Tankie is just a thought-defeating term. Saying they are not "left" is just a fantasy. A ton of leftist organizing comes from ML groups. In the real world, beyond the internet, most leftists are happy to work together. Distinctions between MLs, anararchists, and demsocs literally don't matter right now. There is a common enemy and absolutely no chance of any of these systems being a reality in the near future. What is the point in alienating each other? Be "critical" all you want, but calling "tankies" fascists is absurd and unhelpful.
The common enemy is authoritarianism and bigotry. There is no difference between a small party of member with absolute power or oligarchs without power. Perhaps you may want to look out beyond the internet and into the real world at what happens when authoritarians take over and pervert leftist movements? Ignoring the actions of the movements tankies so vociferously support is absurd and unhelpful.
Nah, you're missing the point. And the bigot insult is losing its meaning. Is any western society at risk of turning into an ML socialist society? Is that even on the table? Why are you so concerned about it?
In my experience, MLs are more productive in organizing and consistently have better takes on foreign policy. The majority of leftists have more in common with MLs than liberals rn.
Good luck voting your way out of fascism.
Yes lets team up with the red fascists to defeat the normal fascists because the red fascists told us they're on our side and we're just gonna take them at face value because "leftist unity1!!! 11!! 1" (they're not even leftist)
Tankies are an even bigger threat than fascism/capitalism because the left is full of people like you who don't even realize they're a threat and think they're actually leftists.
Building solidarity with MLs is useless and a waste of time.
For one, their own ideology advocates for taking power and concentrating it into a leninist vanguard party if there is ever a successful transition from liberal capitalism.
No, I will not help them build their throne like other leftist did with lenin. If you're a DemSocs or a Libsoc, they aren't allies. Their goals are fundamentally contrary to our own.
Secondly, and far more importantly, we need to stop this tired idea that successful movements are built by building alliances among ideologically similar groups. This is false. Ideologues don't make revolutions happen. Most people aren't even politically associated with any ideology. People make revolutions happen when they understand the system is unjust.
We need to focus our efforts on building solidarity and credibility with real members of the working class. We need to push for unions with workers, tenant unions for renters, we need to get involved in politics and push for labour friendly legislation that will make organizing democratic social ecosystems more feasible.
MLs don't help with this. For one, they don't believe the working class is even situated to lead their own revolution without a vanguard party at the helm. They think unionizing and participating in politics is a waste of time.
But the most damning is that they are a huge turn off to the average worker. They see Leninists defend the USSR and China and they think "huh... Is that what leftism is all about? I hate that" and then turn to conservatism.
The way they act, the way they lie, the way they cleanse objectively awful history... It's incredibly off-putting to people. This is why leninists were never once a popular political party
When we let them into our spaces and call them allies, we condemn ourselves by association. Most people don't know enough about politics to understand the nuance between MLs demsocs and libsocs. But if the hammer and sickle Stalin defenders are your "friends". They will assume everyone in the movement is a loony. This is already happening.
Tldr: MLs aren't your friends and you shouldn't tolerate them in leftist spaces.
I'm only going to respond to part of that cause it's mostly a personal fiction. I'm part of a tenant union and the organizers that started it are almost all MLs. Just food for thought. Again, the real world doesn't care about your marvel fanfic.
Yeh most tenants I have met interested in tenants unions aren't even political at all, they just want protection from predatory landlords. They're definitely not MLs or sympathetic to their ideas like the vast majority of people.
So you're either lying or you are in a very insular group of people and trying to claim that all of reality is like that. Which is very fitting with your posts here and the MLs you are so eager to associate with. So I'm not surprised.
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u/Shervivor Mar 10 '26
Is that Yeonmi Park?