Not sure yet what this “tankie” thing is about… It seems to be an american thing, and as far as I understand it is used to disqualify anyone not aligned with social democrat point of view (ie western world is the good ones, despite what the 70 last years show us, capitalism is the least worst system, and societal liberalism is a huge enough concession to leftism). Or am I wrong ?
“Tankie” refers to the kinds of people who like Soviet and Chinese style oligarchies because they paint themselves red. Often, these people are in opposition to all Western countries, and social democrats in particular, whom they think of as ‘social fascists’ and, in many cases, oppose social democrats more than actual right-wing opposition.
Tankie is a derogatory term for Marxist Leninists, people that call themselves communist but actually are in favour of dictatorships and oligarchies. The name come from the fact that they supported the tanks that were killing peaceful protesters in the Tianamen Square massacre in China. And asking a genuine question is fine, shouldn’t judge people for that.
The “tank” in tankie came from the support of the Soviet intervention in the Hungarian 1956 revolution, which itself had a lot of leftist elements, such as wanting to make those state owned “worker cooperatives” into real ones like they were before the 1950’s, not just state enterprises with a state-elected “factory principal” (CEO).
