It’s exactly like the word “tankie”, which is another mere rhetorical bludgeon, designed to shut down conversation, which can mean literally anything ranging from a right-wing neoliberal to a Stalinist depending on the speaker thus becoming entirely meaningless, and is effortlessly appropriated by liberals trying to attack the actual left
The term 'tankie' from what I remember, started out on Facebook around 2015 and was used to by reactionary leftists to just label Marxist-Leninists (or Stalinists as they labeled them, though anyone that has read Stalin and Lenin knows there is no 'Stalinist', he represented M-L ideology) as "tankies" to completely discredit them. It grew and grew as the years went by.
AFAIK "tankie" arose at some point during the Cold War within the left to disparage support for the Khrushchevite/Brezhnevite revisionists after the Hungary and Czechoslovakia interventions, but who knows it might be retroactive historical revisionism in action. But I'm pretty sure the term predates 2015 at least.
But yeah while I used the term "Stalinist", another rhetorical bludgeon that isn't an actual ideology, I meant it in the most literal sense as "partisan supporters of Stalin", which is the only appropriate use of the term unless you're directly quoting another source.
The term 'tankie' from what I remember, started out on Facebook around 2015 and was used to by reactionary leftists to just label Marxist-Leninists (or Stalinists as they labeled them, though anyone that has read Stalin and Lenin knows there is no 'Stalinist', he represented M-L ideology) as "tankies" to completely discredit them. It grew and grew as the years went by.
AFAIK "tankie" arose at some point during the Cold War within the left to disparage support for the Khrushchevite/Brezhnevite revisionists after the Hungary and Czechoslovakia interventions, but who knows it might be retroactive historical revisionism in action. But I'm pretty sure the term predates 2015 at least.
But yeah while I used the term "Stalinist", another rhetorical bludgeon that isn't an actual ideology, I meant it in the most literal sense as "partisan supporters of Stalin", which is the only appropriate use of the term unless you're directly quoting another source.