Tankies

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Tankies are leftists who engage in blind apologia for left-wing authoritarian governments, such as those of Mao's China and Stalin's Soviet Union. The term began as an insult among Communists to describe those who supported the Soviet Union "sending tanks" to places like Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, although it has since expanded its meaning quiet a bit. As Owen Hatherley noted in an article on the topic:

‘Tankie’ being used on the internet half a century later as a blanket term for ‘Marxist’ is an example of the trivialisation of political language. It is akin to the use by Labour Party staffers of ‘Trot’ to mean, in their words, ‘anyone to the left of Gordon [Brown]’.

Beyond these particularly dumb uses, ‘tankie’ has come to mean something quite specific, interchangeable with ‘campist’ (whose origins are in the Stalin-era definition of a ‘socialist camp’ and an ‘imperialist camp’). Campism, or tankiehood, is generally reducible to a willingness not just to take a pacifist or ‘plague on both your houses’ position on certain international disputes, but to openly and enthusiastically side with whichever camp is in opposition to the United States.

This can lead to apologism at best and enthusiasm at worst for violent capitalist rulers, from Muamar Ghaddafi to Bashar al-Assad to Vladimir Putin. However, this sort of tankiehood tends to have a focus on imperialism and ‘racial capitalism’, with roots much more in Maoism or 1970s ‘third worldism’ than in the pro-Soviet trends of west European communist parties. It can be seen in the online cult of once-forgotten books such as J Sakai’s vituperative Maoist history of the American white working class, Settlers.

What a Tankie is not

Image BadMouse shows.

In order to clearly explain what a Tankie is, one must have an understanding of what a Tankie is not. This is important because many Tankies will attempt to argue that the term applies to a series of important figures throughout both left-wing history and world history more generally, therefore claiming that disagreement with them is in some way disagreement with leftism itself. Mind you, disagreement among leftists, even with important leftist figures, goes back as far as leftism itself. Karl Marx himself even quipped that he was "not a Marxist" specifically in response to seeing how early members of the left were applying his ideas, and his 1847 work The Poverty of Philosophy existed to criticize the arguments of another important leftist, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. As such, the notion that important figures from leftist history believing certain things therefore meaning we should believe those things is not only logically nonsensical (smart people can believe incorrect things) but also is, funnily enough, against the history of leftism.

BadMouse, a leftist YouTuber, specifically took note of an image which made exactly this point in his video on the topic. However, he noted some of the people (such as Malcolm X) were not even communists and others (like W. E. B. Du Bois) are only included on the basis of them having praised leaders under very specific circumstances which Tankies mindlessly defend. Lastly, several of the people were famous for engaging in forms of left-wing politics totally unrelated to their opinions on the Soviet Union, meaning even if their ideas fall under the definition of a "Tankie," it has nothing to do with their successes in life.

For point of comparison, attempts to label certain popular leftists from the 20th century as Tankies has about as much validity as Answers in Genesis trying to claim Isaac Newton as a Young Earth Creationist. Even if his views do fit the technical definition, although even many creationists are unsure of that, it would still be somebody in a totally different time and place who contributed to the world in ways which had nothing to do with their alleged views.

One example of a leftist who actually uses this rhetorical trick is Hakim, who argued in his video on the topic that the term is really only used to criticize any and all Marxist-Leninists, specifically non-white ones outside of the first world, specifically those who have something positive to say about older examples of socialism. His evidence for people using the word in this manner is non-existent, and the most he can do is vaguely gesture at certain groups of highly online liberals who claim this or that because of something they saw on Twitter.

Obviously a Tankie is not merely somebody who "defends" this or that socialist nation from criticisms, if a critique is incorrect it is always worthwhile to argue against it, nor even people who take inspiration from problematic historical figures in leftist history, but specifically somebody who blindly defends authoritarian leftism regardless of what information is brought forward. Saying the United States engaged in many of the same human rights abuses it accused the Soviet Union of doing during the Cold War or that western governments put out sometimes very incorrect claims about their opponents in order to get the public on their side does not make one a Tankie, saying said left-wing governments were justified in their human rights abuses does or pretending the Soviet Union did not do the same does.

What a Tankie is

As mentioned previously, the term was first used by leftists against defenders of the Soviet invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, however the term did not gain mainstream popularity until the 1980s, when it was used in The Guardian to describe those who wrote for the newspaper Morning Star, which uncritically supported the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan.

This is important because it reveals the main distinction between Tankies and other leftists, they believe in things that nobody else on the left would find justifiable if done by a non-socialist nation, and commonly have the same reactionary politics those on the right are derided for. The Tankie habit of engaging in Anti-Semitism serves as a good example of this, The Anarchist Library even contains an entire essay discussing the willingness of Tankies to work with reactionary world leaders as long as they are against the west.

This mindless dislike of western governments is a common trend among Tankies. Of course, all consistent leftists should be very critical of the west, nobody is denying that, but Tankies are infamous for their willingness to support anybody and everybody who serves as a geopolitical foe for western nations. See, for example, Caleb Maupin saying he is fine with working alongside the famously antisemitic Louis Farrakhan because both were against the removal of Muammar Gaddafi.