch-all though tbh

It really isnt. Tankie is specifically for those who'd support Russia and China. Are you defending Russia's invasion of Ukraine? Are you making arguements that Taiwan should become part of China? THEN you are a Tankie, but if you believe true Communism hasnt been done yet, and Russia and China DEFINITELY havent done it right, then no one who matters is going to call you a Tankie. If Tankie and Communist were synonymous, there would literally be no need for the term Tankie. You dont see "Fuck off Communists" everywhere on Lemmy, you see "Fuck off Tankies"

yeah that's too much singular linguistic prescriptivism for me. I've definitely seen a litany of people here called tankies. Lots of people just decrying US imperialism, particularly what's happening in Gaza, lots of people criticizing Biden, that's a classic way to get accused of being a tankie, I think I've also seen people advocating for basic shit like healthcare being called tankies. Prison reform is a big one that'll get you called a tankie, as well as lots of anti-police takes, for whatever reason.

Yeah. It's a term that's like originating out of apologia for the suppression of the Hungarian revolution, it's not used for that anymore. The definition has changed historically and from person to person over time. It doesn't have this clear meaning that you seem to think it does. It can have that clear meaning for you, sure, you've defined your use case, but you can't really guarantee that every other person using that term is going to use it correctly. It would be, you know, theoretically, pretty advantageous for some right wingers to pose as left wing and then just kind of throw around a term commonly used in left wing circles as a derogatory term to shut down discussions, with basically no coherence to use.

Look, you can either have a term for idiots who support russia and china when they CLAIM to care about minority rights, or you can defend the tankies because SOME people are using the term incorrectly. There isnt a 3rd option at the moment. Do you want us to start telling ALL communists to fuck off instead of just Tankies? Because thats the end result of being successful with your arguement. So you can either further the clarification that Tankies are communists that Support Russia or China, or you can help build a smoke screen for Tankies to hide behind. Pick one

You could just tell them that supporting Russia and China is bad, or that those are authoritarian regimes, and cite sources, rather than dismissing them out of hand, based on what the surface level interpretation of their arguments are, you know?

We have more than a one word limit here on Lemmy, people can respond with thought out rebuttals, rather than one word dismissals. It's just that the one word dismissals are easier to write and understand, so they're more likely to get thrown at an argument early and then up votes after someone skims a long ass set of paragraphs.

There's not like an either-or option there, I also really question your "well if we don't discard tankies then we're gonna have to discard all communists, and how would you like that!". That doesn't make any sense to me. Your "Pick one" is a false dichotomy. People are capable of more nuanced conversations, just labelling people and throwing around out of hand dismissals isn't going to be helpful in actually working out anything, convincing those people, or convincing bystanders. Even if you were to convince bystanders with such a tactic, you'd be convincing them in a bad faith way where they don't fully understand the usage of the term, so they'd be just as likely to throw it around as an out of hand dismissal without understanding what it means.

But then I suppose, you know, it's probably gonna be easier for most people to just call me a tankie and move on, right, on the basis that my argument advocating for nuanced responses and more well-reasoned argumentation is actually carrying water and "providing a smokescreen for tankies", so I might as well be one, right? Term gets stretched even further.

I have always been of the belief that if you are to respond, it better be with a well-reasoned and dignified comment, rather than just a kind of lazy dismissal. If people are doing shit that's actually against the rules, then report them. If they're engaging in bad faith behavior, you are more likely to reveal that by responding to them with good faith behavior than also responding with bad faith behavior. If you aren't going to say something nice, don't bother to say anything at all, or, put another way, don't feed the trolls.

Dunno why internet rules 101 is becoming such an uncommon thing now.

Or or, if you wanna defend Tankies, I literally dont have time for you. Do I give Nazi's time to explain the nuances of their views? No, same goes for Tankies

Or or, if you wanna defend Tankies, I literally dont have time for you. Do I give Nazi’s time to explain the nuances of their views? No, same goes for Tankies

That's what I said people should do though? Just ignore comments and move on if they're not actually willing to engage with what's being said

Is it because you occasionally simp for authoritarians?

I too advocate for socialism, but I keep getting banned from "socialist" spaces for wrong think, because I think Lenin's shit stinks.

Conservatives and liberal chuds also use it because they see us saying it, not realising that it's a call-out of viscous authoritarianism, and not necessarily a critique of communism let alone socialism.

I feel like communism has been conflated with 'tankie' (as in, the meaning, not the word) for a long while thanks to the red scares. "Tankie" seems to be a more recent (or at least, recently resurrected) term that is attempting to split the authoritarianism away from 'communism' and bring that latter term back to its roots as 'classless, stateless, cashless society'.

But also, you can often avoid using loaded terms like communism. Personally I like to just double down on "democracy" since it literally means rule by people and has positive connotations. If you add more and more rule by people, eventually you get communism.

Tbh, after dealing with Tankies on Lemmy for the past half year, I can understand why the red scares happened (understanding =/= agreeing with). With normal facists and bigots, you can tell they are assholes pretty much at a glance, but Tankies meanwhile seem nice and caring at first glance, but are salivating at the chance to violently revolutionize you

The Red Scare happened because it threatened the American ruling class, and America wasn't occupied by Nazis in WW2 so they didn't have the experience of being liberated by mostly leftist rebels. Immediately after WW2, communists and socialists were seen as liberators who freed various countries from Nazi rule, even in the UK where Winston Churchill lost re-election partly due to him going all-in on anti-communism (which the people didn't like). As a result, Europeans were a lot friendlier to communism and were more open to adopting socialist policies. The US was both the leading capitalist power AND it was very distanced/separated from the oppression and rebellion against the Nazis, so they just saw communists as a threat.

Yes, I understand the history and the political motivation, my point on Tankies being fucked in a kind of scary way still stands however

If your goal is to help the proletariat and not to create a oligopoly (or kleptocracy) then you're aces in my book for what little it's worth.

I've only met one or two communists who are genuinely decent and principled. The rest are nutters.

It's pretty hard to tell on Lemmy.

I've been banned from .ml twice for criticizing Putin's Russia.

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Tell that to all the tankies that suck off Putin every chance they get then.

Tankies are advocating for the USSR, with any eventual communist utopia being optional.

Cue in Omaega Haxor and Yoghurt jumping in to appologize for Putin and North Korea.

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That wasn’t real communism. Everybody’s equal under real communism.

Hetero people would get executed too!

They did. Not just the hetero men, but the hetero women and hetero children too!

Wait. Didn't they?

Yes but not because of their heterosexuality. It was usually nationality, ethnicity, religion, being "counterrevolutionary", or just because someone like lavrentiy baria didn't like you

Would be surprised to find out that Lavrenty Beria liked anyone

He seemed to like those children quite a lot.

Mans really did get the whole ass Soviet Union want to mob kill him, rightfully.

Real end-game communism is a stateless, classless society

Nobody would be executed under real communism

People can be executed under Communism, though ideally the death penalty would be abolished, with rehabilitation being the focus. The state in Marxian terms is the apparatus within government by which one class oppresses others, a classless society can have a government. Marxist Communism was always envisioned as a Socialist World Republic.

This is why Anarcho-Communism and Communism are different, along with strategy.

No no no! You got it wrong! It was because checks notes Imperialist USA!

Lenin and the Bolsheviks essentially legalized it though.
Nobody likes Stalin. If you do, think about your life and your place in the world

The lemmygrad, lemmy.ml and hexbear kids would be very angry, if they could read this.

If those Capitalist Apologists could read they would be quite upset.

ehhh, unfortunately I've met more than my fair share of people who unironically like Stalin.

Lots of actually good communist figures out there and they go out of their way to choose the homophobic drunk domestic abuser who kept a literal child rapist as his right-hand man.

Being the leader of the nation that defeated the Nazis gets you a lot of credit. Moreso when Nazis start cropping up again.

I think these days his iconography tends to just trigger those who would ultimately roll with fascism over communism.

I can't come up with a good, succinct comment on these parallel universes, but there sure is something about seeing these side by side.

Have you never hear of Trotskyism.

Of course not.

Trotsky is who Lenin wanted to take over the party after his death, but Stalin framed him as a power hungry authoritarian and took control of the party then forcing Trotsky to flee the USSR then had him murdered in Mexico to stop his criticisms of the USSR under Stalin's authoritarian reign.

I remember tankies telling on Reddit me how "Pushing for LGBT Rights is forcing Western ideals on non-Western people" and how "Putin killing the gays is good actually".... the Horse Shoe Theory is real

Horse shoe theory still doesn't work-- you have to change to the stethoscope model to include tankies

"I'm so leftist I'm voting for Trump" --some young voters unironucally

More like bots and bad faith commentators.

Unfortunately, people like Peter Coffin, InfraHaz, and Caleb Maupin are confirmed to be not bots.

There were sadly people in 2016 who protest voted for Trump to get back at the DNC for not nominating Bernie, even when Bernie begged them not to.

Is there any evidence of that? I know that 12% of people who voted for Sanders in the primary ended up voting for Trump in 2016, but where's the evidence that they were ever Democrats? It's just as possible that they were Republican-leaning voters who were attracted to Sanders' message, or trying to sabotage the Democratic primary. That's a really good narrative for Clinton supporters to soothe their chagrin at the electoral college loss, but as that article points out, that number is actually pretty par for the course in elections.

Have you met any irl?

Like 12% of Bernie voters. I imagine meeting 12% of any demographic is rare.

I don't think enough Bernie voters flipped their votes to cause the Trump win. I do believe that many of them stayed home though, but I blame that on the DNC running Hillary Clinton on the most deenergizing platform. I did vote for her, but I didn't consider her a real progressive. She was just the status quo option when Trump was dementia flavored fascism.

Well, the whole notion that things are on a spectrum is kind of false.

There are the people using what we know about the world right now to try to improve the conditions for all of us and who are willing to adjust course based on evidence and results, and then there are those clinging to failed notions of the past, whether it be an outdated philsophy from four hundred years ago or a failed theory from yesterday.

In that way it's more of a binary that does not care if you're anarchist, monarchist, communist, libertarian, democratic etc. If your ideas aren't working and you fail to admit they aren't working then you have become a conservative, regardless of how radical your idea was when it was concieved.

Yup, it's always "critical support" for any country with an adversarial relationship to the "imperial core" no matter how fucked up they are on human rights, or anything else.

It's never critical support for any of the "succdem" countries for their advances on human rights and social safety nets despite not moving towards socialism/communism, and then trying to get them moving in that direction.

Not that all or even most of the countries they support are actually moving towards socialism/communism either. The countries they list as AES (already existing socialism) make me think they have literal holes in their heads, like that guy that didn't realize he shot himself in the head with a nail gun for years.

They're good at quoting Marx but when it comes to who they support their only requirement is anti-western aligned countries, and they'll twist their brains into any knots necessary to invent a narrative to justify that support.

It's because they don't care about socialism. They mostly care about relitigating the cold war. It's honestly pretty transparent.

It's a very common thing for people to equate queerness with other concepts of otherness like "not from my group!" type pearl clutching. Bigots in a lot of places are weirdly more accepting of individual queer folks when they are noticeably foreign and more treat the concept of people being queer as an outside corrupting influence... Nevermind that the existence of queerness is basically a universal. People from non-permissive places really don't want to believe that their culture will also constantly manifest new queer people. They often believe something along the lines of if they stamp on it hard enough it becomes more rare instead of just more people hiding and struggling in isolation and silence often risking their lives if they misjudge a social situation or dying because of a pervasive sense of dispair.

But no matter how hard you stomp the "problem" never goes away. You have to keep stomping forever in perpetuity. The boot must always rest heavy on someone's neck and will never touch floor again because there will always be someone there to rise if the pressure ever stops. It's in part why the concept of people essentially just being "born that way" has been so powerful.

Wait Stalin executed gay people because Stalin needed to be stronger than Kakarot?

And to circle it to a common online debate, DC has its "Red Son" alternate continuity where the major divergence point is Kal-El's birthing matrix lands in Soviet territory rather than Kansas so there's a Superman born and raised wholly believing in the idealized theoretical form of communism rather than an idealized version of the US, do could get the "Goku vs Superman" argument going

Hmmm are there official Dragon Ball whatifs...? Like if he didn't land in the same place....

Imperialist US turned the frogs gay

Stalin did apparently love cowboy movies, and made party members stay up every night drinking and watching them.

wasnt the ussr one of the first places in the planet to stop criminalizing gays?

Yes, then Stalin recriminalized it.

when?

and why?

Under Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Union recriminalized homosexuality in a decree signed in 1933. The new Article 121, which punished "muzhelozhstvo" with imprisonment for up to 5 years, saw raids and arrests. Female homosexuals were sent to mental institutions. The decree was part of a broader campaign against "deviant" behavior and "Western degeneracy". Following Stalin's death, there was a liberalisation of attitudes toward sexual issues in the Soviet Union, but homosexual acts remained illegal. Discrimination against LGBT individuals persisted in the Soviet era, and homosexuality was not officially declassified as a mental illness until 1999.
[...]
Since 2000, a campaign by Russian president Vladimir Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church to promote "traditional Russian values" and oppose "liberalism" in regards to homosexuality has led to many pieces of anti-LGBT legislation being passed federally, including the banning of distribution of "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relationships to minors" in 2013, an amendment in Russia's constitution banning same-sex marriage passed in 2020, and expansion of the 2013 propaganda law signed in 2022 to apply it to anyone, regardless of age.

Taken from this article.

were gays actually executed? from what i hear from cuba for example, treatment was much less bad than elsewhere. dunno about the ussr.

Treatment was less bad in Cuba iirc but still included sending people to go work on sugar plantations, which is pretty back-breaking and horrifying labor. I mean, horrifying to the point that the Spanish colonial state were willing to force their slaves to do it, you know?

Luckily this isn't an issue anymore as cuba has somewhat recently liberalized their constitution and legislated free medical care for trans people and decriminalized homosexuality, probably in no small part due to the "thaw" that Obama put in place (probably one of his small wins), opening them up for better tourism and money, that trump then reversed and Biden has maintained.

But shhh, you didn't hear any that from me, Cuba's only allowed to be evil.

"Cuban gay writer Reinaldo Arenas wrote, "[T]he decade of the sixties ... was precisely when all the new laws against homosexuals came into being, when the persecution started and concentration camps were opened, when the sexual act became taboo while the 'new man' was being proclaimed and masculinity was being exalted.""

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Cuba

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The Soviet government of the Russian Soviet Republic (RSFSR) decriminalised homosexuality in December 1917, following the October Revolution and the discarding of the Legal Code of Tsarist Russia.

The legalisation of homosexuality was confirmed in the RSFSR Penal Code of 1922, and following its redrafting in 1926. According to Dan Healey, archival material that became widely available following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 "demonstrates a principled intent to decriminalize the act between consenting adults, expressed from the earliest efforts to write a socialist criminal code in 1918 to the eventual adoption of legislation in 1922.

Taken from here

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