this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2026
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Um, no, I've put plenty of thought into it and that's why I said it in the first place. I wouldn't be arguing something that I've never put thought into, because I'm not an idiot. But thanks for assuming that I am solely because you disagree with what I'm saying.
Bolsheviks, tankies, what's the fucking difference? (Yes, I know historically they refer to specific groups, but in practice today, anyone who identifies with bolshevik ideology is a tankie). I don't fucking care about the nuances of trotskyism vs leninism, they were both assholes.
No, I don't have a brand of ideological purity. That's another thing tankies share with the far-right: you're so zealously committed to your ideology that not only is there no room in your worldview for anyone to hold different opinions, but you also project your fanaticism onto everyone else, so in your eyes anyone who firmly rejects your ideology on rational grounds or otherwise has a more nuanced view, you accuse of the ideological purism that's actually your own.
And no, calling out tankies for being authoritarian (by calling them red fash) is not the same thing as allying with capitalists and fascists. Yet another thing tankies have in common with the far-right: they think anyone who isn't on their side is on the opposite side. Tankies are fucking assholes, fascists are fucking assholes. Both things can be true at once, and I'm not being inconsistent by calling them both out in the same paragraph.
Capitalism is destroying the planet and it's been oppressing and exploiting the majority of humanity since it was invented as a concept, and its precursors have been doing so since before even then. But guess what? I can be a socialist without being a tankie. And that's another thing tankies share with the far-right: they think all socialists have to be radicalized, fanatic, authoritarian communists.
Which brings us back to the beginning of this conversation: I was criticizing tankies for accusing Mamdani of being a fascist, which is a ridiculous assertion on all levels. He's a democratic socialist. Two things fascists hate: democracy and socialism. He stands for both, in a time when such leadership is rare. Definitely not a fascist.
But if in your worldview a fascist is anyone who's not a bolshevik, then we have very different definitions of fascism, and yours is not the correct one. And by the way, if that's what you believe, then you're not as different from the fascists as you think you are (need I repeat that refers to methodology rather than ideology, or in terms any erudite communist should understand, praxis rather than theoria. I'm not so fucking stupid that I think communists and fascists believe in the same ideals. But they believe in the same means which they believe their opposing ends justify).
So no, while I'd be onboard with dismantling fascism, if your proposed course of action is a bolshevik revolution then I firmly disagree.
Yeah, because you disagree with two things doesn't make them equal. You want to bitch about tankies, go right ahead. You want to claim they're equal to fascists, you're doing the same stupidity liberals do with their horseshoe nonsense, and for the same reason - it lets you take the status quo as a best of all worlds, since anyone who opposes it is obviously an evil authoritarian asshole.
I'm not a tankie, yet you keep referring to me as such. So.
It is. You're also pretending some schizo posting is an article in Pravda, which somehow still exists and is the party line. You make a strawman of what tankies believe, then claim anyone who disagrees with you is such, and pretend that's not equally ridiculous.
The terms you use certainly imply that. So you should probably stop doing that if you don't want to be considered stupid in that regard.
Fascists often say "Just because you disagree with [fascism] doesn't make it evil!" as a way to deflect from their own moral culpability in their belief systems.
I'd rather be a liberal than a fucking tankie. If I had to describe myself, I'm somewhere on the spectrum between social democrat and democratic socialist. If that makes me a liberal to you, then so be it.
No, that's what tankies do, accusing anyone who disagrees with them as being evil. I only accuse authoritarian assholes of being evil, and I do that whether they're tankies or literal fascists.
Well you're pulling a lot of water for tankies by trying to defend them...
No, but something doesn't have to be an official party line for me to recognize patterns and trends. Tankies are all over the internet, especially on lemmy, peddling their bullshit. Don't fucking gaslight me by pretending that doesn't mean anything.
Again, no, I dont claim anyone who disagrees with me is a tankie. I claim anyone who acts like a tankie, talks like a tankie, posts like a tankie, and argues in defense of tankies, is a tankie.
What you're doing is no different from when the literal fascists say "You can't just call anyone who disagrees with you a fascist!" I don't. I call fascists fascists.
In both cases there's a specific set of criteria they have to meet in order to reach that threshold. And in both cases those criteria include being overbearing, authoritarian extremists, glorifying violence, and being either intellectually dishonest or stunted. Whether they're doing it in the name of ethnonationalism or proletarian revolution is small change compared to those aspects.
And if you're about to label me as an "enemy of the proletariat" just because I'm against revolution until all possible alternatives have been exhausted, just know that that's something a tankie would do also.
No, never once did I claim tankies are literal fascists or hold fascist ideologies. I said they act the same. From the get-go, I specified that I was referring to methodology rather than ideology. If you're incapable of making that distinction, that's on you.