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.
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.