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How much anti-"tankie" stuff is feds trying to keep the western left toothless? (hexbear.net)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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It's gotten to the point where even the mildest effective leftism will have at least one idiot crying tankie.

I've seen a lot of anarchists get called tankies even.

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I would be surprised to find out they were not doing it but I don't believe the tankie panic is all regime propaganda. "Left" anti-communism has an organic component to it as well, founded in the material interests of those participating.

If you are a comfortable western labour aristocrat enjoying a relatively high standard of living based on the exploitation of workers abroad and sometimes also at home then you have something to lose by a revolutionary chance in the social and economic order. You might feel genuinely appalled by racism, queerphobia or the deliberate destruction of the climate for profit and you might sincerely organise and agitate against these evils but you instinctively understand that revolutionary socialism is bad for you personally and know you have to limit your politics to the soft play area of liberalism as not to threaten your own position.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 5 months ago

This is on the money. You're driven by the same urges the bourgeois were in the 1950s to call anybody to their left a commie, but it's 2024 and calling somebody to your left a commie feels hollow (particularly when that's what the Republicans have been calling you and the people you vote for your entire life). Tankie is a "new" way to call somebody a commie and it makes you feel a little bit erudite and nuancey.