I used to be a tankie. I mean I believed everything China said, I unironically thought Stalin was good, I mean I was a full blown tankie. The main reason I became a tankie wasn't because it was my actual beliefs as much as it was because of peer pressure. Most communist subs are controlled by tankies who are mad with power, so you feel pressured to force yourself to have the same ideology as them. Eventually you start lying to yourself by calling everything that conflicts with your world view CIA propaganda because that "peer pressurs" has started seeping into your actual real life self. It is manifesting. For the longest time I thought Stalin was a good person, that China was going to be socialist by 2050, that authoritarianism, totalitarianism, technocracy, and mass surveillance are good because "what happens in public stays in public" or some shit.

I knew that I was lying to myself, but I wanted to be naive. My naive mind thought another country that was ideologically communist couldn't be evil — but yet Pol Pot and the prick that took power in Romania and created a dictatorship where everyone that isn't Romanian will be seen as second class citizens — proves otherwise.

When I started becoming a communist I dropped all nuance. I always believed one side— my side. No other sides. I believed everyone was wrong but me. I even started making up bullshit that sounds proper, like how China gives away houses and utilities to workers without rent to compensate for the low wages. Obviously it is utter bullshit that I barely believed, but I was lying to myself because I couldn't admit China was bad.

My point is this — tankies are crazy people. They always want to believe all currently existing socialist states are all paradise. Well, they aren't. China isn't the hell that the west depicts it as, but it is still shit. China is capitalist. Combine Capitalism and Socialism, you still have Capitalism.

This is from an alt account. I won't disclose my true identity. This is to protect my balls.