this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2025
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I'm still in doubt of what a tankie is, even though I've now seen it mentioned 1000 times. Also why is it called that?
It's essentially a pejorative for "communist." I recommend the Prolewiki article on "Tankies," as well as Nia Frome's essay "Tankies."
This is an oversimplification, but tldr..
Tankies are Authoritarian communist, as opposed to democratic or liberal communism. It refers to when the soviet union put down rebellion in Hungry and Czechoslovakia by rolling in the tanks. It prioritizes order over individual freedoms.
Lol
I think the confusing part is that liberal in there refers not to the ideology but to free in choice.
Maybe a better wording would've been "free" or just "democratic", leaving out the "liberal" entirely.
All communists believe in freedom and democracy
Then by definition, MLs aren't communists.
No, by definition Marxist-Leninists are supportive of freedom and democracy for the working class.
MLs absolutely believe in freedom and democracy; get a better dictionary
Yeah, sure. They frequently repress anarchocommunists.
There is no democracy without anarchy.
Communists have historically been the closest allies to anarchists. The fact that the two umbrellas have fought as well doesn't erase that there has been no other group anarchists or communists can claim as as close as each other.
When communists and anarchists do fight, it's usually in the context of civil war, or in the context of anarchist groups within socialist states working to undermine socialism and push for anarchism. The communists pushing back against this isn't "repressing anarchisn," so much as it is socialism protecting the existing system against those who would undermine it. The USSR supported the Spanish anarchists because at the time they shared common goals, but when anarchists organize for the overthrow of socialist states, that's when conflict arises.
We could flip this on its head just as easily: anarchism represses communism, in that both fundamentally come to opposite conclusions: anarchists seek full horizontalism and decentralization, while communists seek full collectivization, which means that though our goals are often fully aligned, they do diverge in the final analysis and as such no anarchist society would genuinely allow communism to be pushed for if it came to exist, and would have to oppress communists.
Liberals always repressed anarchocommunists too, and even anarchocommunists support repressing some people: anarcho capitalists, for example.
I guess they don't believe in freedom or democracy either
Except that MLs repress all of those.
Anarchocommunism represses none, as it favours freedom of speech, freedom from money and greed, and freedom from hierarchy.
Anarchocapitalism doesn't exist; it's mostly libertarians in disguise, who want a repressive Cyberpunk dystopia.
Anarchists necessarily must repress fascism, liberalism, and even communism in order to continue existing, if it came to be. This is historically true as well. You're confusing the liberatory aspects of such a theoretical system with the idea that nobody would oppose it.
How is that "except"? Why is it ok when liberals do it then?
Really? So fascists are allowed to organize pogroms at will?
As opposed to all those anarchocommunists societies, that definitely do exist.
All communists support freedom and democracy for the working class, the distinction between "authoritarian and democratic" is a purely invented one designed to disavow existing implementations of socialism and absolve the one taking up the mantle of having to grapple with how socialism exists in the real world, often letting Red Scare narratives run rampant and uncontested.
All states are authoritarian; all communist states to date have followed a form of democratic centralism; and “liberal communism” is an oxymoron because liberalism is founded on private ownership of the means of production.
Neither of which were proletarian rebellions. Both were bourgeois counterrevolutions backed by western imperialist states. They were color revolutions, and these kinds of regime change operations are still happening today.
https://redsails.org/tankies/
Except that, comrade, the Prague Spring organisers opposed a secret police, which is imho a fascist element. It also focused on decentralisation of the economy. The KGB infiltrated some of the organisations.
The Hungarian 1956 liberation struggle also demanded public ownership of land. While it is true that the CIA had been involved (e.g. inviting the fascist over for reform... gee, Hungary didn't change much eh?), neither of the revolutions appear 100% bourgeoise. It would have helped to imprison the fascist, and not inform the public.
While it is true that "pro-democracy" often in practice means "pro-bribery" (as oligarchs then are enabled to bribe politicians), the core problem is and remains money even being a thing of prestige.
What should be the rule, is that society must be as resistant to corruption as possible. This is especially critical for factions and cooperations. That means:
All must be obliged to organise according to decentralised worker democracy. No boss, no master. Freedom of discussion, freedom of action.
No one who ever has led/owned a private company may be part of a group.
The groups must finance themselves through the principle of a moneyless, barterless gift economy, and mutual aid.
Full transparency of finances is required, including ultimate sources. This will encourage people to make the 'stream' of resources as direct as possible.
If a group does not adhere to even one of these principles, it is automatically considered defunct and disbands; and the members will be part of a group that does adhere to it. Those who made the group no longer adhere to all principles, will be societally barred from mutual aid (transport, food, housing, and so on). In other words, don't be a corrupt person.
Groups can not be bigger than 150 people, but can mutually aid each other and cooperate in federations, which must also be organised through all above principles.
You're combining contradictory stances. You want extreme decentralization and horizontalism even to the extent that managers don't exist, but you want factories and the ability to unilaterally punish cells that don't pass the "moral test." Everything you listed is something that seems to sound cool, but is incredibly impractical, especially when taken all together. You also wish to punish former capitalists without retaining the authority to do so, leaving those people bitter and actively working against the rest of society.
This is all ignoring your misconception of fascism as "anything scary" and not as capitalism in crisis, and your minimization of, say, the anti-semites that were lynching Jewish people and communists in Hungary before the Red Army was sent in, etc.
From a practical basis, your vision is a non-starter, factories number in the several hundreds to thousands of workers with complex supply chains that need management and administration to avoid people getting killed by heavy machinery and to ensure production actually runs smoothly. You're asking to reformat every factory to work on a microscopic scale and yet work on a purely gift economy form, when goods would take more labor and resources to produce at such a small scale, rather than reaching abundance.
Most practical forms of anarchism try to make administration more accountable, they don't try to get rid of it entirely, and call it a "justifiable hierarchy."
Thank you for the explanation! 😊
It doesn't per se prioritise order inasmuch it prioritises state tyranny.
I view tankies as marginally better than fascists in that they at least strive for universal healthcare, universal housing, and so on. But when it comes to being able to choose, they're just as terrible.
Order can only be achieved through freedom from intolerance. The true answer lies in anarchocommunism.
Communism doesn't prioritize "order" or "state tyranny," it prioritizes working class control. In AES states, the bourgeoisie and fascists violently oppose the system, and as such this is contested by the state under the control of the working class. The state is not an independent entity, it's an extension of the ruling class and as such isn't a thing in and of its own volition. In economies where public ownership is principle, ie at least over the large firms and key industries, the working class can retain control of the economy (assuming they already smashed and replaced the state).
Communists are by no means "marginally" better than fascists. This is Holocaust trivialization and equates working class control with incredibly violent bourgeois control, on the basis of both having states. Even when it comes to choice, socialist countries have dramatically expanded democratization and worker participation in the economy.
Your last bit about intolerance is self-defeating, we must be intolerant towards fascists and the bourgeoisie, and this is often cast as "authoritarian" or "totalitarian" in countries dominated by capitalists fearful of the same being done to them.
This is a child watching Saturday morning cartoon level take. Imagining your enemies are one dimensional villains who value evil for evils sake.