this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2026
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TankieJerk

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Dunking on Tankies from a leftist, anti-capitalist perspective.

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Curious about non-tankie leftism? If you've got a little patience for 19th century academic style, let a little Marx and Kropotkin be your primer!

Marx's Communist Manifesto, short and accessible! Highly recommended if you haven't read it

Kropotkin's Conquest Of Bread

Selected works of Marx

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How it feels to scroll Lemmy as an Eastern European (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 3 days ago by Xorg_Broke_Again@sh.itjust.works to c/tankiejerk@piefed.social
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[–] markovs_gun@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Because it's a pejorative term it gets applied to all sorts of different people but the basic idea is a leftist who believes the USSR and other communist nations did nothing wrong and that the worst human rights abuses of those regimes were either justified or completely made up. I believe the term "tankie" comes from the idea that they believe the guys in the tanks at Tiananmen Square were in the right. The term is usually levied against certain leftists by other leftists more than by people on the right, because people on the right just think that's how all leftists are.

[–] Alaknar@sopuli.xyz 6 points 2 days ago

I believe the term “tankie” comes from the idea that they believe the guys in the tanks at Tiananmen Square were in the right.

From the Wiki:

The term "tankie" was originally used by dissident Marxist–Leninists to describe members of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) who followed the party line of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Specifically, it was used to distinguish party members who spoke out in defence of the Soviet use of tanks to suppress the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the 1968 Prague Spring

[–] dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie

The term "tankie" was originally used by dissident Marxist–Leninists to describe members of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) who followed the party line of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Specifically, it was used to distinguish party members who spoke out in defence of the Soviet use of tanks to suppress the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the 1968 Prague Spring, or who more broadly adhered to pro-Soviet positions.[6][7] The term has extended to describe people who endorse, defend, or deny the actions of communist leaders such as Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong. In recent times, the term has been used across the political spectrum and in a geopolitical context to accuse individuals of having a bias in favour of anti-Western states, authoritarian states, or states with a socialist legacy; Belarus, Cuba, China,[8][9] Iran,[10] Nicaragua, Ba'athist Syria, North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela serve as prevalent examples.

The tanks they supported were not Tiananmen Square, but actually 30 years earlier when the USSR crushed the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.