I keep seeing "fuck tankies" everywhere, and seem to see people getting called "tankie" for any number of things--I used to feel like I knew what it meant (the formal definition, which I thought was the only application) but that's clearly not the case anymore. Saw someone get called one because they... Liked the idea of universal basic income and wanted walkable cities? And now the same sentiment is on a large number of Lemmy communities, lol.

I feel like I've been living under a rock.

Edit: Wow, I guess it's just as meaningless of a term now as it seemed. At least it's a nice, bright flag for ghouls not worth engaging with meaningfully, lol. I saw "fuck tankies" on a genderqueer community and got pretty confused on how the two ideas correlated in the slightest, so I guess that was the tipping point on me finally asking about it.

  • spacesweedkid27 [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    11 months ago

    huh? I am literally just trying to understand and see your points but ok, if you want to make fun of me, then you're not even really trying to show me what my mistake is.

    • axont [she/her, comrade/them]
      ·
      11 months ago

      We don't believe Stalin, Lenin, or Mao were dictators. We believe they were elected party officials who did not exercise ultimate authority. Stalin for instance attempted to resign 4 times and was overruled. We also believe Stalin exercised authority in much of the same way that Lenin would have.

      In terms of Mao we tend to go with the 70/30 split of good/bad. We also don't tend to say he was evil in his later years, but rather, more like he became a little inefficient and China was going through a rough spot that had a course correction with Deng.

      I hope that helps. I think some people here are seeing you as some kind of troll talking to us in bad faith. I try to assume the best.

      • GarbageShoot [he/him]
        ·
        11 months ago

        Deng was a right-deviationist at least as much as Mao was a left-deviationist, and he is given too much credit for "solving" an economic problem that was essentially invented by liberal accountants who didn't understand the economy under Mao. It is also true that he protected China's national sovereignty and that much of the damage he did was able to be undone in subsequent decades while the useful elements were preserved.

        • Yllych [any]
          ·
          edit-2
          11 months ago

          For anyone interested in this I am finding Gao Mobo's The Battle for China's Past a good accounting of the attitudes in China towards the Cultural Revolution and Mao in general. I feel like I'm missing a general background on some of the communist members he refers to, but otherwise so far I recommend it. Does a good job of debunking the more egregious caricatures of Mao

      • spacesweedkid27 [he/him, they/them]
        ·
        11 months ago

        Thanks this is literally the first answer that helps. I actually did know from a leaked CIA document that there even were democratic processes in Stalin's time.

        What I don't like that much about Mao is this propaganda reducation camps or something like that.

        • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]
          ·
          edit-2
          11 months ago

          Look around at America, at the hate churches, nazi militias, qanon cults, and endless mass shootings. We are incredibly fucked up here, and any communist movement that might come to power is gonna need to put a whole lot of people in re-education. The alternatives are worse.

          • Hohsia [he/him]
            ·
            edit-2
            11 months ago

            I think that’s the thing, honestly. Chuds and libs fear the potential of needing to learn something new or challenging to their existing beliefs

            Reeducation wouldn’t be needed if the US wasn’t inherently anti-intellectual

        • Vncredleader
          ·
          11 months ago

          In the words of Mao "No investigation, no right to speak"

        • GarbageShoot [he/him]
          ·
          edit-2
          11 months ago

          What I don't like that much about Mao is this propaganda reducation camps or something like that.

          Would you prefer prisoners simply be tortured or left to rot like they are in nearly every other prison system around the world?

        • Yllych [any]
          ·
          11 months ago

          Which reeducation camps would those be

        • idkmybffjoeysteel [he/him]
          ·
          11 months ago

          It is amazing that you still do not believe in mandatory re-education camps after seeing all the shit takes libs drop.

          • spacesweedkid27 [he/him, they/them]
            ·
            11 months ago

            I don't belive that reeducation camps are something bad. I mean we do it all the time with people that are too dangerous for society like mass murderes or rapists.

            I just think that there is no reason for violence in this.

            We can just do it like school does: In my 12 years of primary education I have been taught that you should behave as capitalistic as you can be: We even had a lecture called "economy and politics" where we mostly talked about how to inverst or on how to start your own buissness. The only "politics" we had were west-centric post WW2 propaganda in which they told us how good the west has been for my country: Germany.

            And the dumb thing is that in every country there is you can study this lecture basically at the university. Here it's called "Betriebswirtschaftslehre" which would more or less be "Buissness administration" . This is a lecture that talkes about economy with the following premises: The human is evil, won't share, aka Communism bad Captalism good.

            And this really is the go to education for most people here that either suck at learning (because it's easy) or don't know what to study.