[CW: reddit link] Redditor Uses "Stalinist" to Define "Tankie"
[CW: reddit link] Redditor Uses "Stalinist" to Define "Tankie"
Has /r/socialism_101 been compromised? I have noticed over the last 2 or so months some incredible takes in the comments and this thread is even locked.
I usually don't really care but this kind of thought is on par with libs that use "utopian" when talking about Marxism. Just so confidently wrong. I'm not even that well read yet on theory but, Jesus, this set off my lib radar bad.
Wasn't Stalin already dead when the tanks were sent to Hungary?
It was the spectre of Stalin that ordered the tanks to cross the border! He was so brutal that no one would dare disobey even his disembodied spirit.
Yeah and it was months after Khrushchev gave his speech denouncing Stalin and committing to "de-Stalinization"
Tankie is when Stalinist is when de-Stalinization. Don't look at me, I don't make them rules
Yeah, I'm not as read up on all the history of the USSR between 1950 and 1990 as I'd like to be but someone in the comments did mention that the Hungary thing happened after Stalin lol.
To call yourself an ML and also uses terms like Stalinism unironically? Maybe I'm wrong but this smells like fedposting or larping.
In my experience, "Stalinism" gets thrown around a lot where I live particularly by the -ists (starts with a T). It's to discern themselves from the "wrong kind of socialism" that advocates for "authoritarian regimes" and "genocide". The type that proclaims real socialism doesn't exist in those "regimes". Not by MLs.
Anyway, sectarian/purism nonsense imo. Maybe mods gave up after the Reddit API shitstorm.
Maybe mods gave up after the Reddit API shitstorm.
I know I have lol
I don't wanna sound too tin foil hat but it feels like the user is a plant. They even cite Wikipedia to "back up" their claim on it.
And yeah mods giving up maybe. I know that sub didn't go dark over the api shit but they might have had a changing of the guard? The content there used to way better quality it seemed.
Still remember getting into an argument on Facebook where someone tried to argue with me that
was a StalinistHis argument? Every Communist leader was a Stalinist
When I asked him to define Stalinism, he said "Authoritarian Totalitarianism"
I had to stop because it was supposed to be a Simpsons Meme page and I was getting more
by the secondAuthoritarian is becoming another one of "those words" for me too. I live in the States and it's extremely authoritarian here but others will claim the USSR was actually authoritarian. Our women have virtually no rights, we don't help the homeless or poor and expect them to die, we have a poverty to profit prison pipeline, our healthcare is behind an employee-controlled pay wall, and we have the electoral college so our votes don't even matter.
It's just almost impossible for me to take people seriously when they use these words anymore. And like from what I understand "tankie" just basically means someone who supports socialism and has read a modicum of theory. Well, the word really doesn't have a meaning but that is mostly how it's thrown around.
And you can tell those that have read theory because instead of saying "Authoritarian regime" they say a "dictatorship of the proletariat" and they know what that means.
I live in the States and it's extremely authoritarian here but others will claim the USSR war actually authoritarian. Our women have virtually no rights, we don't help the homeless or poor and expect them to die, we have a poverty to profit prison pipeline, our healthcare is behind an employee-controlled pay wall, and we have the electoral college so our votes don't even matter.
That's just Freedom™, silly.
Do you ever feel like it would just be better to call yourself a Stalinist since thats what people will label you as anyway? I have always called myself a tankie and it has made me a lot less weak looking because i dont have to deny anything.
Activism is usually done with people who like you anyway, so it doesnt matter that this makes liberals terrified. Youre going to be organizing with homeless people anyway, so they wont care what you call yourself as long as you are cool.
Ive really struggled to find a reason to come up with a label myself though. I only called myself a tankie because my enemies did so.
Hi. My name is toomanyjoints69. Im a tankie. Have some free food. Would you like to help cook food for your fellow homeless people?
Three weeks later.
Thanks for helping us every week with cooking. The UMWA is having a picket event in town and it would mean a lot to me if you came to this to make the crowd bigger.
A month later.
Some liberal angrilly leaves the group because its led by a tankie, meanwhile the group mainly consists of homeless people grateful for the IDs, Social security cards, and food ive helped them get. We continue to do our activism while getting free labor from liberal hippies that post fliers for us until the enevitable cancellation attempt.
Im not pretending to have solved activism. My own groip fell apart after 3 years because it relied to heavilly on myself and im bad at strategy. HOWEVER i do maintain that i was very good at recruitment and building a base of supporters who arent just activist liberals.
activism is frickin hard, 3 years is nothing to sneeze at
Thanks. The previous 3 years have been both the proudest and most regrettful part of my life. In the end I "helped people" but I didn't accomplish any kind of change.
I fed the homeless for 4 years. In a lot of ways it feels like we are the nameless, thankless heroes actually doing things while the other side just keep talking about solutions and not doing shit, or simply virtue signalling on social media.
I'm always proud of my comrades when I hear them doing actual activism. I'm extremely introverted and activism is fucking hard. If I go to a women's rights march, I risk getting shot by an angry chud. I know that. But it's easier being part of the crowd/movement for the current thing.
I'm looking at starting a club/chapter for one of the orgs in my city and it's going to be a huge fucking uphill struggle. I think my approach if I can get people on board is to start by reaching out to our other activist groups like Food Not Bombs and working with them to get a feel for it, then start organizing and agitating.
I think a lot of protests sort of jump on the current thing and then fizzle out while media tells us to be mad at the next thing. I'd want to keep focus on each of the aspects and try to keep bringing people into the fold. The black struggle didn't end after the Floyd riots. Women's suffrage didn't end after a few marches.
I guess I'm rambling...
But for sure be proud of those 3 years. That's real fucking change.
One thing that really helped me out is finding an existing project, and helping that. If you work circles around them without denouncing them, you will attract new members and gain allies that already have a presence. It was so wierd that the people defending me, the open tankie, were the anarchist famous in my area for being confrontational bullies. They simply appreciated the help that me and my friends could bring, and saw that we were willing to defer to their judgement when it came to their projects. When I say cooperate with an existing project, I don't mean take it over, and they were actually really grateful for that.
Protests in general always seemed more like parties than real activism to me. I agree with you.
Once you have allies and members you can think of a goal and try to achieve it. Perhaps you will have more vision than me lol.
Maybe this is the silver bullet, we simply need to start calling libs Stalinists for anything remotely progressive for them to hear how reactionary that sounds
You know what, I might start doing that ironically.
"Oh you went to the homeless protest because you think unhoused people shouldn't be ground into human fish paste by cops? What are you, some kind of Stalinist?"