this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2026
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I don't like spending this much time arguing against campism but they just keep talking at me.

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[–] thethrilloftime69@feddit.online -2 points 14 hours ago (4 children)

I struggle with the term "Tankie". Who is a Tankie? What makes them a Tankie? What makes them so frustrating? This term feels so vague that it just makes it easy lump all leftists into the term.

As far as I can tell, you're a leftist if you're not unpleasant to deal with and you're a Tankie if I find you unpleasant.

It sounds like some Boogeyman I've never seen or spoken to but I'm obligated to dismiss everything they say even tho I've never seen one.

[–] wholookshere@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 13 hours ago

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

If they have a god damn wiki definition, I'm not sure where you think its vauge. You just literally never looked.

[–] kestrel7_7@lemmy.world 2 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

The term originally comes from a divide amongst Anglo communists between those who supported the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary, and those who were critical. The tankies were the ones who supported “sending in the tanks.” These days it’s a disparaging term for any authoritarian socialists.

[–] culprit@lemmy.ml 4 points 9 hours ago

The tankies were correct.

https://www.joewrote.com/p/jfk-files-reveal-the-cia-role-in

In 1996, journalist Michael Smith published a book where MI6 officers, a branch of British intelligence, admitted they trained and armed Király’s fighters.8 The officer told Smith:

"We were taking them [fighters] into the mountains and giving them a crash course. I would be told to pick somebody up from a street corner at night in the pouring rain. Graz was our staging point. Then, after we'd trained them — explosives, weapons training — I took them back. We were training the agents for the uprising."

Nagy admitted such factions were active during his October 28th radio speech.

“The Government condemns the viewpoints according to which the present formidable movement is a counterrevolution [against socialism]. Without doubt, as always happens at times of great popular movements, this movement too was used by criminal elements to compromise it and commit common criminal acts. It is also a fact that reactionary and counterrevolutionary elements had penetrated into the movement with the aim of overthrowing the popular democratic regime.”

Here’s the newly released, un-redacted version. It reads:

The Hungarian Freedom Fighters were Agency sponsored.

The “Agency” in question was, of course, the Central Intelligence Agency. In the context of the JFK assassination, the CIA was suggesting anti-Castro groups meet with Béla Király, likely to replicate the Hungarian uprising in Cuba to oust the communist government.

Undoubtedly, some will downplay this revelation and claim the CIA’s role in the Hungarian Rebellion was minor, insisting it was always a popular movement against Soviet-style communism. As has been since 1956, I’ll be called a tankie for suggesting the American foreign policy establishment was 100% honest and weren’t the pristine Good Guys of History. Oh well. It won’t be the first time and it won’t be the last.

In my opinion, there is more than enough circumstantial evidence to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the Central Intelligence Agency encouraged, if not instigated, the bloody fighting that swept through Budapest in 1956. I don’t doubt the students and protestors shared Nikita Kruschev’s desire for de-Stalinization. But as that movement went from a demand to readjust the Hungary-Soviet relationship to outright destruction of the Soviet Union’s defensive pact in less than two weeks, there was obviously a secondary, driving force that compelled Nagy to go further. As these documents admit, Béla Király and the broader combative force were supported, trained , and armed by the CIA and MI6; you don’t need to be a genius to figure out who was pushing the Hungarian Uprising to move from civil protest to alignment with Washington D.C.’s geopolitical goals.

[–] RudeOnTuesdays@lemmy.world 8 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

Not all leftists blindly support Russia or China just because they're anti-western. Tankies seem to ignore all the evil shit Russia does just because they're not the U.S./E.U/Israel.

[–] thethrilloftime69@feddit.online -1 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

Ok but we all agree that the US/Israel is the greatest evil on Earth right? Like sure Russia does bad stuff, but like the US is worse.

[–] SarahValentine@pawb.social 4 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

The point is it's not a contest, and we should be opposed to it no matter which country is doing it.

[–] thethrilloftime69@feddit.online -3 points 11 hours ago (3 children)

Yeah but if your goal is to bring the most good to the world, you'll get closer to your goal by fighting against the US than you will fighting against Russia.

[–] Oppopity@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 hour ago

"Lesser evil!"

"No! Not like that!"

[–] r1veRRR@feddit.org 5 points 11 hours ago

That's only true if a stronger Russia somehow would be a better country than a strong USA. There's absolutely FUCK ALL to suggest that's remotely true.

It also a false dichotomy. You can hate Russias imperialism AND USAs imperialism.

[–] SarahValentine@pawb.social 4 points 11 hours ago

Again, you're making this into a two-sided contest between two huge turds. I don't choose either of them. I choose to fight the bad ideas and behaviors they're known for, at all scales and in all walks of life, regardless of comparisons between them.

[–] Yamees@lemmy.ca 0 points 11 hours ago

They're both guilty of imperialism on a world wide scale and all the evils that includes, but aside from it's early days the US has generally been a better neighbour by pointing their evil overseas, Russia has largely been a menace to it's neighbours in every era of history. I would say that's the biggest difference.

[–] FlyingCircus@lemmy.world -5 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Meanwhile, non-tankies blindly ignore the evil shit the west does on a much larger global scale and blindly accept the western narratives about Russia and China just because they’re too propagandized to realize they’re being lied to and misinformed. Not sure who the “blind” ones in this scenario are.

[–] techmaster7d@lemmy.world -2 points 12 hours ago
[–] andrewrgross@slrpnk.net -1 points 10 hours ago

A Tankie is anyone who self-identifies as a Tankie.

I don't apply the term to folks as insult, I'm just acknowledging people who choose to identify as such.