291
Tankies take a moment to engage in some North Korea propaganda. 'North Korea is a democracy'
(sh.itjust.works)
also downvoted for preferring democracy lol
this post was submitted on 08 May 2025
291 points (95.0% liked)
MeanwhileOnGrad
1731 readers
267 users here now
"Oh, this is calamity! Calamity! Oh no, he's on the floor!"
Welcome to MoG!
Meanwhile On Grad
Documenting hate speech, conspiracy theories, apologia/revisionism, and general tankie behaviour across the fediverse. Memes are welcome!
What is a Tankie?
Alternatively, a detailed blog post about Tankies.
(caution of biased source)
Basic Rules:
Sh.itjust.works Instance rules apply! If you are from other instances, please be mindful of the rules. — Basically, don't be a dick.
Hate-Speech — You should be familiar with this one already; practically all instances have the same rules on hate speech.
Apologia — (Using the Modern terminology for Apologia) No Defending, Denying, Justifying, Bolstering, or Differentiating authoritarian acts or endeavours, whether be a Pro-CCP viewpoint, Stalinism, Islamic Terrorism or any variation of Tankie Ideology.
Revisionism — No downplaying or denying atrocities past and present. Calling Tankies shills, foreign/federal agents, or bots also falls under this rule. Extremists exist. They are real. Do not call them shills or fake users as it handwaves their extremism.
Tankies can explain their views but may be criticised or attacked for them. Any slight infraction on the rules above will immediately earn a warning and possibly a ban.
Off-topic Discussion — Do not discuss unrelated topics to the point of derailing the thread. Stay focused on the direct content of the post as opposed to arguing.
You'll be warned if you're violating the instance and community rules. Continuing poor behaviour after being warned will result in a ban or removal of your comments. Bans typically only last 24 hours, but each subsequent infraction will double the amount. Depending on the content, the ban time may be increased. You may request an unban at any time.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
There are obviously many necessary evils in the world. That's just false. I don't agree that authoritarian communism is one of them, but there are many.
What do you think is a necessary evil?
And what do you mean? Is authoritarian communism evil?
All forms of authoritarianism are evil, but communist authoritarianism is an oxymoron.
self defense is a necessary evil, for example
It's nice you have a special, ever-changing definition of communism that conveniently excludes authoritarians whenever you want and which you're unable to properly define aside from vague handwaves with 'watch this video' or 'read this book' -- As if a youtube video is credible to the likes of scholars, or that you expect people to read a book that has a certain point of view that is at odds with others.
You're under the impression that this is an anti-communist community, it is not. You're under the impression I don't like communism, I don't care about it, I think it's wholly unrealistic and is entirely impossible to implement exactly as it's written. As it stands, communism is dead and shows no signs of life anywhere in the world. If you want to hold onto dead ideology, feel free, I am a gnostic afterall.
Though, I would like to see you make these arguments against tankies instead of communities like this one. Unless you think that tankies are communist, in which case I'm concerned if you agree with them. Tell me also what you think of Stalin, Mao, North Korea, and how every country that has tried communism has ended up authoritarian. It appears to me that it's impossible to implement communism without a dictatorship.
I defined it clearly, as all marxists do, as a classless, currencyless, stateless society in which the workers own the means of production at the "end of history" by the marxist materialist dialectic. I will not use any other definition because that's the definition marx made...
Marx never gave a specific implementation or even wrote about how it would be implemented... he merely gave a critique of capital and explained some inevitabilities about future societies based on these observations.
I do. Furthermore I wasn't even trying to argue with you, just inform you about communist belief. You were arguing against something no communist scholar would've said.
I think they are (sometimes) communist, but I disagree with their methods to such a degree that we are not similar at all. In the same way you don't agree with hitler just because he was a capitalist.
Easy, I think they ended up authoritarian for a number of reasons, the first and foremost of which is that there is a great deal of power attempting to suppress communist thought, and a vanguard party was the easiest way to enact communist thought in the early history of communism, this combined with the fact that capitalists actively try to dismantle non-capitalist societies at every possible threat lead to a survival of the fittest scenario where authoritarian methods were the most survivable because ruthless authoritarianism is very good at surviving despite the world being against it.
I don't want authoritarian communism, in my eyes the ends do not justify the means, I want something similar to the anarcho-syndicalists of revolutionary catalonia, or the zapatistas of mexico... which by the way are counter examples to the notion that all socialist projects end up authoritarian, they were both fundamentally democratic from the ground up to such an extent that everything was handled democratically, no politicians even in the case of the zapatistas.
It's not at all impossible to implement communism without a dictatorship, anarchists have done it countless times and then been destroyed by large capitalist armies throughout history. The real question is can a communist or anarchist society survive being trampled by the bourgeois. I think it's possible but the conditions must be right, and I think your stance would have said the american revolution would be impossible.
I am aware of the End of History and it's more likely that society will shift towards libertarianism instead of socialism, considering how popular a brand is at being the US president and how everything regarding communism is already dead, or just capitalism painted red like what China does (see this community's icon as an example). I'd like to see socialism, something like UBI, but we're in a corporate world showing no signs of stopping, where brands are so prevalent that people flock to defend them without a second thought.
You're also using it wrong. Currency and the state have been a part of human society throughout history, from slavery to feudalism to capitalism. Implying that the End of History will somehow remove this need for currency and the state is a fairy tale and a misuse of The End of History.
What you're looking for is an apocalypse. -- Not that an apocalypse is automatically bad.
Yes, he did.
Your belief on communism. Not communist belief -- yours.
You're avoiding the question. Yes, that is the origin of communism in the soviet union. But by the time Stalin and even Lenin were dictators, why did they still require authoritarianism despite being in control of everything already? What purpose does the extermination of minorities and dissenters play in this magical communism you dreamt up? Wouldn't it serve better if they were at least somewhat democratic? Regardless, they fronted communism and were literally the faces of it, as much as that upsets your fluid definition of communism. It's really more of a religion you have here as opposed to society.
Really? I can't think of any.
I don't care about the US, it's a clown country and always has been.
See, your vagueness is really quite annoying. You don't say much of substance and leave everything up to the interpretation of others, leaving you a nice little window you can poke at because you've toyed them along; you've previously been called out on this multiple times. Here's you: Ah, yes, conditions, mm. Communist scholars, quite, quite. Methods, mm, yes, it's very convenient when I can use vagueness as a shield to hide behind. -- See how this is annoying? See how these don't answer anything? See how you don't actually say anything of meaning and leave it up to others to make up an interpretation, which is easier for you to dismantle since you haven't actually said anything of your own views.
I know how sealions work, and I'd like you focus only on the following question, again, but exact and honest this time. Tell me also what you think of Stalin, Mao, North Korea and tankie communities. No vague handwaving 'methods,' or 'reasons.' Those aren't answers. You need to be exact. Otherwise, I have no other option than assume you're arguing in bad faith, again, as above.
I am not using it wrong... the end of history is about marx defining history as a set of class struggles. I see now that you're deep in not listening to what actual marxist scholars say so i'll have to source everything, I don't do this because it takes a long-ass time and is boring, but here goes:
" The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes. "
This is where he sets up an idea based on the hegelian dialectic that there's a natural progression of history through base and superstructure. The point being that his definition of history is one of class struggle. Logically it follows that the endpoint of history is one without class struggle, no?
Yeah so this is a complex one but whether or not its a fairytale is irrelevant, that's the marxist belief, and the point of this discussion is to clarify what you believe marxists believe, not whether or not it's true.
Marx clearly said communism would be "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!" How does that work if currency is involved?
You'd do well to read this particular source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/
the gist of it if you're not going to read it, is that currency would be replaced by a system of labor vouchers, where you are paid based on the amount of work you do directly instead of just currency, this means it doesn't circulate and allow you to accumulate wealth. The reason this has to happen for it to be the end of history is that part of the abolishment of class struggle is the abolishment of generational wealth, etc. I hope that makes sense to you now.
Where? The screenshot you gave is from the communist manifesto where he's detailing the possible pre-conditions for communism, he at no point says "this is what communism will be like:". This is merely a prediction of what an advanced country that might implement communism looks like.
https://anarwiki.org/List_of_Anarchist_Societies
Also the ones i listed in the text, the zapatistas and the revolutionary catalonians, it's literally right after I said that sentence.
You're completely missing the point of my argument, my argument is that based on your analysis the american revolution where kings were finally overthrown would be impossible simply because it hadn't happened before, things that haven't happened before aren't impossible.
I'm not giving my own views, i'm attempting to explain to you what marxists believe, i'm not even a marxist!
I think all authoritarianism is evil, I don't believe stalin or mao were genuine communists, i think they were powerhungry dictators who used communism as a propaganda tactic. Tankie communities are bad because they deny the very real evil things these people have done, some of the people in those communities are genuine communists who have just been mislead, however. Is that clear enough for you?
in short, stalin mao, north korea evil bad. tankie communities dumb.
Also, i want to make a note about something you said here:
"it’s more likely that society will shift towards libertarianism instead of socialism, considering how popular a brand is at being the US president and how everything regarding communism is already dead, or just capitalism painted red like what China does (see this community’s icon as an example)."
It's not about likeliness, there's an inevitable force causing class struggle to come to a close, you see, as these places have become more and more beorgeois, and as the proletariat has fewer and fewer resources, we get closer to a revolution, this is fundamental because eventually they will starve the masses, you're noticing the same pattern marxists did and drawing that the conclusion is that it must go on forever, when in actuality, there has to be a breaking point. Automation alone is likely to be that breaking point, when most people can't find work, they will have a choice:
Starve
revolt.
Which do you think they'll pick?
Yeah, i'm very lazy about giving sources, it's a lot of work and I already know the material and sorting through it is like solving a maze, it's boring, takes forever, and is completely not rewarding, i think that's the reason i've been accused of giving vague answers, I don't want to have to cite everything i say to have discussions I find interesting about communism.