What separates a “tankie” from a Marxist-Leninist? Is it just vibes? I got called a tankie for recommending a “leftist” to read Marx, specifically Critique of the Gotha Programme. Said leftist thought that the biggest factor of Capitalism is the employee-employer relationship, which is of course ridiculous, as that would mean feudalism is Capitalist, or even Market Socialism.
Since I get to see a lot of hexbear posts and comments as a lemmy.ml account, I can genuinely say that the biggest distinction between hexbear and lemmy.world, besides the fact that hexbear is explicitly leftist, is that hexbear users love to combat liberals and liberalism, often dogpiling on anti-communist takes, which .world sees as disruptive.
From my experience Hexbear isn’t as much full of tankies as it is full of anti-west people. Depending on who you end up interacting with you might not even call them explicitly leftist. I don’t see supporting Russian invasion of Ukraine as leftist, but you can find people in Hexbear supporting just that.
Understanding hexbear is pretty simple.
Hexbear isn’t simply anti-west, but anti-imperialism. As in, Lenin’s definition. As extreme shorthand, Lenin defines Imperialism as the point at which Capital has concentrated to the point of near monopoly so as to impact the state’s decisions, a merging of bank and industrial Capital, export of Capital (not commodities), formation of international monopolies, and territorial division amongst the greatest Capitalist monopolies.
Following this, Russia does not hold the same extreme economic power internationally that NATO countries do, so while hexbear condemns Putin as a bourgeois dictatoraship and seeks an immediate end to the conflict, they also believe NATO as an imperialist power cornered Russia into making a move, provoking it.
Hexbear is usually anti-west because the West absolutely fits Lenin’s definitions.
That’s pretty much it, if you are familiar with Lenin and agree that opposing the strongest Capitalist powers is a good thing, you’ll agree with some part of hexbear.
It’s also worth noting that hexbear isn’t simply Putin supporting, they would rather the Communist party rule Russia, but if they have to pick sides, they would rather support the anti-Imperialist side (again, Lenin’s definitions) than the Imperialist side (yet again, Lenin’s definitions).
That’s really all there is to it.
Marxism predicted a temporary dictatorship of the proletariat during the proletariat revolution. Marxist-Leninism took the temporary dictatorship prediction and ran with it, establishing a permanent dictatorship of the communist party, which Lenin called the Vanguard Party.
There are Marxists that disagree with the idea of the Leninists’ Vanguard Party and authoritarianism. Tankies, on the other hand, are the communists that support this idea of a permanent communist dictatorship and its authoritarianism, at least in a nutshell.
So I would say that most ML Commies are technically ‘tankies’, but not all commies are ML. A lot of commies are just M.
I’m aware of the allegations, I just think people who believe Marxism-Leninism is in contrast to Marxism are “anarchist-washing” Marx’s actual writings and beliefs. See Critique of the Gotha Programme.
What separates Lenin from Marxism is the idea of a vanguard party, the concept of Democraric Centralism, and Lenin’s analysis of Imperialism, not how long the dictatorship of the Proletariat might last. Additionally, Marxism-Leninism wants the DoP to last until there is no more Bourgeoisie, same as traditional Marxism, it doesn’t mean that after that happens there is no government, just no means by which one class oppresses the other. Same as Marxism.
Marx, after all, refers to any Capitalist state as a Bourgeois dictatorship, regardless of the presence of Liberal Democracy. The dictatorship of the Proletariat just refers to the presence of a worker-state, a state democratically run by the workers, and that’s what Marxism-Leninism proposes.
Basically, my point is that people that oppose Marxism-Leninism should usually also oppose Marxism itself, because they aren’t really different. It’s completely fine to be an Anarchist who accepts the analysis of Capitalism done by Marx and Lenin but rejects the statist nature of Marxism, but I do think that the idea of Lenin somehow going against Marxism is “anarchist-washing” of the statist nature of Marx himself.
