Context: https://lem.lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/45960248
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this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2026
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Ill never understand why brainlets try to call /0 tankie given how much squabbling and total idealogical disagreement exists between it and the 3 pretty tankie instances.
You're left of Hilary sadly you're a tankie. I'm sorry.
Do I at least get a free T72?
No... You need to work as bot for 1 year and send an application form directly to Putin.
Tankie is a gradually shifting pejorative for anyone that defends existing socialist states. Dbzer0 straddles the line between tankie/non-tankie because the average stance is less a defense of existing socialism and more towards skepticism towards allegations against existing socialism, which then depends on who is hurling the pejorative.
At this point tankie just means anyone who acknowledges there is nuance to historical and/or modern socialist states. You don’t even have to support or defend them to earn the pejorative, you get it just for saying that maybe the CIA lied about some things.
Edit: after re-reading your comment I realize I am just repeating what you said.
Yep! You've got it. I think it mostly depends on the position of the one hurling the pejorative, anarchists that use it tend to mean MLs and others that support socialist states on principle, while liberals cast a wider net for anyone that doesn't fully buy the CIA narrative, which includes some liberals and many anarchists.
Honestly most anarchists I’ve encountered tend to reflexively hate socialist states to the point that any nuanced take on them gets you the label without even expressing principled support as an ML. I sometimes think they hate ML socialism more than they hate capitalism, which is wild to me. Like, I think that most anarchists are idealistic and naive, but I still think they are comrades and I would happily live in their version of communism if it somehow came about.
You definitely are describing an unfortunately common phenomenon. Anarchism is not ideologically consistent by nature, it's more loose, and therefore there is broader ideological breathing room than something as consistent and disciplined as the Marxist-derived ideologies. Many anarchists do end up critically supporting socialism as a consequence.
I'm still unconvienced that lemmygrad isn't just people ironically saying stuff that people claim tankies say.
They're serious and dedicated Marxist-Leninists. There's some shitposting but there's a lot of high-effort content there, just check this post out and read the replies. It's abundantly clear that, even if you disagree, there's a bunch of thought that goes into a lot of the positions over there.
but isn't that what alleged tankies would do, so if you are mocking them you'd have to do it too?
I'm not mocking tankies, I'm in the post I linked.
no, but I am.
Not very effectively
When federation and the mass reddit migration happened it was always funny to see people call Hexbear's anarchists tankies.
Because you don't knee-jerk support all of Epsteinland's vassals and hate all it's enemies, and that lack of head-empty jingoism is more than enough to land you on the smug imperialist's shitlist.