I quite doubt you’ll see such thing as sane leftists generally simply discount tankie talking points out of hand – you look for certain patterns and the sources they cite and say “eh, not worth reading”, and also “eh, not worth replying to” because talking to a tankie is talking to a TV. They have a closed world-view, are able to bend reality itself to fit their core beliefs in the same way hardcore flat-earthers can.
You’ll be able to head over to random socialist places and find people who can readily address points, cut through the historical revisionism and selective reading that tankies do, but you’ll have to actually, well, ask questions and things might get egg-headed. If you address tankies directly I recommend going for broad-strokes arguments and questions and refuse to let yourself be dragged into areas that can’t be wikipedia’d quickly, say, the status of unions in the USSR. An unprepared tankie is not unlikely to flat-out claim that they were independent from the party. Ask them about whether they think people should be sent to Gulag over their interpretation of Darwin, suchlike: They will either deny it, at which point they disagree with Stalin which means that he did, in fact, do things which were not right, which is inconsistent with what they believe in, or they will support it, outing themselves as batshit crazy plain for everyone to see (and also disagreeing with post-Stalin USSR scientific community, much less the world’s scientific community).
Coming to the question of “why are tankies the way they are in the first place” though we come, at least from an Anarchist POV, to vanguardism as a core feature everything hinges on: The idea that for radical change to be possible, the masses must be led by a revolutionary vanguard. Marxist-Leninists all tend to fall into that category in one way or the other (and there’s plenty of e.g. Trots who are cringe but perfectly fine human beings) but it’s tankies who take it up to 11 by declaring themselves (and of course Stalin etc) infallible, and any opposition to their exalted “infallible” positions as counter-revolutionary. Thus, if you are not of the exact same opinion as them you’re the enemy and voila you have a cult going that can justify anything to itself.
This “change is caused by small groups leading broad masses” thing then leads to the “everything is a proxy war” type of thinking you see: It is inconceivable for tankies to think that Ukrainians would have a free will, a desire to decide their fate, and as they were drifting further and further away from Russia of course the CIA must be behind that. It’s pure projection.
(And, just for the record, yes, even Anarchists technically form vanguards. From “farming commune doing its thing and writing revolutionary poetry” to “Let’s stop right-wing militias from slaughtering native people and then live among the natives and talk about humanism”, see Chiapas).
(Also, Tankiedom is a CONTELPRO programme, their purpose is to make lefitsts in general look bonkers and inherently oppressive. Convince me otherwise).
I mean my stance is anarchism or left libertarianism, and I agree with most of what you said. But I also am just totally unfamiliar with these regimes. The only thing I’ve ever been taught is “bad”. I don’t really trust what I have been taught to be honest. I feel like there is a lot more nuance than the American POV. Also I’ve traveled enough to know that propoganda is EVERYWHERE. Every country propagandizes every other country. So it’s just hard to know what’s true about geopolitics tbh.
I think China and the USA are both terrible regimes, but in such a way that it’s generally fine to live there, which is a weird modern phenomenon. I bet Russia and Cuba aren’t what the US teaches. I suspect NK is a repressive hellscape IRL same as on TV lol.
Cuba can arguably be called democratic by now, though in a very different form than capitalist democracies. EU media is often apprehensive about the whole issue but acknowledges change, while in the US it’s the same old talking points up to “Batista did nothing wrong”, depending on where you look. It’s a bit further ahead in that aspect than Vietnam, which the US has much better relations with.
Russia tends to get completely misunderstood by everyone but its neighbours: Moscow’s rule has been based on conquering and oppressing neighbouring regions ever since the Mongols left. It provides them access to раздолье, meaning both expanse and liberty, a word with right-out mythical meaning to the Russian soul, though maybe Americans might actually understand. There’s a wide-spread notion among Russians, looking outside, that they want to be a “normal” country, but what that would entail completely eludes everyone, including the opposition.
Because, well, everyone is dozing, not just the depoliticised masses. Quoth Pushkin:
Whatever heavy load it carries,
The wagon’s light on steppe and street.
Grey Time, the coachman, never wearies
And never leaves the driver’s seat.
At dawn we jump inside the wagon,
Quite happy for our necks to break.
Scorning all soft delight and languor,
We yell “Get going, for fuck’s sake!”
By noon we’ve lost that daring folly,
Being jerked around. We’re wagon-sick
Afraid of every hill and gully,
And yell “Slow down, you lunatic!”
But on we rush round every bend.
We’re used to it, come evening’s yawn.
Heading to night, to journey’s end,
We doze. Time drives the horses on.
…quite a lot of soul-searching will be needed for Russia to get its shit together and install a GPS on that cart of theirs. Luckily they messed with the wrong people: Ukrainians, due to cultural closeness, are about the only people capable of cutting off Russia’s balls cleanly and thus throw the country into a proper existential crisis instead of trying to find, again, glory in old patterns. There’s nothing wrong with Russia attaining glory – just not like that. It worked out for them in the 1500s conquering what we now call Russia, but the time of imperialism is definitely over. Which is btw why Europe is so “unexpectedly” hawkish: The EU is a decidedly anti-imperial project, “let’s band together, united in diversity, so that no empire has a chance to challenge us”. Russia’s behaviour is an affront to all of that and cannot be permitted to stand.
As far the US is concerned it’s good ole cold war memories, they like fucking over Russia because it’s the USSR. I mean it would be kinda rich, the US criticising another country for being imperialist…
The Revolutions podcast had a good series on the Russian revolution if that’s a format you’re into. It includes the birth of Tankies as a name and phenomenon.
I quite doubt you’ll see such thing as sane leftists generally simply discount tankie talking points out of hand – you look for certain patterns and the sources they cite and say “eh, not worth reading”, and also “eh, not worth replying to” because talking to a tankie is talking to a TV. They have a closed world-view, are able to bend reality itself to fit their core beliefs in the same way hardcore flat-earthers can.
You’ll be able to head over to random socialist places and find people who can readily address points, cut through the historical revisionism and selective reading that tankies do, but you’ll have to actually, well, ask questions and things might get egg-headed. If you address tankies directly I recommend going for broad-strokes arguments and questions and refuse to let yourself be dragged into areas that can’t be wikipedia’d quickly, say, the status of unions in the USSR. An unprepared tankie is not unlikely to flat-out claim that they were independent from the party. Ask them about whether they think people should be sent to Gulag over their interpretation of Darwin, suchlike: They will either deny it, at which point they disagree with Stalin which means that he did, in fact, do things which were not right, which is inconsistent with what they believe in, or they will support it, outing themselves as batshit crazy plain for everyone to see (and also disagreeing with post-Stalin USSR scientific community, much less the world’s scientific community).
Coming to the question of “why are tankies the way they are in the first place” though we come, at least from an Anarchist POV, to vanguardism as a core feature everything hinges on: The idea that for radical change to be possible, the masses must be led by a revolutionary vanguard. Marxist-Leninists all tend to fall into that category in one way or the other (and there’s plenty of e.g. Trots who are cringe but perfectly fine human beings) but it’s tankies who take it up to 11 by declaring themselves (and of course Stalin etc) infallible, and any opposition to their exalted “infallible” positions as counter-revolutionary. Thus, if you are not of the exact same opinion as them you’re the enemy and voila you have a cult going that can justify anything to itself.
This “change is caused by small groups leading broad masses” thing then leads to the “everything is a proxy war” type of thinking you see: It is inconceivable for tankies to think that Ukrainians would have a free will, a desire to decide their fate, and as they were drifting further and further away from Russia of course the CIA must be behind that. It’s pure projection.
(And, just for the record, yes, even Anarchists technically form vanguards. From “farming commune doing its thing and writing revolutionary poetry” to “Let’s stop right-wing militias from slaughtering native people and then live among the natives and talk about humanism”, see Chiapas).
(Also, Tankiedom is a CONTELPRO programme, their purpose is to make lefitsts in general look bonkers and inherently oppressive. Convince me otherwise).
I mean my stance is anarchism or left libertarianism, and I agree with most of what you said. But I also am just totally unfamiliar with these regimes. The only thing I’ve ever been taught is “bad”. I don’t really trust what I have been taught to be honest. I feel like there is a lot more nuance than the American POV. Also I’ve traveled enough to know that propoganda is EVERYWHERE. Every country propagandizes every other country. So it’s just hard to know what’s true about geopolitics tbh.
I think China and the USA are both terrible regimes, but in such a way that it’s generally fine to live there, which is a weird modern phenomenon. I bet Russia and Cuba aren’t what the US teaches. I suspect NK is a repressive hellscape IRL same as on TV lol.
Cuba can arguably be called democratic by now, though in a very different form than capitalist democracies. EU media is often apprehensive about the whole issue but acknowledges change, while in the US it’s the same old talking points up to “Batista did nothing wrong”, depending on where you look. It’s a bit further ahead in that aspect than Vietnam, which the US has much better relations with.
Russia tends to get completely misunderstood by everyone but its neighbours: Moscow’s rule has been based on conquering and oppressing neighbouring regions ever since the Mongols left. It provides them access to раздолье, meaning both expanse and liberty, a word with right-out mythical meaning to the Russian soul, though maybe Americans might actually understand. There’s a wide-spread notion among Russians, looking outside, that they want to be a “normal” country, but what that would entail completely eludes everyone, including the opposition.
Because, well, everyone is dozing, not just the depoliticised masses. Quoth Pushkin:
…quite a lot of soul-searching will be needed for Russia to get its shit together and install a GPS on that cart of theirs. Luckily they messed with the wrong people: Ukrainians, due to cultural closeness, are about the only people capable of cutting off Russia’s balls cleanly and thus throw the country into a proper existential crisis instead of trying to find, again, glory in old patterns. There’s nothing wrong with Russia attaining glory – just not like that. It worked out for them in the 1500s conquering what we now call Russia, but the time of imperialism is definitely over. Which is btw why Europe is so “unexpectedly” hawkish: The EU is a decidedly anti-imperial project, “let’s band together, united in diversity, so that no empire has a chance to challenge us”. Russia’s behaviour is an affront to all of that and cannot be permitted to stand.
As far the US is concerned it’s good ole cold war memories, they like fucking over Russia because it’s the USSR. I mean it would be kinda rich, the US criticising another country for being imperialist…
The Revolutions podcast had a good series on the Russian revolution if that’s a format you’re into. It includes the birth of Tankies as a name and phenomenon.