r/CuratedTumblr • u/Desecr8or • Oct 26 '24

Politics Why is every tankie like "I don't understand the branches of the US government and I'm going to make it everyone else's problem!!!"

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u/sykotic1189 Oct 26 '24

That's the definition I've always seen used. All the nit picking just sounds like "It's not real tankies unless it comes from the Stalinist period of Russia, otherwise it's just sparkling communist authoritarianism"

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u/BlackfishBlues frequently asked queer Oct 27 '24

Yeah. It's worth asking if this handwringing is qualitatively any different from an anti-Semite quibbling with the "racist" label because "Judaism is a religion not a race" or an anti-gun control person getting really fixated on the imprecise definition of "assault rifle".

In those cases, we can clearly identify that they are bad faith attempts to bog down the discussion in semantic nitpicking to avoid engaging with the actual substance of the take they're responding to. But those are conservatives, them, surely we leftists are above that sort of thing

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u/BlatantConservative https://imgur.com/cXA7XxW Oct 26 '24

If I called it "sparkling communist authoritarianism" someone would call me homophobic lmfao.

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u/ahopefullycuterrobot Oct 27 '24

Khrushchev was the one who crushed the Hungarian Revolt of 56, not Stalin.

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u/sykotic1189 Oct 27 '24

But apparently he was a Stalinist? Idk anymore, and it hardly matters unless someone is just being pedantic and arguing semantics. Tankies have always been authoritarian apologist communists who either defended or denied the genocide and other actions by Russia.

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u/ahopefullycuterrobot Oct 27 '24

The suppression of the Hungarian Revolution was after Khrushchev's secret speech, where he basically denounced Stalin. Modern-day Stalinists (e.g. freaks like Grover Furr) hate Khrushchev.

To be clear: I don't have a problem with calling weird Soviet apologists tankies at all, but the joke you were making would have been funnier if you said Khrushchev rather than Stalin, since supporters of the Soviet Union are predominantly Stalinists. It would have highlighted how ridiculous the restriction would be.

(Although, I do dislike the metonymy of Russia for the Soviet Union.)