Draft:Tankie glossary

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From each

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To each

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Based on Alt-right glossary, Manosphere glossary, and Indian alt-right glossary

Tankies and Chinese nationalists (i.e., Chinese Communist Party, not Kuomintang) use memes and re-appropriated terminology in order to circlejerk each other. Just like the alt-right, this group of leftists use a lot of racist and dehumanizing dog whistles. The majority of these terms can be found in online forums like Reddit and Twitter. Tankies are distinct from other communists due to their hardline, even uncritical support for the actions and policies of countries like the Soviet Union, China, Russia, or Iran. In fact, the name "Tankie" derives from their uncritical support of tank-centric interventions in respect of domestic and foreign problems when used by those countries.

Terms

Note Some terms have been indirectly translated from Chinese and may be inaccurate.

Actually existing socialism

Commonly known as "AES", this term is used by tankies to refer to what most commonly includes China, Cuba, North Korea, Laos, and Vietnam (and optionally some more, like Venezuela or Nicaragua). Tankies make heavy use of this term in order to deflect any sort of criticism of these (what are in reality largely state-capitalist) countries by other communists/socialists; most supporters of "AES" blindly declare critics "CIA shills", "abandoners of socialism", "Western chauvinists/fake left", etc.

Anarkiddies

The term anarkiddies is used to make fun of anarchists, ancoms, and ansyns for not supporting authoritarian regimes like the Soviet Union, Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela. They might just resort to calling them liberals. This can be a form of guilt by association. However, it can be considered a leftist slang term for crazy anarchists.

Anti-imperialism

Tankies use the term "anti-imperialist" largely to describe countries that do anything even vaguely opposed to the USA, and NATO in general. Not to be confused with genuine anti-imperialist movements.

Anti-revisionism

Basically, a euphemism for Stalin apologia, similar to how white nationalists call themselves "race realists" and TERFs insist on being called "gender critical". The term originally referred to opposition towards Nikita Khrushchev's reforms within the Soviet Union after Stalin's death.

The term, however, is most infamous as the endonym used by Hoxhaists and Maoists, who support Stalin but do not support modern socialist states like China.

Baizuo

Chinese: 白左, literally "white left". The term is meant to insult leftists in Western countries who care about non-economic topics, especially "identity politics". Although tankies may use the phrase to insult detractors who care about human rights, the term actually seems to see widest use among Donald Trump fans (both in America and in China).

Color revolution

A color revolution historically refers to the wave of anti-communist popular uprisings in the late 1980s that saw the toppling of the Warsaw Pact governments or, in the case of Tiananmen Square, an attempted popular uprising that was brutally crushed by the CCP. Tankies use it to allege that popular uprisings "seemingly" led by the proletariat in countries that they like are actually false flag operations coordinated by "imperialist interests." Popular uprisings that have been deemed "color revolutions" by tankies include the Euromaidan and the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests.

Critical support

In typical socialist parlance, this means to criticize a person, group, or government while standing with them at the end of the day, based on one's personal overall calculus of the benefits/harms caused by doing so. In tankie parlance, it could mean this, but more often than not it means gesturing vaguely at possibly-nonexistent (or excessively marginal/hypothetical) "criticisms" they retain towards the person, group, or government; it often functions as a "handwave" in this way. This vulgarized use of the phrase became so cliché that the term "critical support for X" became something of an in-joke within online socialist circles. Sometimes one may be left wondering whether its users have misunderstood the critical part to mean "critical" in the sense of "important", rather than "having criticisms of" the subject.

Decadence

"Degeneracy", but with a coat of red paint. Sometimes prefixed with "Bourgeois", especially when LGBTQ+ (particularly transgender) rights are involved.

"Fascist enabler"

While originally used to refer to centrists who acted as useful idiots to fascists as a result of things like the balance fallacy, tankies abuse it to refer to anyone who disagrees with anything done by a regime calling itself communist. Ironically, Stalin himself can be considered an enabler of fascism due to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.

Fellow traveller

A charm offensive directed at other left-wingers.

Liberal

Tankies often use the term "liberal" as a catch-all insult directed at anyone on the left they perceive as not being far-left or authoritarian enough, including anarchists and "succdems". Might also sometimes apply to right-wing ideologies like classical liberalism, conservatism (which conservatives don't like being called), libertarianism (includes left-libertarianism), and ancaps. Most tankies spend more time complaining about "liberals" than they do fascists.

Mecha tankie

A mecha tankie is a socially conservative "communist" who supports American nationalism and Donald Trump. See also: MAGA communism

Nazbol

See the main article on this topic: National Bolshevism

An ultranationalist tankie, or alternatively a tankie that is open about being a fascist. It originated with factions of the Soviet army that aligned with the Nazis and still survives today in one of Russia's opposition parties, though it really isn't a coherent ideology. Nazbols may also be referred to as "red-browns", which can also describe an alliance between fascists and tankies.

Popular front

An effort for communists to organise any non-communists, ostensibly for a particular campaign.

Re-education

Brainwashing of so-called "enemies of the revolution".

Red fascism

Red Fascism is a concept used by some democratic socialists and social anarchists equating Marxist-Leninism and its variants with fascism. See Social Fascism for its opposite.

Socialism in one country

Socialism in one country was a strategy of the Soviet Union after the initial failures to bring communism to Germany and Hungary, a retreat from internationalism to nationalism.

Trotskyist

Any opponents (sometimes left-wingers) perceived as covert and deserving of enmity, contempt, disrespect, or persecution. Not necessarily supporters of Trotsky.

Ultra

An "ultra-left" is a leftist who tankies and Dengists view as dogmatic or uncompromising (that is, those who don't uncritically support Russia and China), despite the fact that most Western supporters of the CCP are themselves usually extremely dogmatic. This term often refers to left-communists or Gonzaloists and is usually used against communists who don't support any of real-life socialist states (or at least what tankies view as being "socialist states").

Vatnik

A similar but distinct category from tankie. It refers to impoverished Russian jingoists who believe state propaganda. Some "vatniks" may be tankies and vice versa, but they are not synonyms. See: ruscism.

Western media

Tankies consider western-owned media unreliable, so they will often dismiss anything from them off-hand as "western propaganda". Of course, that doesn't stop them from consuming blatant government propaganda like Russia Today and Global Times.

Westoid

An insulting term for Westerners, particularly people from the United States. The “e” is often censored and replaced with an asterisk.

Workers' state

A workers' state is regular Marxist terminology for a communist regime.

Yoghurts

Yoghurts refers to Uighur Muslims. The term was coined to mock the pronunciation of "Uighur" and to claim they are Western imperialists, a form of genocide denial.