Many people on lemmy.ml deeply respect and admire authoritarian governments and organizations.
Iran, China, North Korea, Soviet Union…
The West has many flaws. But our flaws are nothing compared to these guys.
Iran hangs homosexuals. Iran shot 30,000 people in less than than 2 weeks. The Soviet Union had to build a fucking Iron wall to prevent people from escaping. The Soviets lied about the Chernobyl nuclear explosion. China censors the internet. China wants to eliminate Islam. North Korea is a totalitarian hellscape. Watching anime is a crime.
Why is lemmy.ml so fascinated with authoritarians?
“Tankie” is a pejorative for communist, I think you’re confused here. Communists don’t support “wars of conquest,” but they do support using force as necessary against fascists and capitalists, and censoring capitalist and fascist speech. Class analysis is core to communism, by reducing it to “groups we don’t like” you’re obscuring the class nature of communist theory in a way that makes it seem based on whims or genetics like fascism.
If this was the essence of what it is to be a .ml user then I’d be best buds with them. But the reality is in the overwhelming majority of interactions I’ve had with them, they’ve been rude, ignorant, and proud of it. I get the same vibes I get when dealing with a MAGAt. This has happened frequently enough for me to form a generalized opinion of its userbase.
I guess if they don’t want those labels, which apparently much of Lemmy is now bestowing upon them, then they need to change the way they behave.
I can’t say I’ve had the same experience as you, but looking at your removed comments in the modlog I think I can tell why.
I have seen you make this “correction” about 50 times.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tankie&t=fpas This is what the average person sees and defines as tankie. The first result which means it is the most viewed and read page any time someone searches that. You can disagree with that definition but you’re literally doing the Jordan Peterson of redefining a word to mean what you believe it should mean and muddying the waters for everyone else. I have never heard anyone besides people from ml describe tankie as “perjorative for communist.”
Your google search backs me up. I’m not redefining anything, it’s a pejorative for communists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie
No.
“Authoritarian” communists represent the overwhelming majority of communists, as the communist critique of authority is about which class holds it, the proletariat or the capitalists, and sides with the proletariat (the dictatorship of the proletariat). So-called “non-authoritarian” communists are as such a global extreme minority.
Youre whitewashing it again https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarian_socialism
Authoritarian Communism does not mean “siding with giving the proletariat authority.” Again it’s fine if you have a definition you use, but words have meaning. People are criticizing the authoritarian part, not the communism. Even if it is the majority opinion held by authoritarian communists today.
Your reading comprehension sucks. That, or you aren’t really arguing in good faith. That link does not back you up at all. First definition listed is about tank engines, obviously not that, so here’s the second definition:
Note that we got to Communist Party of Great Britain in the first like quarter of the sentence, and then it keeps going to describe people who support specific things because just being a communist isn’t enough. As in, this does not apply to all communists, just ones who support these things.
But let’s look at Wikipedia, maybe that’s a little incorrect. I certainly don’t use it in direct relation to UK communists in particular, nor do most others.
Every last sentence in that paragraph goes into some aspect of how tankies aren’t just any communist, but a specific type of communist.
I’m not arguing in bad-faith at all. The “specific type of communist” just so happens to apply to the overwhelming majority of communists. The definition is of course a liberal perspective on the concept of authority, but absolutely backs me up. If a pejorative is applicable to the overwhelming majority of a group, it isn’t a pejorative for a specific type, but a general pejorative with exceptions for specific types.
By the same logic, a pejorative for Asians is a pejorative for people in general since 60% of the world lives in Asia, almost 4x as much as on the next most populated continent, but if someone in this thread said something like that, I bet you’d consider them a racist instead of a misanthrope.
Being asian is an intrinsic characteristic. Supposed “anti-authoritarian” communists are “communists” that reject the core communist analysis of authority, chiefly that all authority is of a class character and the proletarian use of authority is critical in establishing and maintaining socialism. Your comparison is faulty.
So, what, if we’re talking beliefs, the distinction doesn’t matter, but if we’re talking intrinsic characteristics, it suddenly does? No, this is just moving the goal posts.
Perhaps there’s some difference on how we’re using the word “authoritarian”. I and most people I have seen use the word use it to mean that the government heavily uses its power in an abusive way to coerce its population to give up reasonable freedoms. For example, most would consider it a proper use of authority to forbid you to yell “FIRE!” in a crowded theater when there is no fire or other danger present, but most would consider it authoritarian to forbid speaking negatively of the government. Maybe I could phrase the definition better, but I hope this helps illustrate the point. To my knowledge, communism does not require authoritarianism in the way most people understand the word, so I think it is very fair to make a distinction between communists and tankies.
It’s important to understand the difference between intrinsic characteristics and beliefs because some beliefs are frankly wrong and go against the foundations of the rest. For example, if I said “climate scientists support the fact of climate change” and you said “some deny it,” would you then ask me to rephrase the former statement as saying “specific climate scientists support the fact of climate change?” Of course not!
As I have been pointing out this entire time, this is the liberal conception of authority, devoid of class analysis. The missing factor is which class is using its power, and against which class? The state is not outside of class struggle, but within it.
For housekeeping, communism is a post-socialist mode of production and distribution without a state or class, and as such has no class using its authority over others. Socialism still has classes, as the basis of class cannot be abolished overnight, so it necessarily has a state, and therefore the working classes must have control of it for it to be a socialist state. Socialism is therefore necessarily “authoritarian” from the perspective of the former ruling classes, while being liberating for the working classes.
Authority is not a general spectrum of less to more, but instead a privledge for whichever class is in power and a tool for enforcing the will of that class. Therefore, the division between communists and “tankies” does not exist in any real manner beyond fringe western organizations that disagree with the core of Marxism in practice, the establishment of the socialist state as the necessary tool for bringing about communism by eradicating class.
Some people may use it more loosely as a term for all communists, but I understand it to be a pejorative for a specific type of communist. Specifically, the kind that will excuse anything done by a communist or formerly communist regime. They make excuses for Russia invading Ukraine in defiance of their own diplomatic agreements, seemingly just for the sake of railing against the west. They make excuses for the most gruelingly authoritarian things communist groups may do or support. They generally seem to relish the idea of righteous violence, so long as they can find a way to align it with their world view. Tankies are the ones who will stand up for even the most brutal of regimes so long as they are communist or descend from historically communist states; in their eyes, the only possible failure of a communist state is genuine failure and collapse.
What you’re describing isn’t a real person or ideology, but a caricature in the form of a strawman that can be wielded to delegitimize communists. You aren’t describing a real group, but instead a real perception of a real group that is projected onto said real group.
I am describing behavior I quite frequently directly observed in .ml threads, but go off about how it’s not real. I personally got banned for calling Russia out for the war in Ukraine and the lack of any proper justification for it, and it was relevant to the discussion at hand, not just some random post to stir the pot.
Of course, there’s also the popular theory that .ml is heavily astroturfed by Russia and China, so maybe you’re right that they’re not actually communists, just a bunch of malicious propagandists the communists can never seem to weed out.
Or maybe a bunch of western propaganda to make communists look like violent assholes. Which, again, never seems to get weeded out.
Or some combo of the two.
But in all cases, it’s a common observance on .ml, and the one thing they’re not doing over there is distancing themselves from it literally at all. Far more likely to find .ml users like you in other communities trying to stick their head in the sand and pretend it’s not happening.
I’m on Lemmy.ml, I have never seen anyone that fits your description. Further, Lemmy.ml isn’t astroturfed by Russia or China. Regarding Ukraine, you were banned for misinformation, such as the idea that Russia is trying to “force everyone to become Russian,” with a temp ban at that.
If you could give an example of people “standing up for the most brutal of regimes,” for example, that would help. The simple fact is that socialist states have not been “the most brutal regimes,” western countries have been.
All I can really say to that is that you should maybe look closer. They show up pretty frequently when Russia and China come up in discussion, regardless of reason, but especially if someone bad mouths either.
Let’s be real, every online community of any significant size with open registration is being astroturfed to some extent. The only real question is which countries are most heavily involved in astroturfing any specific community. Here on Lemmy, spreading misinformation that supports Russia and/or China comes from lemmy.ml accounts much more frequently than from other accounts. That’s not to say that all lemmy.ml accounts are like that, but if I see someone spreading very obviously bullshit in favor of Russia or China anywhere on Lemmy, it’s almost a given that it’s a lemmy.ml account. You’re also likely to see lemmy.ml accounts pop up out of nowhere any time Russia or China are mentioned in any sort of negative capacity, sort of like how Riverside@reddthat.com picked up on a tangential mention of China in one of my earlier posts in this thread and launched into a bunch of whataboutism and Chain apologia. Frankly, it’s kind of surprising to see it from an account that’s NOT @lemmy.ml.
Nope, not even the Lemmy.ml mods would claim that when they banned me, temporary or not. They classified it as a violation of rule 1, which seems to cover the banning of various forms of bigotry. They aren’t any more specific than that, but I imagine they would classify it as xenophobia or, if they cared to get more specific, Russophobia.
But let’s talk about the idea that that statement was misinformation. Let’s remind ourselves of the context. Four years ago, Russia began their invasion of Ukraine, which still continues to this day. Ukraine had not attacked them. Russia makes no claim that Ukraine attacked them first. Russia did this in spite of being party to the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances in 1994, about 30 years ago, in which Ukraine voluntarily gave up Soviet era nuclear weapons in exchange for a promise from the USA and Russia that Ukrainian sovereignty would be respected. Russia then violated the agreement in 2014 when they annexed Crimea and violated it again with their ongoing invasion. Russia is annexing Ukrainian land. If you live in Crimea or any of the more recently conquered land, I’m terribly sorry, you now live in Russia. So, in light of all that, could you maybe explain to me how the fuck it’s misinformation to describe it as forcing people to become Russian? Do you just expect Russia to expel the Ukrainians if they succeed? I suppose that would make my statement technically incorrect, but I don’t really expect that option.
No, I’m not wasting more of my day to track down evidence for the most obvious shit that almost everyone on Lemmy outside of Lemmy.ml already knows. I’m not going to go and find proof just so we can sit here and split hairs on the exact nature of what was said, which I know will inevitably happen because I’ve made that mistake before. If you want evidence, just pay more attention next time you’re digging around in Lemmy.ml threads. It’s not that hard to find, which is why Lemmy.ml is somewhat commonly defederated from other instances.
Yes, thank you, I’m sure that will massively recontextualize things for me the next time I’m witnessing someone defend the start of a pointless war that’s probably lead to around a million casualties and growing, just to stroke some corrupt old fuck’s ego. And before you try to bUt IsRaEl AnD iRaN me, which happens every god damn time I point out something bad that Russia or China did, yeah, I fucking know, and I don’t like that, either. In a thread about those topics, I’d be agreeing with you, but here, it’s just whataboutism and deflection.
Just a formatting tip, you need a double newline in between quotes and comments you mean to have in your own voice, not just a single newline.
Either way, your comment is a continued lack of evidence, and doubling down on misinformation. For example, the Budapest Memorandum was nullified by the US first, Crimea voted to join the Russian Federation after the 2014 Banderite coup, and Donetsk and Luhansk have been at war with Kiev since they seceded in 2014 and requested aid from the Russian Federation in 2022. Russia isn’t trying to turn everyone Russian, this is clear misinformation on what is far more complex than “Russia is evil definitionally.”
Funny, my stack of evidence is just as big as yours, so I guess I could say the same about you.
I can’t find anything that agrees with this at all. The best I can find is that the US didn’t defend Ukrainian sovereignty when someone else violated it, which, to my understanding, is not required by the agreement. Ironic, given you were just complaining about my lack of evidence, so I’m gonna need you to cite something here.
But even if you’re right, that doesn’t excuse Russia. They were still party to the agreement along with the UK. They still violated the agreement by violating Ukrainian sovereignty.
Oh you mean the vote that occurred on March 16, 2014, the one that happened over 2 weeks after Russia invaded on February 27, 2014? The one that had an extremely suspicious 95.5% support for annexation? Thankfully we can all trust that because Russia is totally known to ensure elections run fairly and smoothly and in no way are biased towards the wants of the Russian ruling class, right? Right? Very fortunate that Russia managed to find exactly the justification for invasion that they needed two weeks after they had already invaded. I’m sure it’s a total coincidence that they just so happened to be the one administrating the election that gave them exactly the result they needed right after they violently seized the territory.
“Our revolutionaries are glorious freedom fighters. Their revolutionaries are a filthy coup by the west.” Turns out when Russia develops a history of abusing its neighbors, its neighbors get really fucking pissy when their leadership starts cozying up to Russia.
Just like Crimea voted to secede, right? Always, they start really supporting Russia and independence from Ukraine after Russia seizes the territory and starts enforcing its will. It’d be a lot more impressive if any of that happened before Russia invaded those regions.
No, you’re right, Russia isn’t trying to turn everyone Russian right now. Just the Ukrainians, which is the context in which the quote I assume you’re referencing comes from. If they succeed, though, Russia might turn their eyes to someone else next.
The US specifically stated the Memorandum had assurances, not guarantees, broke the Memorandum by intervening in Belarus via sanctions in 2013.
Steven Pifer, US ambassador to Ukraine:
The fact that Crimeans overwhelmingly voted to secede from the Banderites in Kiev is not suspicious unless you don’t think it’s rational to be fearful of fascists. You don’t actually have evidence undermining it, so you just say you’re skeptical to the point of believing it.
What is interesting is that you’re now denying the Russian ethnicity of much of the Donbass region, implying that they are all Ukrainian. The ethnic Russians in the Donbass region are why Russia intervened at the request of the LPR and DPR, as Russia is governed by nationalists. The Banderites had been killing the seperatists in the Donbass region for nearly a decade before Russia stepped in.
This is the map pointing to the modern division in Ukraine, between the seperatists in the Donbass that side with Russia and the Banderites that side with Kiev, which faction has influence where.
It’s a specific kind of communist, not all communists are tankies
The ones of any relevance seem to count. It’s a term levied against every major Marxist party and every socialist state.