Tankies are people who identify as communist or socialist, but want a state where the ruler cannot be switched out through elections, or a comparable peaceful process. Such as the Soviet Union. In fact, the term “tankie” was first coined to describe people who supported the Soviet Union sending tanks to crush the Hungarian Revolution.
Authoritarianism and communism are incompatible. Under communism, the means of production are publicly owned. Ownership over a thing means that either a) you control the thing, and owe no accountability to anybody. Or b) the person controlling the thing is accountable to you. If the person who claims to control the means of production as the representative of the people is not accountable to the people, then he is actually the owner of the means of production. For example, Stalin effectively owned the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union wasn’t communism, it was the end state of capitalism, the complete enslavement of the working class to the owner class.
And for some reason, people who think Stalin was great like Russia, even though modern Russia doesn’t even claim to be communist.
Such as the Soviet Union. In fact, the term “tankie” was first coined to describe people who supported the Soviet Union sending tanks to crush the Hungarian Revolution
Not to be pedantic or anything, but wasn’t the etymology of the word “tankie” vindicated recently when it was released by Trump that the leader of the Hungarian Freedom Fighters ended up being funded by CIA?
Regarding your point of Stalin controlling the Soviet Union and dictating whatever happened with the means of production, I actually have stuff to add: union membership was highest in the USSR than it’s ever been anywhere to that point of history, with unions taking care of a lot of stuff such as guaranteeing workers access to housing and healthcare, organizing vacation, ensuring workplace safety, and obviously representing the will of workers: in every factory there was a factory newspaper where workers could submit their complaints or comments on the work organizing, and unions had the power to change the workplace director. As for sources of this, you can have a look at Pat Sloan’s “Soviet Democracy”, a book written by an Englishman who left the UK to go to the USSR in the Stalin era and lived there for about a decade; also Mick Costello’s “Worker Participation in the Soviet Union”, a book written after a series of interviews to workers all over the USSR by the author, published 1977 so a very different era, tells a lot about this. I think most of the misconception that “workers had no say in production” comes mostly from western anticommunist propaganda and isn’t substantiated by any serious evidence. If you have any works contradicting what I’ve said above, I’d be glad to look into it.
Lastly, regarding your point of “Soviet Union being the end state of Capitalism and the enslavement of the working class to the owner class”: who was said owner class?
Source for the graph above, hopefully you know Meduza well enough to know that it’s not very much aligned with socialism. Wealth inequality has never been lower in any Soviet Union territories as it was during the Soviet Union, not before, not after. In fact, wealth inequality was remarkably low compared to most capitalist countries (again as you see in the graph), and the highest salaries belonged actually not to politicians as you could expect, but to highly trained intellectuals such as University professors or military researchers (my sources for this are Albert Szymanski’s “Is the Red Flag Flying” and Robert C. Allen’s "Farm to Factory: a Reinterpretation of the Soviet Industrial Revolution). If there were an “owning class vs. working class” dynamic, wouldn’t we expect high wealth disparity between workers and “owners”, whoever they were? Why, if workers had no say over 70 years in industrial and economic production, was wealth inequality consistently at historic minima and not growing as is the case in proven class-societies such as capitalism (Russia post-1990 per the graph) or feudalism (Russia pre-1929ish per the graph)?
That declassified document you posted doesn’t say a whole lot. Basically boils down to “we gave them a phone call”. If that’s all the proof there is for collaboration, then your evidence is pathetic.
Secondly, you notice that blue line going up almost vertically? I’ve already lined out my definition of ownership, there’s also a second one, namely that you own something if the sovereign legally recognizes you as the owner. What happened was that the Communist party went from controlling the means of production without accountability (de facto owning them), to being the recognized owner of the means of production (de jure owning them). The graph you posted just tracks the latter, that’s why it looks like the Soviet Union had low wealth inequality.
If you took care to actually read the graph, you would see it says “income inequality”. How income (i.e. regular earnings, NOT amount of property owned) relates to formal ownership of something is beyond me. Additionally:
What happened was that the Communist party went from controlling the means of production without accountability (de facto owning them), to being the recognized owner of the means of production (de jure owning them)
I don’t even know what to say. Are you not aware that in 1991 the USSR was dissolved? How exactly would the communist party achieve formal ownership of means of production in 1991 if the system was discarded in favour of capitalism? What happened is kinda exactly the opposite: means of production went from formal ownership by the state, to formal and de-facto ownership by private owners over the following 5-10 years (the “vertical” line you talk about).
I’m under the impression that you have done 0 reading on the topic of actual worker representation, which you haven’t rebuked and haven’t given any sources too, and you’re pulling stuff out of your ass from hearsay, because your comment literally makes no sense whatsoever
The people who took over the government of Russia were the same people who ran the communist party of the USSR. For example the first president of Russia, Boris Yeltsin. That’s how they were able to steal all the stuff.
Ok, so why if they already de-facto controlled everything, did they have comparably much lower INCOME. What stopped them from having higher INCOME? Why do you refuse to answer to that?
They gave a response which you can check out. It boils down to “I don’t understand the difference between income and wealth, and I’m choosing to make up an on-the-spot interpretation based on my preconceived views”.
Not supporting the “dictatorship of the proletariat” types, but the reason tankies support Russia isn’t because they think modern Russia is Communist. It’s because Russia is fighting Ukraine, which they see as a proxy war against the United States and its puppets in NATO.
In the authoritarian Communist worldview, the United States is the vanguard of capitalism and the most dangerous threat to global communism. That’s why they think Communist nations need authoritarian governments and powerful militaries: to protect themselves from the United States and its client states.
So tankies support anyone fighting the United States or its allies, no matter who they are or how bad their governments are. Because they think anything that weakens the United States is good for the world.
Democrats and Conservatives. Anyone who sides with capitalism, supports state sanctioned violence by the police along with genocide and thinks that human rights are something to be debated over with shit like “up to the states to decide” or whatever is a fascist.
It’s to weed out tankies.
People are using tankie for Russia supporters?
Tankies are people who identify as communist or socialist, but want a state where the ruler cannot be switched out through elections, or a comparable peaceful process. Such as the Soviet Union. In fact, the term “tankie” was first coined to describe people who supported the Soviet Union sending tanks to crush the Hungarian Revolution.
Authoritarianism and communism are incompatible. Under communism, the means of production are publicly owned. Ownership over a thing means that either a) you control the thing, and owe no accountability to anybody. Or b) the person controlling the thing is accountable to you. If the person who claims to control the means of production as the representative of the people is not accountable to the people, then he is actually the owner of the means of production. For example, Stalin effectively owned the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union wasn’t communism, it was the end state of capitalism, the complete enslavement of the working class to the owner class.
And for some reason, people who think Stalin was great like Russia, even though modern Russia doesn’t even claim to be communist.
Not to be pedantic or anything, but wasn’t the etymology of the word “tankie” vindicated recently when it was released by Trump that the leader of the Hungarian Freedom Fighters ended up being funded by CIA?
Regarding your point of Stalin controlling the Soviet Union and dictating whatever happened with the means of production, I actually have stuff to add: union membership was highest in the USSR than it’s ever been anywhere to that point of history, with unions taking care of a lot of stuff such as guaranteeing workers access to housing and healthcare, organizing vacation, ensuring workplace safety, and obviously representing the will of workers: in every factory there was a factory newspaper where workers could submit their complaints or comments on the work organizing, and unions had the power to change the workplace director. As for sources of this, you can have a look at Pat Sloan’s “Soviet Democracy”, a book written by an Englishman who left the UK to go to the USSR in the Stalin era and lived there for about a decade; also Mick Costello’s “Worker Participation in the Soviet Union”, a book written after a series of interviews to workers all over the USSR by the author, published 1977 so a very different era, tells a lot about this. I think most of the misconception that “workers had no say in production” comes mostly from western anticommunist propaganda and isn’t substantiated by any serious evidence. If you have any works contradicting what I’ve said above, I’d be glad to look into it.
Lastly, regarding your point of “Soviet Union being the end state of Capitalism and the enslavement of the working class to the owner class”: who was said owner class?
Source for the graph above, hopefully you know Meduza well enough to know that it’s not very much aligned with socialism. Wealth inequality has never been lower in any Soviet Union territories as it was during the Soviet Union, not before, not after. In fact, wealth inequality was remarkably low compared to most capitalist countries (again as you see in the graph), and the highest salaries belonged actually not to politicians as you could expect, but to highly trained intellectuals such as University professors or military researchers (my sources for this are Albert Szymanski’s “Is the Red Flag Flying” and Robert C. Allen’s "Farm to Factory: a Reinterpretation of the Soviet Industrial Revolution). If there were an “owning class vs. working class” dynamic, wouldn’t we expect high wealth disparity between workers and “owners”, whoever they were? Why, if workers had no say over 70 years in industrial and economic production, was wealth inequality consistently at historic minima and not growing as is the case in proven class-societies such as capitalism (Russia post-1990 per the graph) or feudalism (Russia pre-1929ish per the graph)?
That declassified document you posted doesn’t say a whole lot. Basically boils down to “we gave them a phone call”. If that’s all the proof there is for collaboration, then your evidence is pathetic.
Secondly, you notice that blue line going up almost vertically? I’ve already lined out my definition of ownership, there’s also a second one, namely that you own something if the sovereign legally recognizes you as the owner. What happened was that the Communist party went from controlling the means of production without accountability (de facto owning them), to being the recognized owner of the means of production (de jure owning them). The graph you posted just tracks the latter, that’s why it looks like the Soviet Union had low wealth inequality.
If you took care to actually read the graph, you would see it says “income inequality”. How income (i.e. regular earnings, NOT amount of property owned) relates to formal ownership of something is beyond me. Additionally:
I don’t even know what to say. Are you not aware that in 1991 the USSR was dissolved? How exactly would the communist party achieve formal ownership of means of production in 1991 if the system was discarded in favour of capitalism? What happened is kinda exactly the opposite: means of production went from formal ownership by the state, to formal and de-facto ownership by private owners over the following 5-10 years (the “vertical” line you talk about).
I’m under the impression that you have done 0 reading on the topic of actual worker representation, which you haven’t rebuked and haven’t given any sources too, and you’re pulling stuff out of your ass from hearsay, because your comment literally makes no sense whatsoever
The people who took over the government of Russia were the same people who ran the communist party of the USSR. For example the first president of Russia, Boris Yeltsin. That’s how they were able to steal all the stuff.
Ok, so why if they already de-facto controlled everything, did they have comparably much lower INCOME. What stopped them from having higher INCOME? Why do you refuse to answer to that?
Nothing, they could probably have written down any number and that would have been their salary.
Because money isn’t real. If you control everything, you don’t need to buy stuff, hence money is literally meaningless.
@Saledovil@sh.itjust.works no response here?
They gave a response which you can check out. It boils down to “I don’t understand the difference between income and wealth, and I’m choosing to make up an on-the-spot interpretation based on my preconceived views”.
You see where the blue line goes up vertically? That’s when they go from de facto ownership to de jure ownership.
Anything’s possible when you make shit up, but you should try making up something more believable once in a while
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Yeltsin
You’re bad at this
Not supporting the “dictatorship of the proletariat” types, but the reason tankies support Russia isn’t because they think modern Russia is Communist. It’s because Russia is fighting Ukraine, which they see as a proxy war against the United States and its puppets in NATO.
In the authoritarian Communist worldview, the United States is the vanguard of capitalism and the most dangerous threat to global communism. That’s why they think Communist nations need authoritarian governments and powerful militaries: to protect themselves from the United States and its client states.
So tankies support anyone fighting the United States or its allies, no matter who they are or how bad their governments are. Because they think anything that weakens the United States is good for the world.
in the end, all they’ve done is make another oligarchy to replace the US with.
Me when all my knowledge of geopolitics comes from children’s movies instead of history
reading my comment was a thoughtcrime for you, comrade.
Tankies support Russia but Russia supporters aren’t all tankies
Better than accusing me of being one simply cause I refuse to fall in line with the blue or red fascists.
Who are the blue and red fascists, I’ve only heard the term “red fascism” before
Democrats and Conservatives. Anyone who sides with capitalism, supports state sanctioned violence by the police along with genocide and thinks that human rights are something to be debated over with shit like “up to the states to decide” or whatever is a fascist.