• Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.mlOP
    153·
    3 hours ago

    I’m always skeptical of those that claim to be “real” leftists while using anti-communist pejoratives like “tankie.”

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.mlOP
        124·
        3 hours ago

        We don’t actually have an issue with the label, just the strawman version of a Red Scare nightmare the label entails. Lots of us call ourselves tankies, but when it’s used as an insult and a caricature to terminate discussion it becomes a problem.

        “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.

        I recommend the Prolewiki article on “Tankies,” as well as Nia Frome’s essay “Tankies.” That should give you a more well-rounded view.

        We “tankies” absolutely do have real beliefs, I myself made an introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list to help others with theory. By trying to paint the caricature of a “tankie” as this irrational, nonsensical strawman, and call anyone supporting socialism in the real world a “tankie,” you’re terminating discussion and erasing that we communists do have coherent beliefs, and are admitting that you cannot effectively engage with them.

          • davel [he/him]@lemmy.mlEnglish
            51·
            2 hours ago

            The term “tankie” originates from British psuedo-communists who supported the USSR using tanks against the Hungarian resistance, notably civilians, to impose their authoritarian and colonial rule upon them.

            So you didn’t even bother to read what you’re replying to. The Hungarian civilians in question were bourgeois- & CIA-backed fascist counter-insurgents.

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.mlOP
            61·
            2 hours ago

            The term “tankie” originates from British psuedo-communists who supported the USSR using tanks against the Hungarian resistance, notably civilians, to impose their authoritarian and colonial rule upon them.

            My comment already debunked this, so I’ll simply restate that you are defending literal Nazis jailed during and after World War II, and those who enabled them, simply because they opposed socialism.

            The USSR was never a country that embodied any core principles of Marxism, nor did it ever seek to after Stalin took power.

            False. The USSR was the first consolidated, multinational socialist state in history. Marxism was studied in the Academy of Sciences, the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and other Marxists were pondered and debated, studied and practiced. Public ownership was the principle aspect of the economy, production was oriented around satisfying the needs of the people, and the working classes were in charge of the state. Syzmanski’s Is the Red Flag Flying? is a fantastic overview of the soviet union’s political economy.

            The USSR was an authoritarian state-capitalist shithole that practiced the same measure of imperialism as the West, not to counter the West, but to consolidate power for its leadership.

            The USSR was socialist, as I already stated, public ownership was the principle aspect of the economy, production was oriented around satisfying the needs of the people, and the working classes were in charge of the state. State capitalism refers to countries where private ownership is the principle aspect and the bourgeoisie in charge of the state, like Singapore, the Republic of Korea, and the US Empire. The USSR was not imperialist either, it was not dominated by a financial oligarchy nor did it have any colonies or neo-colonies to extract from. It was a multi-national federation.

            The modern use of “tankie” when used accurately, portrays exactly what they are. Fake communists who embrace the same horrors of authoritarianism and imperialism of the West, so long as it doesn’t come from the West.

            This is what anti-communists always do. They simply equate socialism with capitalism and imperialism at a rhetorical level, without backing up anything they have to say to support this. The fact is, socialism in real life brought dramatic improvements in the lives of the working classes. In Russia alone, life expectancies doubled, literacy rates multiplied by 3-5 times to full literacy, the economy and state were democratized, real wages dramatically rose while working hours fell, equality of the sexes rose dramatically, and for the first time in history a country went from a semi-feudal backwater to space in the span of half a century. Anti-communists like yourself cannot grapple with reality, and so must restrain yourselves to arguments purely in the ideal realm.

            The victim blaming of the Hungarian resistance is just the cherry on top. I could go on and on about the major suppression and oppression of Jewish people under the USSR, especially under Stalin, but as you said you’re a self identified tankie. And I don’t expect a tankie who’s posting tired old Kremlin propaganda as if it holds any merit to listen to the actual historical and current facts on the matter.

            I will not call putting down a fascist counter-revolution “victim blaming.” The Nazis were evil, and lynching Jews and communists is evil. You cannot go on and on about “suppression and oppression of Jewish people under the USSR, especially under Stalin” because the USSR was vehemontly against anti-semitism, punishing anti-semitism with up to the death penalty. Nazis even spread lies about “Judeo-Bolshevism” because of the USSR’s opposition to anti-semitism. I’m posting modern analysis that is consensus among communists in the modern day, while you’ve provided nothing but your word.

            P.S. Your justification of the atrocities committed against the Hungarian resistance is giving the same exact energy as the IDF’s propaganda to justify their genocide in Palestine.

            No, it isn’t, because Israal is a fascist settler-colony committing genocide on Palestinians while the Hungarian counter-revolution was a western-backed pro-fascist movement.

      • Count042@lemmy.mlEnglish
        62·
        2 hours ago

        I love how ‘people I disagree with’ becomes ‘people without principles’

        While a lot of libertarians end up being conservatives that want to be cool, I’ve met quite a few who believe strongly in the fundamental principles.

        I disagree with them precisely because they are principled. I don’t feel the need to deny them their capabilities of believing something.

        Is this just you being unable to imagine people who legitimately disagree with you?

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.mlOP
            4·
            1 hour ago

            Wrong on all counts. The people in the PRC, Cuba, Vietnam, DPRK, Laos, Venezuela, Nicaragua, or even Belarus, etc. would all be thrown far backward if they dissolved their socialist (or quasi-socialist for Belarus) systems, opening themselves up to imperialist plunder.