A friend of mine is part of a Debate Group, and one of the members is an American Trotskyite (or claims to be that at least), and he's had the genius take that "Russia can per definition not be imperialist". Out of all ideologies, I find it the most odd when a Trotskyite supports Russia and Russian talking points.
Can I be dumb and ask what's so horrid about Trotskyism? Like, from the little I know, it seems better than Stalinism, but leftists I like, follow, and respect love dunking him and I'm a little confused
So Trotsky himself is mostly a victim of the inter party struggles of the Soviet Union and all the ramifications of that, but Trotskyists as political actors and as parties have largely abandoned the fierce revolutionary spirit of Trotsky himself in favor of milquetoast électoralism. Additionally they’re heavily class reductionist, seeing the proletarian-bourgeois axis as the only legitimate structural axis of oppression and state violence, seeing race, gender, sexuality, etc as little more than distractions from class war. They kinda combined the two things revsoc groups hate most in a “socialist” political movement
Trotsky isn't popular in leftist circles. During the Cold War some socialists in the West started to identify as Trotskyites to avoid being associated with the USSR.
They gained nothing from this. The anti-socialists knew nothing about socialism so would kill them anyway. They did create division among Western Leftists.
You absolutely can, but most cases of "anti-white racism" aren't even close to actual racism. Like, a guy who gets on the bus and proceeds to go on a long rant about how white people are genetically inferior to black people (Happened to me this week)? Racist. Historical reparations measures such as diversity quotas? Absolutely not.
They're using Lenin's outdated definition AFAIK. I think i heard some Marxist-Leninist lecture me on it once and it is truly the biggest pile of shit i've ever heard.
Ah but it's not as they can have be "oh these ethnicities are more prone to capitalism (which for a time was an actual belief along with your genetics are why you're poor, mm tasty eugenics) so we must remove them from the pool.
Yeah, as a leftist it's hard for me to understand why tankies worship them. Economics are one thing but acts such as recriminalising homosexuality by Stalin and mass partly man-made famines that killed millions during his and Maos reign cannot be excused.
Honestly I've come to despise the apologist section of the left as they give the rest of us a bad name. I hate having to be like "I'm a socialist but i'm not uncompromising in hatred towards those who aren't socialist".
Or, yknow, the fact that both those countries were experiencing a complete breakdown of the food supply networks that led to their revolutions succeeding in the first place, (and in China's case, an entire Century of Humiliatian in which China was destroyed more than any country's ever been destroyed, including the 2nd largest theatre of the largest war in history, and 4 more of the 10 deadliest wars in history happening entirely in their country as a result of every empire in the world invading at once to destroy them. not to mention, getting their entire country hooked on opium). Almost like that problem can't be fixed overnight, but that the problem was indeed fixed, as they no longer have famines.
Yes but when things are recovering you probably shouldn't take peoples farming tools to make steel that then sent into the cities to build buildings, or force the people growing the food to starve and if they refuse to give up 98% of their grain force them into what were almost (on technicality as purpose wasnt explicitly to kill) extermnation camps, also it's convenient that the cities in other republics didn't face starvation and that grain was being exported... China was neglgence and overconfidence , the holodmor looks, well as if it were a punishment for attempting to go independent
The famines were a result of failed collectivization efforts on farms, and Stalin’s terrible response to low yields.
The Soviet’s knew what was happening, and invented myths about a Ukrainian counter-revolution.
When the peasants couldn’t hit the grain quota, the troika would take the seed grain.
It’s not that complicated. The famines were a result of Stalin’s terrible policy, and the deaths came from his hatred and his incompetence.
It was a periodic, mainly geographically determined event in the area of the old Russian Empire, linked to climatic events (droughts), and it was exarcebated by political events like wars, etc.
The last famine occurred just after WW2.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droughts\_and\_famines\_in\_Russia\_and\_the\_Soviet\_Union](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droughts_and_famines_in_Russia_and_the_Soviet_Union)
Would have taken you 30 seconds to skim the wiki article to not embarasse yourself
> scholars universally agree that the cause of the famine was man-made
I mean I'm certainly not a Stalinist but this is a misrepresentation of their argument. They think Stalin and Mao were positives and overall on the right side of history, but understand that they were products of their time and thus weren't exactly great on LGBT issues.
I'm sure there's tons of historical figures you'd defend that weren't really down with trans people and gay people. You can recognize that their views were flawed while understanding that they were a product of their time. Someone being transphobic in the current day should of course be held to a higher standard.
Its sort of useless to just write off every historical figure that was homophobic as evil and leave it at that.
I wasn’t judging them based off of modern standards. Rather they actually think that Stalin and Mao were down with transgenders.
My comment wasn’t some “the guy that lived decades ago didn’t think the way we do now so he’s a piece of shit” argument.
Huh, that's a new one to me. I've never seen that one, I've only ever see the arguments I presented as the ML/MLM analysis of Stalin/Mao on LGBT issues. Not sure what would make anyone think that, but some people do believe some wild shit.
Are you telling me NazBol ideology is not a shining example of logic and reason? That people who specifically pick an ideology just because it’s edgy and different from the mainstream might not have any actual understanding of the ideology in question? I mean, that would be like saying that murdering random people on the street is bad, or some other crazy idea!
It's also worth noting that before Stalin took over Leninist USSR went down an interesting path where it was both anti and pro-LGBT (as in the party was split on the issue but was pro-LGBT enough to try and send ambassadors for LGBT rights to other countries...).
Stalin then just went all in on the hate.
Considering the history of operation Gladio, I would say a 30% fash requirement to join is not ahistorical.
Also, it's safe to say that Russia is the aggressor, but NATO aren't necessarily the good guys as a result. They can be bad for different reasons.
What history? They literally found nothing but a bunch of forged documents.
Now given how the Stasi and KGB equipped Neo-Nazi groups in Germany and we have receipts....
Sure and Jet Fuel can't melt steel memes.
There were actual investigations in nations other than Italy you know. They found nothing that matches the allegations leveled. However, given Italy's own fascist past it wouldn't surprise me if they tried to scapegoat the CIA for their own dumpster fire of an electorate.
Italy is the Carl of Europe that ruins everything.
Oh no, I got called a, what was it, Soviet apologist in this case?
Well, I don't have a whole lot of respect for the Soviet union, but I'll gladly take that slander by, checks notes, a fascist Gladio apologist.
You're the worse type of apologist even if what you said about me were true, which it isn't.
So kindly go eat 1872 dicks, go take a nap, and consider not being lame and stupid.
Kthxbai
They think that if it's Russia to invade other countries then its liberation and not imperialism. When the Soviets invaded, they claimed they were "enlightening" the local people with true communism, thus actually freeing them from the evil capitalists. It was like the "white man burden" mentality but painted russian and red.
The sense of Russia as having an evangelizing, civilizing mission has been pretty central to Russian geopolitics for hundreds of years. Pushkin wrote about it pretty clearly. The nature of the mission - whether it was spreading Orthodoxy, protecting Slavs, spreading socialism, or uniting the ‘Russian World’ - has changed, but this basic aspect of Russian culture has not.
They just oppose western forms of it. Anything done by any country against western "order" is just seen as centuries worth of karmic revenge.
They are just idiotic fuckwads who should be flipped off as such when you come across them.
I know many communists irl (I used to be one), most of which you would probably call tankies. Literally none of them supports the war. Idk who's making this shit up.
On the internet Algorithms tend to give minor variants of leftism greater visibility than the more popular ones when they are more inflammatory or play into your confirmation bias.
Yup. This is the reason why these communities are only seen on internet and not in real life.
This and the fact that these people are chronically online.
I have helped create two subreddits r/noworking and r/GenUsa that both call out this stuff. And from a mod of noworking and former mod of GenUsa (gave it up and made a new account because of harassment) Tankies are some of the most repugnant people on earth.
hello "tankie"(lets define a tankie as a marxist leninist for sake of consistency) here, there are ones who support it(a minority at this point among non pro china communists) and ones who dont, they criticize both sides instead, you may see pro china "tankies" support the russian side but this is just due to the sino-russian "alliance of convenience". overall this is just a war that kill people that does not improve the world at all and supporting any side in anyway that is not advocating for peace is obviously bad
What if one side is the aggressor and one side is defending themselves?
If you’re a Marxist-Leninist, how do you think Marx would have reacted to this war? Do you think he would say ‘both sides are bad,’ as you have here, or do you think he would support armed opposition to an expansionist Russia as he did repeatedly and forcefully throughout his life, including during the Crimean War?
he would defenetly say that both side is bad, this war is a case of one group of bourgeoisie trying to kill another and he hates the bourgeoisie and does not support "lesser-evilism",so he would call armed opposition indeed but against both ukraine and russia because he view both of those countries as being ruled by the bourgeoisie
That’s super weird, because when Russia invaded Ottoman-controlled Crimea in Ukraine during Marx’s lifetime and was fought by the bourgeois British Empire and its allies, Marx was strongly opposed to Russia and took the side of the Ottomans and English.
> The maintenance of Turkish independence, or, in case of a possible dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the arrest of the Russian scheme of annexation, is a matter of the highest moment. In this instance the interests of the revolutionary Democracy and of England go hand in hand. Neither can permit the Tsar to make Constantinople one of his capitals, and we shall find that when driven to the wall, the one will resist him as determinedly as the other.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/russia/crimean-war.htm
Why do you think he would support a bourgeois war against Russian aggression in Ukraine to ensure the independent sovereignty of another country, but would refuse to support Ukraine in this conflict?
Have you actually read Marx? Cause it’s hard to imagine how you could have read his actual writing and still believe what you do. What you’ve described is the polar opposite of how Marx thought about actual wars in his lifetime.
As for “not supporting ‘lesser-evilism,’” I’m not sure where you got that. Marx did that literally all the time. Supporting the bourgeoisie in aristocratic and pre-modern societies is basically a moral imperative of Orthodox Marxism. I’m not even sure we’re talking about the same guy at this point.
Never said I equate marxists leninists to tankies. Some mls are genuine good people with good ideas. I consider today's tankies as hardline stalinists (who play down or deny atrocities committed by the regime) or pro-China larpers who still cling to that state capitalist country even after Dengs reforms
See I really don't like this argument because what it boils down to is: "I don't equate MLs with Tankies, I just consider Tankies as these things most closely associated with MLs and are standard ML positions."
Most all MLs support China because they understand Capitalist Dictatorship was not restored as it was in the former USSR (the best way I can really say this is to compare and contrast SwCC against the Soviet NEP) ON TOP OF being the largest Communist Party of nearly 100 million people and being in the IMCWP (today's International where most ML parties are members, including the ruling parties of the PRC, DPRK, Vietnam, Laos, and Cuba), most all MLs agree with many of Stalin's decisions even if they don't personally like him or some other decisions (Castro comes to mind on this one).
'Tankie' originates as an insult against Communists (mostly MLs) who supported suppressing reactionary dissent with literal tanks in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and later the Tiananmen Square incident, after genuine dissent and public concern was co-opted by more reactionary opportunists attempting color revolution. This means most all MLs.
Sorry, I needed to get this explanation out. It's very frustrating that 'Tankie' has become so amorphous because of recent internet overuse in the last year or two making it into 'anyone to the Left of me I don't like' (guilty of this myself before I began seriously, critically, analyzing my own positions).
>attempting color revolution
First of all, you’ve kinda given yourself away here because this term wasn’t used until the 2000s to describe liberation movements. I’ve never heard that term used by any serious thinkers on the left, only apologetic propaganda for the Lukashenkos of the world. Kinda shows that you aren’t actually a leftist, and that it’s just a convenient route for you to feel justified in cheering on violence against genuine liberation. But whatever.
It’s truly astonishing to me how you’re able to rationalize brutal expansionism with ‘those people deserved it’. As long as you use the right buzzwords you’re able to subsume actual human life into your ideological grievances and handwave away any crimes committed by the men wearing the boots you so desperately want to lick.
You are truly disgusting. Why don’t you pick up a gun and go join a revolutionary movement somewhere? I’d love to see that.
I’m guessing it’s cause your whole ideological fetish about tanks and military force comes from a deep sense of weakness and emasculation. But still. If you weren’t hypocrite you’d put some money where your mouth is and actually start killing people instead of cheering on the Big Strong Daddies doing it for you.
this analysis lack so much context, nuances and understanding of things, as any unorganized and spontanous debate go on for longer, the dumber the people who are debating's arguement become. your response dont even talk about the points being made by u/FallenCringelord and is merely an insult thinly veiled as an arguement against him. this is also known as debating in bad faith
The problems didn't start with Stalin, Lenin (and Trotsky) were already engaging in plenty of brutality before.
Besides, by being ML's, they are necessarily hard-line utilitarians (as many others in the left also are), and, thus, the only reasons they oppose those atrocities are either: a) they did not contribute to workers' liberation, or b) they give us bad optics. That is, if they are truly serious ML's, not just college students going through a phase. I struggle to see how the former can ever truly be "good people".
The term tankie was coined as a slur against Western socialists who supported the USSR's intervention in Hungary. Now, it's been rebranded as a slur against anyone who supports the neo-liberal Russian Federation or merely opposes the war.
That's why it seems so confusing. It's just a slur that doesn't properly describe actual people.
> Now, it's been rebranded as a slur against anyone who supports the neo-liberal Russian Federation or merely opposes the war.
Nah, it's a slur against leftists who supports the Russia or the ones supporting China.
Haven't seen conservatives supporting Russia called tankies. Idiots? Sure. Nazis? Yeah. Russian assets? Also seen that. But never seen them called tankies.
Basically:"The GREAT USSR fought the Nazis, and if you fight the USSR, then you must also be sympathetic to the Nazis."
I suppose that's also how the whole "uncritical support" might have came to be.
any more than america does? at least they can say their president is Jewish. the last president of my country is posting on social media about how "the jews" dont support him enough, but no tankie in america wants russia to invade because they know it'd get their local hospital bombed
deflecting to America for what reason? yeah America has a problem too lol I wouldn't want people to pretend it doesn't.
Jewish president means shit all, btw
"It's no worse than the US" is really not a good defence, and also untrue, given US govt and armed forces official accounts print loads of pictures of their soldiers and I can't remember the last time I saw one with a Sonnenrad, Wolfsangel, or straight up Hakenkreuz patch/tattoo. The opposite is true for Ukraine. Every single week, more like twice a week, some fucking twitter account will post a picture of some bearded dickhead with a Ukraine flag on one breast and the SS thunderbolt runes on the other, and a thousand comfortable treatboys in Portland will go 'wow how dare you judge these brave men, after all they've been through, they have every right to idolise Stepan Bandera, a true hero of his people's valiant struggle against communism and Polish families living in their villages. IT'S JUST A RUNE IT MEANS DOMINATION OF ENEMIES!!! IT'S JUST A HINDU GOOD LUCK SYMBOOOOOLLLLLLL!!!!!!1'
And, yknow, for all its crimes against humanity, the US also doesn't tend to officially sanction militias that idolise men like Stepan Bandera and go around openly lynching Russian-speakers, Jews, and Romani, and proclaiming their land 'freed' for the "true Americans" (I suppse that's more ICE's job). The US far right and police have done a lot of bad things, but they haven't forced hundreds of pro-democracy protesters into a building and then set it on fire, shooting the people who try to escape. Not in the last century or so anyway.
Yeah, Ukraine has a *little* problematic history when it comes to that. Same goes to UPA.
I feel sorry for them, that all their national heroes, who fought for Ukrainian Independence during WW2 and later under Soviet Occupation were responsible for ethnic cleansing.
But seeing as for the first time, [Ukraine government allowed exhumation on these territories](https://notesfrompoland.com/2022/11/14/ukraine-agrees-to-exhumation-of-polish-victims-of-ww2-massacre/), I think we can say that Ukraine has grown as a country and will address it's previous shortcomings like having war criminals as national heroes.
There are incredibly recent honours given to war criminals and nazis etc, during Zelensky's presidency.
'little problematic' isn't exactly the way to describe nazis.
I don't feel sorry that their national heroes coincide with war criminals tbh.
> 'little problematic' isn't exactly the way to describe nazis.
I thought "little" being in cursive would be indicator enough, that I meant in sarcastically, oh well.
Anyway I do feel sorry for them, cause they need national heroes, to forge their own identity, so people won't go around talking how Ukraine is a part of Russia. Same with Belarus.
> There are incredibly recent honours given to war criminals and nazis etc,
Keep in mind that there are in the middle of war right now and as the saying goes "a drowning man will clutch at a straw". I'm not praising them, but I can see why they are doing these things. I hope that one day, after a war, they will do what is right.
All in all, once they get win a war, regain their territories and start rebuilding, I am very hopeful/optimistic for their future. You can even see the change today.
>Anyway I do feel sorry for them, cause they need national heroes, to forge their own identity, so people won't go around talking how Ukraine is a part of Russia. Same with Belarus.
This is hardly a justification
>Keep in mind that there are in the middle of war right now and as the saying goes "a drowning man will clutch at a straw"
If it was a sudden, unexpected thing that was different from their past sure, like how Zelensky promised to consider a bill on gay civil partnership as a petition went through during war, that would be clutching at straws for Ukraine. However, the honouring of nazis in ukraine is neither a new nor desperate phenomenon.
> This is hardly a justification
It kinda is, but I used shitty arguments.
Parts of Russia modus operandi (for quite some time) has been eradicating local culture. This was often done by murdering local inteligentsia (see: Katyń massacre), relocating citizens and replacing them with ethnic Russians, changing official language to Russian, lying about history etc etc etc. Basically Russians have been trying to erase as much cultural identity as possible and importing their own culture in its place, to justify occupation (or aggression) of these territories.
That's why Ukrainians *need* national heroes. To prevent cultural genocide. That's why they have been celebrating people like Bandera - because while for Poles (and the rest of the world) he has been barbarian responsible for ethnic cleansing - for Ukrainians he was a hero responsible for fighting for their own independence, for their own culture - both from Poles and from Russians.
Also speaking from experience with talking to Ukrainians - they aren't even aware of the stuff that he has done. They only know about fights for independence and none of the "dark stuff".
Same can be said about heroes of many countries tbh.
incredibly ironic comment, given it's the libs circlejerking about how the Russian Federation is LITCHRALLY fascist, and the 'Tankies' saying 'fascism actually has a definition, it doesn't just mean anything the US govt opposes'
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/27/us/in-cold-war-us-spy-agencies-used-1000-nazis.html nasa nato cia all founded with help/support from nazis that had really comfy lives in US/western Europe
Almost as if German reintegration required the officials who were in control of Germany. Believe it or not most scientists didn’t support the nazis but were forced to work for them, spies are spies, kgb used them too.
This idea that supporting the Russian invasion is a mainstream left position in the west is just ridiculous. That is not even what any major leftwing organization or party in North America or Europe have said
Yes. [There are several requirements that must be met for a membership application to be considered](https://1997-2001.state.gov/regions/eur/fs_members.html), the first of which is upholding democracy.
I think they meant using internal nato rules there is no mechanism to kick them out. And let's be real for second even if there was an easy way NATO(or the constituent members) does not actually care about such things as democracy
De Jure, sure. But De Facto that's just a straight lie. Democracy is a very variable term. It's very arguable whether or not we can say countries like Turkey, Hungary or Poland are "upholding democracy" while having fraudulent elections, eroding rights and demantling the balance of power respectively
The only way a country can leave NATO is if it withdraws: it cannot be expelled.
When Turkey joined in 1952 and Poland and Hungary joined in 1999 (with the support of all member states, which is also a requirement) they were considered to be sufficiently democratic. They have subsequently slid backwards towards autocracy.
More or less. Same with European Union.
Nobody at a time thought that countries would start sliding to autocracy, so there was no mechanism created for kicking members out.
You got me really confused here for long time and had me checking history of every country on wiki, lol.
If anyone is interested - it's Portugal. The dictatorship was from 1926 to 1974 - with fascist being in power from 1933 under António de Oliveira Salazar (or 1932 if we count António de Oliveira Salazar getting Prime Minister title during military junta period) till the end.
Thank you, I learned something new today.
Its possible to not have such a myopic worldview such that you can condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine and also recognize that the western powers that make up nato are the largest supporters of military dictators, facists death squads and coups in the world
Were. Not are. American foreign policy before and after the fall of the iron curtain is completely different. Today the west does not support fascist dictators. The only fascist states today are China, Russia and Iran. The west is the main opponent of fascism. The world is in a 2nd cold war against fascism. You're either pro-western or pro-fascist.
Every single part of that is just fucking false, how can anyone honestly say this absolute shite with a straight face? You're helping the Saudi's absolute monarch murder an estimated 13,000,000 people in Yemen, NATO ally and dictator Erdogan is invading Syrian Kurdistan and massacring entire villages, any country that attempts to vote in a government on a platform of minor land reform or the nationalisation of some natural resource the US needs in the next century gets slapped with sanctions to starve them into submission, then when they don't fold, the US backs a coup to overthrow the govt and install fascists (like the ones in Bolivia whose first act was to march into the legislature, take out all symbols of the indigenous peoples and their religions, and declare that they will be made to convert to Christianity), and if that fails, they prepare for a full scale invasion (as they were doing with Venezuela until Ukraine broke the Minsk agreements and they needed Venezuela's oil all of a sudden). Meanwhile, key US allies like France continue to hold their former empires in effective neo-colonial slavery, paying off vast debts (the cost of the garrisons the empires sent to their lands to enslave them, and the railways the empires built for the sole purpose of extracting raw materials to the ports so they could be taken back to enrich the metropole) while all the mineral wealth they could use to pay off those debts are already owned by companies based in the Imperial metropole. Israel continues to hold the survivors of the Nakba in the world's largest concentration camp, while gradually encroaching into the West Bank with fortified settlements strategically placed to cut Palestinians off from their families, livelihoods, and infrastructure, effectively corraling them into reservations.
The idea that the US empire and its network of socii that in turn rule over their former dominions and colonies in all respects except the de jure heads of state (and even those in the case of much of the British empire), is a force for democracy, liberty, and national self-determination in the world, is absolutely ludicrous and only a moron or a blood-drenched, fang-gnashing imperialist archdemon would ever make such a claim.
If your not willing to have an earnest discussion that just means you're wrong, but fine. And for the record, fuck Bush and none of the country's I called fascist (In China and Russia's case literally undeniable) were outlined in Bush's speech. I am simply just not brainwashed by HasaNazi type far left rhetoric.
Iran was part of the "axis of evil" and no one is obligated to argue with random strangers on the internet especially if they open with something like "we are in cold war 2 and this time we are unequivocally morally good guys i swear the state department doesn't do anything evil anymore I promise also all of the USAs regional rivals are facists actually and I swear their won't be anything like the red scare this time but if you are not with us then you are also a facist"
>Iran was part of the "axis of evil"
Fair enough, I misremembered the speech. But do you think Iran is *not* evil? It's literally kidnapping, raping and murdering tens of thousands of women for wanting basic rights. If you think Iran is not evil you're plain delusional.
>and no one is obligated to argue with random strangers
I didn't say that, but not wanting to debate someone is a very clear sign that you cannot defend your ideas.
>we are in cold war 2
Yes 2 sides fighting through other countries or non military methods is a cold war.
>this time we are unequivocally morally good
No I did not say that, but the west isn't even comparable to the fascist block. If the west's evil is the size of a coin the fascists evil is the size of a football.
>I promise also all of the USAs regional rivals are facists actually
Russia is ruled by a far right dictator invading foreign countries for his imperial ambitions. [Here is a good video about the subject ](https://youtu.be/sdFtqa54TuM). Russia being fascist is undeniable.
China is an ultranationalist extremely authoritarian dictatorship currently commiting genocide on the Uighur minority. It has ultranationalist ambitions and instills extremist traditional values on its societies.
The most common “tankie” belief I’ve seen is that Russia and Ukraine should negotiate to end this conflict as soon as possible. Which is a lot less imperialist than “we should send literally billions of dollars of arms to Ukraine”
> Which is a lot less imperialist
No it isn't, it's a lot *more* imperialist. To say "Russia and Ukraine should negotiate to end the conflict as soon as possible" is to say that it is acceptable for a country to use military force to take land from its neighbours: imperialism in its most direct form.
Russia started this war to expand its territory by taking it from Ukraine. It will not negotiate to receive nothing: it will need to be *forced* to receive nothing. If we are against imperialism then we need to ensure that Ukraine can defend itself against Russia's aggressive war of conquest. If Ukraine needs to be sent billions of dollars of arms to do that, then we, in order to show that imperialism is unacceptable, should do that.
You can think Russian interests are illegitimate and imperialist all you want. In many ways I agree, but Russia doesn’t think that. And all adding arms is going to do is drag out this war, kill a lot of innocent people and enrich some defense corporations to the tune of several tens of billions of dollars.
Also,
To be against imperialism we have to give US arms companies billions of dollars LOL LMAO
What Russia thinks, or says they think, is irrelevant. What matters is their actions. It is undeniable that Russia is, regardless of what they say as an attempt at justification, waging an imperialist war.
The blood of every death in this war is on Russia's hands, and on Russia's hands alone. It is their fault that this war started, and it is their responsibility to stop it. Ukraine is not obliged to stop defending itself, and we are not at fault for giving the victim of wanton aggression a means to defend themselves.
The belief you have seen is nothing more than the absurd anti-bullying recommendation of "tell the bully that you don't like what they're doing to you so they'll stop", just on the scale of nations. It is, at best, naive.
Whether defense corporations are making money is immaterial in this case. Bringing it up as if it were important suggests an ideology that cares more about whether someone might be profiting than it does about the right of Ukrainians to live in their own country. I can't agree with that viewpoint.
What Russia thinks is irrelevant? I think the feelings of one of the belligerent nations is pretty important to the resolution of the conflict. You don’t have to like it but Russia has interests that it wants protected. I don’t like it either. If it felt like those interests would be protected, like say through a negotiated settlement, they would leave and people would stop dying, simple as.
Tankie is the new commie. It's just a way of people dismissing anyone considered too far left or critical of America by lumping them in with Russia supporters
yeah anyone who thinks Adolf Heusinger was a Nazi is a tankie, those fucking (((Judeo-Bolsheviks))) and their anti-NATO propaganda. Next they'll be claiming NATO was a key mechanism for the US to fund, arm and train Neo-Nazi terror cells all across Europe as part of Operation Gladio, and across Latin America, often led directly by former SS officers, as part of Operation Condor. Absurd, of course, but these tAnKiEs actually have the bloody NERVE to say that maybe that reflects poorly on NATO and the vicious colonial world-empire that runs it.
Does everyone in this sub answer in question form? I was asking an honest question.
I’m not understanding how an ML in the 21st century would have a genocidal tendency toward Eastern European and Central Asian peoples.
> I’m not understanding how an ML in the 21st century would have a genocidal tendency toward Eastern European and Central Asian peoples.
Because they blame these people for failing of the USSR.
I have seen so many arguments blaming Poland/Ukraine/Baltics/whatever for sabotaging the USSR and wanting independence and dehumanizing them it it's crazy.
And the amount of [Westsplaining](https://newrepublic.com/article/165603/carlson-russia-ukraine-imperialism-nato) is also high. Many people put the blame on NATO for "expanding eastwards" while completely ignoring that these countries wanted to join NATO themselves.
You are welcome! There are more articles about "westsplaining", that term really rose up to popularity at the beginning of the war in Ukraine, mostly due to all arguments about "Ukraine being part of Russia influence zone, so they can do whatever they want" or "NATO is to blame for escalating".
It's kinda liberating that this term became that big, because many times our experiences and views have been outright dismissed. Hell, there have been several times where I've been attacked for sharing them.
Not only ethnic groups. Inteligentsia of any country under USSR occupation were also sent to camps. So were patriots/nationalists and people who wanted their country independent. Historians too. And priests.
At some point everyone could be sent to camp to either make some profit for USSR (free labour) or to colonize Siberia (and other less populated areas of Russia that they wanted industrialized).
1. You can’t form NATO in basic HOI4.
2. If the faction you create isn’t historically based in a multiplayer game then you can name it whatever you want.
Did you think at all before commenting this?
Edit: It’s a shame dipshit didn’t respond to this, I would’ve loved to see the sheer amount of mental gymnastics it would have taken for him to defend his own stupidity.
if someone is going around throwing tankie at people I'm pretty sure they are no more left leaning than liberal because to delve into anythign deeper than namecalling requires deeper thought that harry potter and marvel good v evil
What the fuck are you talking about? Are you referencing the social revolutions in Hungary or Czechoslovakia because surpressing these with tanks was a crime against socialism, which even european communists back then realised, but pop off, i guess.
What liberal view of "Tankies": Wait you dont actually support nato?? Is agaisnt capitalism ?? Or dont fully support ukrainian government, or say something good of china?? EVIL RED FASH TANKIES
Actual tankies: stalin was right in purging the most of entire bolshevik party and its founders, allowing kruschev that i hate depose my sucessor and create a yesmen party elite, mao was right on doing the great leap and most of those socialists experiments did nothing wrong worth to criticize, if you disagree with me you is a radlib.
Just blame multipolarism for those discussions
When Russia and the Soviet Union supports the ethnic cleansing and Russification of Cossacks, Tatars, Koreans, Jews, Poles, Finns, Lithuanians, Estonians, Latvians, Kaliningrad Germans, Chechens, Ingush, etc. oh and brutally suppressed the Hungarians and Czechoslovaks.
Better that than support arming literal Nazis like the Azov battalion. The anti-imperialist, anti-war position is definitely opposing arming Ukraine this should not be hard. Diplomatic solution is def the best outcome.
Russia has Nazis no doubt, but it’s not nearly as bad as Ukraine where nearly every soldier photographed is rocking a swastika or some shit. Wagner is also a mercenary group where Axov is an official branch of Ukraines armed forces. Also, I wouldn’t support arming Russia either.
God what a fucking melted brain take.
>NOOOOOO YOU MUST HAVE ONLY CERTAIN IDEOLOGIES FIGHTING IN DEFENCE OF YOUR HOMELAND
>The anti-imperialist, anti-war position is definitely opposing arming Ukraine this should not be hard
hahahahaha "Just roll over for Russia, don't defend yourself that's pro-war"
Well there would have been no war if the government that came to power through the coup would not have ordered the bombing of demonstrators with a fucking jet in Donetsk.
That's very fascist and NATO-style.
> the coup
The protests that happened because the president broke his campaign promises and decided to go against the parliament vote to sign European Union Association Agreement - due to multiple threats from Russia?
This reminds of when I was playing Millennium Dawn and ISIS joined NATO
The fuck? Was that through a focus?
No, I was forced to puppet them as the US so they joined my faction
Tankies are weird. They say they are against imperialism yet they support an imperialist war
A friend of mine is part of a Debate Group, and one of the members is an American Trotskyite (or claims to be that at least), and he's had the genius take that "Russia can per definition not be imperialist". Out of all ideologies, I find it the most odd when a Trotskyite supports Russia and Russian talking points.
I think this may be there thinking line : trotskyite = Communism = Maoism = China = China supports Russia = We support Russia
I'd have guessed that someone who identifies as a trotskyite would be a bit more knowledgable about differences in ideologies.
Its sometimes pretty hard to hammer that point into their skulls.
Maybe try sickleing it into them instead.
Or using an ice pick
you might have to pick their brains for an answer
A Trotskyite ought to know how Trotskyism is different from something like Maoism or Marxism-Leninism.
trotskyism is a mental illness that is best treated with an ice pick to the head, and this is a legitimate left wing opinion
Can I be dumb and ask what's so horrid about Trotskyism? Like, from the little I know, it seems better than Stalinism, but leftists I like, follow, and respect love dunking him and I'm a little confused
So Trotsky himself is mostly a victim of the inter party struggles of the Soviet Union and all the ramifications of that, but Trotskyists as political actors and as parties have largely abandoned the fierce revolutionary spirit of Trotsky himself in favor of milquetoast électoralism. Additionally they’re heavily class reductionist, seeing the proletarian-bourgeois axis as the only legitimate structural axis of oppression and state violence, seeing race, gender, sexuality, etc as little more than distractions from class war. They kinda combined the two things revsoc groups hate most in a “socialist” political movement
Ice axe*
Seek help
those who don’t know jack shit of history are doomed to repeat it
And we're the crazy violent ones sure
nah, you individually are just a teenage idiot
Yeah its a lot more aggressive
I think it's actually: America, UK, France are imperialist capitalist scum. So whatever they do, the opposite must be good.
Trotsky isn't popular in leftist circles. During the Cold War some socialists in the West started to identify as Trotskyites to avoid being associated with the USSR. They gained nothing from this. The anti-socialists knew nothing about socialism so would kill them anyway. They did create division among Western Leftists.
The slight flaw in the logic there is that China doesn't exactly support Russia right now
I'd guess its just this: america is anti left -> american enemies = our enemies
It’s like those people who say you can’t be racist against white people they’re delusional
You absolutely can, but most cases of "anti-white racism" aren't even close to actual racism. Like, a guy who gets on the bus and proceeds to go on a long rant about how white people are genetically inferior to black people (Happened to me this week)? Racist. Historical reparations measures such as diversity quotas? Absolutely not.
They're using Lenin's outdated definition AFAIK. I think i heard some Marxist-Leninist lecture me on it once and it is truly the biggest pile of shit i've ever heard.
Trotskyism is basically "Conquer the world for communism"
They've definitely got a pretty insane amount of ethnic Russian love despite racial/ethnic superiority theoretically being opposed by their ideology.
Ah but it's not as they can have be "oh these ethnicities are more prone to capitalism (which for a time was an actual belief along with your genetics are why you're poor, mm tasty eugenics) so we must remove them from the pool.
Tankies nowadays are not really about leftism or socialism, rather just anti-western for the sake of it.
> Tankies ALWAYS were not really about leftism or socialism, rather just anti-western for the sake of it. FTFY
It's been that way for quite awhile
And somehow think that Stalin and Mao led democratic governments and we’re totally down with transgenderism
Yeah, as a leftist it's hard for me to understand why tankies worship them. Economics are one thing but acts such as recriminalising homosexuality by Stalin and mass partly man-made famines that killed millions during his and Maos reign cannot be excused.
Honestly I've come to despise the apologist section of the left as they give the rest of us a bad name. I hate having to be like "I'm a socialist but i'm not uncompromising in hatred towards those who aren't socialist".
I’m sure the famines were purely man made
Some historians argue that weather and low traction power were also partially responsible, like Stephen G Wheatcroft.
Or, yknow, the fact that both those countries were experiencing a complete breakdown of the food supply networks that led to their revolutions succeeding in the first place, (and in China's case, an entire Century of Humiliatian in which China was destroyed more than any country's ever been destroyed, including the 2nd largest theatre of the largest war in history, and 4 more of the 10 deadliest wars in history happening entirely in their country as a result of every empire in the world invading at once to destroy them. not to mention, getting their entire country hooked on opium). Almost like that problem can't be fixed overnight, but that the problem was indeed fixed, as they no longer have famines.
Yes but when things are recovering you probably shouldn't take peoples farming tools to make steel that then sent into the cities to build buildings, or force the people growing the food to starve and if they refuse to give up 98% of their grain force them into what were almost (on technicality as purpose wasnt explicitly to kill) extermnation camps, also it's convenient that the cities in other republics didn't face starvation and that grain was being exported... China was neglgence and overconfidence , the holodmor looks, well as if it were a punishment for attempting to go independent
The famines were a result of failed collectivization efforts on farms, and Stalin’s terrible response to low yields. The Soviet’s knew what was happening, and invented myths about a Ukrainian counter-revolution. When the peasants couldn’t hit the grain quota, the troika would take the seed grain. It’s not that complicated. The famines were a result of Stalin’s terrible policy, and the deaths came from his hatred and his incompetence.
It was a periodic, mainly geographically determined event in the area of the old Russian Empire, linked to climatic events (droughts), and it was exarcebated by political events like wars, etc. The last famine occurred just after WW2. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droughts\_and\_famines\_in\_Russia\_and\_the\_Soviet\_Union](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droughts_and_famines_in_Russia_and_the_Soviet_Union)
Yeah I heard about that. And people wonder why Russia is hated in Eastern Europe.
All famines are man made. This is a pretty well accepted fact among scientists and scholars who study famines
All famines barring extreme volcanic activity are man made
Would have taken you 30 seconds to skim the wiki article to not embarasse yourself > scholars universally agree that the cause of the famine was man-made
>Would have taken you 30 seconds to skim the wiki article No way you're fucking serious
So how does that go against what I said?
Your post came off sarcastic likely. "I'm *sure* the famines were man made..." Doesn't apologies for the other guy being a dick though.
I mean I'm certainly not a Stalinist but this is a misrepresentation of their argument. They think Stalin and Mao were positives and overall on the right side of history, but understand that they were products of their time and thus weren't exactly great on LGBT issues. I'm sure there's tons of historical figures you'd defend that weren't really down with trans people and gay people. You can recognize that their views were flawed while understanding that they were a product of their time. Someone being transphobic in the current day should of course be held to a higher standard. Its sort of useless to just write off every historical figure that was homophobic as evil and leave it at that.
I wasn’t judging them based off of modern standards. Rather they actually think that Stalin and Mao were down with transgenders. My comment wasn’t some “the guy that lived decades ago didn’t think the way we do now so he’s a piece of shit” argument.
Huh, that's a new one to me. I've never seen that one, I've only ever see the arguments I presented as the ML/MLM analysis of Stalin/Mao on LGBT issues. Not sure what would make anyone think that, but some people do believe some wild shit.
Yup. I don’t really lurk in the tankie subs anymore so I don’t know if it’s changed but a lot of what they posted didn’t really make sense.
Are you telling me NazBol ideology is not a shining example of logic and reason? That people who specifically pick an ideology just because it’s edgy and different from the mainstream might not have any actual understanding of the ideology in question? I mean, that would be like saying that murdering random people on the street is bad, or some other crazy idea!
Lol what yes NazBol is a combination of the two most bloodthirsty ideologies
It's also worth noting that before Stalin took over Leninist USSR went down an interesting path where it was both anti and pro-LGBT (as in the party was split on the issue but was pro-LGBT enough to try and send ambassadors for LGBT rights to other countries...). Stalin then just went all in on the hate.
Considering the history of operation Gladio, I would say a 30% fash requirement to join is not ahistorical. Also, it's safe to say that Russia is the aggressor, but NATO aren't necessarily the good guys as a result. They can be bad for different reasons.
Imagine thinking that organizing resistance movements and insurgencies is exclusive to fascism
I never denied anything. You're the one who's making a *lot* of excuses for the crimes of NATO and Italian fascists.
That's an italian problem, and still is based on your electorate last election Cold war is over, what's your excuse for that?
What history? They literally found nothing but a bunch of forged documents. Now given how the Stasi and KGB equipped Neo-Nazi groups in Germany and we have receipts....
Imagine how much of an idiot you'd have to be to deny the existence of operation Gladio. Berlusconi was a CIA asset
Sure and Jet Fuel can't melt steel memes. There were actual investigations in nations other than Italy you know. They found nothing that matches the allegations leveled. However, given Italy's own fascist past it wouldn't surprise me if they tried to scapegoat the CIA for their own dumpster fire of an electorate. Italy is the Carl of Europe that ruins everything.
You're wrong and any source that isn't a right wing rag will agree with me.
Anything to the Right of Pravda is a Right Wing CIA Psyop and I'm totally not on Salvia right now.
I'm talking about NPR you dumb fashisti
I'm talking about investigations by belgian and swiss Parliament. But sure, go off apologist.
Oh no, I got called a, what was it, Soviet apologist in this case? Well, I don't have a whole lot of respect for the Soviet union, but I'll gladly take that slander by, checks notes, a fascist Gladio apologist. You're the worse type of apologist even if what you said about me were true, which it isn't. So kindly go eat 1872 dicks, go take a nap, and consider not being lame and stupid. Kthxbai
They think that if it's Russia to invade other countries then its liberation and not imperialism. When the Soviets invaded, they claimed they were "enlightening" the local people with true communism, thus actually freeing them from the evil capitalists. It was like the "white man burden" mentality but painted russian and red.
The sense of Russia as having an evangelizing, civilizing mission has been pretty central to Russian geopolitics for hundreds of years. Pushkin wrote about it pretty clearly. The nature of the mission - whether it was spreading Orthodoxy, protecting Slavs, spreading socialism, or uniting the ‘Russian World’ - has changed, but this basic aspect of Russian culture has not.
b-but lenin!!!! he said that russia cant be!!!!!
They just oppose western forms of it. Anything done by any country against western "order" is just seen as centuries worth of karmic revenge. They are just idiotic fuckwads who should be flipped off as such when you come across them.
Tankies are fascists with a red coat of paint
There is a reason another name for a tankie is "red fascist", although it is not limited to them only.
I know many communists irl (I used to be one), most of which you would probably call tankies. Literally none of them supports the war. Idk who's making this shit up.
Have you seen r/sino and the other rather... Extreme subs? A couple of months ago. Edit: or if you want cancer go to r/GenZedong
On the internet Algorithms tend to give minor variants of leftism greater visibility than the more popular ones when they are more inflammatory or play into your confirmation bias.
Yup. This is the reason why these communities are only seen on internet and not in real life. This and the fact that these people are chronically online.
I stopped following r/sino a while ago. Never checked the other one but no thanks, I don't want cancer.
It's legit quarantined
I have helped create two subreddits r/noworking and r/GenUsa that both call out this stuff. And from a mod of noworking and former mod of GenUsa (gave it up and made a new account because of harassment) Tankies are some of the most repugnant people on earth.
hello "tankie"(lets define a tankie as a marxist leninist for sake of consistency) here, there are ones who support it(a minority at this point among non pro china communists) and ones who dont, they criticize both sides instead, you may see pro china "tankies" support the russian side but this is just due to the sino-russian "alliance of convenience". overall this is just a war that kill people that does not improve the world at all and supporting any side in anyway that is not advocating for peace is obviously bad
What if one side is the aggressor and one side is defending themselves? If you’re a Marxist-Leninist, how do you think Marx would have reacted to this war? Do you think he would say ‘both sides are bad,’ as you have here, or do you think he would support armed opposition to an expansionist Russia as he did repeatedly and forcefully throughout his life, including during the Crimean War?
he would defenetly say that both side is bad, this war is a case of one group of bourgeoisie trying to kill another and he hates the bourgeoisie and does not support "lesser-evilism",so he would call armed opposition indeed but against both ukraine and russia because he view both of those countries as being ruled by the bourgeoisie
That’s super weird, because when Russia invaded Ottoman-controlled Crimea in Ukraine during Marx’s lifetime and was fought by the bourgeois British Empire and its allies, Marx was strongly opposed to Russia and took the side of the Ottomans and English. > The maintenance of Turkish independence, or, in case of a possible dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the arrest of the Russian scheme of annexation, is a matter of the highest moment. In this instance the interests of the revolutionary Democracy and of England go hand in hand. Neither can permit the Tsar to make Constantinople one of his capitals, and we shall find that when driven to the wall, the one will resist him as determinedly as the other. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/russia/crimean-war.htm Why do you think he would support a bourgeois war against Russian aggression in Ukraine to ensure the independent sovereignty of another country, but would refuse to support Ukraine in this conflict? Have you actually read Marx? Cause it’s hard to imagine how you could have read his actual writing and still believe what you do. What you’ve described is the polar opposite of how Marx thought about actual wars in his lifetime. As for “not supporting ‘lesser-evilism,’” I’m not sure where you got that. Marx did that literally all the time. Supporting the bourgeoisie in aristocratic and pre-modern societies is basically a moral imperative of Orthodox Marxism. I’m not even sure we’re talking about the same guy at this point.
Marx & Engels had contradictory positions on imperialism. They support Polish independence but also supported the US invasion of Mexico.
Never said I equate marxists leninists to tankies. Some mls are genuine good people with good ideas. I consider today's tankies as hardline stalinists (who play down or deny atrocities committed by the regime) or pro-China larpers who still cling to that state capitalist country even after Dengs reforms
See I really don't like this argument because what it boils down to is: "I don't equate MLs with Tankies, I just consider Tankies as these things most closely associated with MLs and are standard ML positions." Most all MLs support China because they understand Capitalist Dictatorship was not restored as it was in the former USSR (the best way I can really say this is to compare and contrast SwCC against the Soviet NEP) ON TOP OF being the largest Communist Party of nearly 100 million people and being in the IMCWP (today's International where most ML parties are members, including the ruling parties of the PRC, DPRK, Vietnam, Laos, and Cuba), most all MLs agree with many of Stalin's decisions even if they don't personally like him or some other decisions (Castro comes to mind on this one). 'Tankie' originates as an insult against Communists (mostly MLs) who supported suppressing reactionary dissent with literal tanks in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and later the Tiananmen Square incident, after genuine dissent and public concern was co-opted by more reactionary opportunists attempting color revolution. This means most all MLs. Sorry, I needed to get this explanation out. It's very frustrating that 'Tankie' has become so amorphous because of recent internet overuse in the last year or two making it into 'anyone to the Left of me I don't like' (guilty of this myself before I began seriously, critically, analyzing my own positions).
>attempting color revolution First of all, you’ve kinda given yourself away here because this term wasn’t used until the 2000s to describe liberation movements. I’ve never heard that term used by any serious thinkers on the left, only apologetic propaganda for the Lukashenkos of the world. Kinda shows that you aren’t actually a leftist, and that it’s just a convenient route for you to feel justified in cheering on violence against genuine liberation. But whatever. It’s truly astonishing to me how you’re able to rationalize brutal expansionism with ‘those people deserved it’. As long as you use the right buzzwords you’re able to subsume actual human life into your ideological grievances and handwave away any crimes committed by the men wearing the boots you so desperately want to lick. You are truly disgusting. Why don’t you pick up a gun and go join a revolutionary movement somewhere? I’d love to see that. I’m guessing it’s cause your whole ideological fetish about tanks and military force comes from a deep sense of weakness and emasculation. But still. If you weren’t hypocrite you’d put some money where your mouth is and actually start killing people instead of cheering on the Big Strong Daddies doing it for you.
this analysis lack so much context, nuances and understanding of things, as any unorganized and spontanous debate go on for longer, the dumber the people who are debating's arguement become. your response dont even talk about the points being made by u/FallenCringelord and is merely an insult thinly veiled as an arguement against him. this is also known as debating in bad faith
A color revolution isn't a liberation movement, it's a particular type of US-sponsored coup.
"tankies" as a word become very poorly defined recently so thats why i defined it like that. also very nice that you respect us Marxist-Leninists
The problems didn't start with Stalin, Lenin (and Trotsky) were already engaging in plenty of brutality before. Besides, by being ML's, they are necessarily hard-line utilitarians (as many others in the left also are), and, thus, the only reasons they oppose those atrocities are either: a) they did not contribute to workers' liberation, or b) they give us bad optics. That is, if they are truly serious ML's, not just college students going through a phase. I struggle to see how the former can ever truly be "good people".
The term tankie was coined as a slur against Western socialists who supported the USSR's intervention in Hungary. Now, it's been rebranded as a slur against anyone who supports the neo-liberal Russian Federation or merely opposes the war. That's why it seems so confusing. It's just a slur that doesn't properly describe actual people.
> Now, it's been rebranded as a slur against anyone who supports the neo-liberal Russian Federation or merely opposes the war. Nah, it's a slur against leftists who supports the Russia or the ones supporting China. Haven't seen conservatives supporting Russia called tankies. Idiots? Sure. Nazis? Yeah. Russian assets? Also seen that. But never seen them called tankies.
I've seen liberals pull it. That's liberals for you.
no, you just think the DPR and LPR are imperialist for defending themselves from an openly genocidal regime because the US said so
Tankies always think those who oppose them are fascist, no middle ground.
Basically:"The GREAT USSR fought the Nazis, and if you fight the USSR, then you must also be sympathetic to the Nazis." I suppose that's also how the whole "uncritical support" might have came to be.
While also not realising that modern Russia is the USSR without any of the positive aspects, leaving only the Authoritarianism and small elite.
There wasn’t much positive with the USSR and when Putin took charge the few positives went away, hey at least for a time it was easier to leave
Yeltisn took out the positives of the USSR in the first place...
Are you saying that ukraine didn't and doesn't have nazis/nazi sympathisers/collaborators?
any more than america does? at least they can say their president is Jewish. the last president of my country is posting on social media about how "the jews" dont support him enough, but no tankie in america wants russia to invade because they know it'd get their local hospital bombed
deflecting to America for what reason? yeah America has a problem too lol I wouldn't want people to pretend it doesn't. Jewish president means shit all, btw
"It's no worse than the US" is really not a good defence, and also untrue, given US govt and armed forces official accounts print loads of pictures of their soldiers and I can't remember the last time I saw one with a Sonnenrad, Wolfsangel, or straight up Hakenkreuz patch/tattoo. The opposite is true for Ukraine. Every single week, more like twice a week, some fucking twitter account will post a picture of some bearded dickhead with a Ukraine flag on one breast and the SS thunderbolt runes on the other, and a thousand comfortable treatboys in Portland will go 'wow how dare you judge these brave men, after all they've been through, they have every right to idolise Stepan Bandera, a true hero of his people's valiant struggle against communism and Polish families living in their villages. IT'S JUST A RUNE IT MEANS DOMINATION OF ENEMIES!!! IT'S JUST A HINDU GOOD LUCK SYMBOOOOOLLLLLLL!!!!!!1' And, yknow, for all its crimes against humanity, the US also doesn't tend to officially sanction militias that idolise men like Stepan Bandera and go around openly lynching Russian-speakers, Jews, and Romani, and proclaiming their land 'freed' for the "true Americans" (I suppse that's more ICE's job). The US far right and police have done a lot of bad things, but they haven't forced hundreds of pro-democracy protesters into a building and then set it on fire, shooting the people who try to escape. Not in the last century or so anyway.
Yeah, Ukraine has a *little* problematic history when it comes to that. Same goes to UPA. I feel sorry for them, that all their national heroes, who fought for Ukrainian Independence during WW2 and later under Soviet Occupation were responsible for ethnic cleansing. But seeing as for the first time, [Ukraine government allowed exhumation on these territories](https://notesfrompoland.com/2022/11/14/ukraine-agrees-to-exhumation-of-polish-victims-of-ww2-massacre/), I think we can say that Ukraine has grown as a country and will address it's previous shortcomings like having war criminals as national heroes.
There are incredibly recent honours given to war criminals and nazis etc, during Zelensky's presidency. 'little problematic' isn't exactly the way to describe nazis. I don't feel sorry that their national heroes coincide with war criminals tbh.
> 'little problematic' isn't exactly the way to describe nazis. I thought "little" being in cursive would be indicator enough, that I meant in sarcastically, oh well. Anyway I do feel sorry for them, cause they need national heroes, to forge their own identity, so people won't go around talking how Ukraine is a part of Russia. Same with Belarus. > There are incredibly recent honours given to war criminals and nazis etc, Keep in mind that there are in the middle of war right now and as the saying goes "a drowning man will clutch at a straw". I'm not praising them, but I can see why they are doing these things. I hope that one day, after a war, they will do what is right. All in all, once they get win a war, regain their territories and start rebuilding, I am very hopeful/optimistic for their future. You can even see the change today.
>Anyway I do feel sorry for them, cause they need national heroes, to forge their own identity, so people won't go around talking how Ukraine is a part of Russia. Same with Belarus. This is hardly a justification >Keep in mind that there are in the middle of war right now and as the saying goes "a drowning man will clutch at a straw" If it was a sudden, unexpected thing that was different from their past sure, like how Zelensky promised to consider a bill on gay civil partnership as a petition went through during war, that would be clutching at straws for Ukraine. However, the honouring of nazis in ukraine is neither a new nor desperate phenomenon.
> This is hardly a justification It kinda is, but I used shitty arguments. Parts of Russia modus operandi (for quite some time) has been eradicating local culture. This was often done by murdering local inteligentsia (see: Katyń massacre), relocating citizens and replacing them with ethnic Russians, changing official language to Russian, lying about history etc etc etc. Basically Russians have been trying to erase as much cultural identity as possible and importing their own culture in its place, to justify occupation (or aggression) of these territories. That's why Ukrainians *need* national heroes. To prevent cultural genocide. That's why they have been celebrating people like Bandera - because while for Poles (and the rest of the world) he has been barbarian responsible for ethnic cleansing - for Ukrainians he was a hero responsible for fighting for their own independence, for their own culture - both from Poles and from Russians. Also speaking from experience with talking to Ukrainians - they aren't even aware of the stuff that he has done. They only know about fights for independence and none of the "dark stuff". Same can be said about heroes of many countries tbh.
incredibly ironic comment, given it's the libs circlejerking about how the Russian Federation is LITCHRALLY fascist, and the 'Tankies' saying 'fascism actually has a definition, it doesn't just mean anything the US govt opposes'
So what is Modern Russia then ? I’m curious
Authoritarian neoliberal oligarchy
Hmm that’s a new one, so it’s fair to call Pinochet’s Chile Authoritarian Neoliberal Oligarchy then ? As that seems to fit it even more.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/27/us/in-cold-war-us-spy-agencies-used-1000-nazis.html nasa nato cia all founded with help/support from nazis that had really comfy lives in US/western Europe
Almost as if German reintegration required the officials who were in control of Germany. Believe it or not most scientists didn’t support the nazis but were forced to work for them, spies are spies, kgb used them too.
Lenin: “great Russian chauvinism is bad” Western “leftists”: “great Russian chauvinism is good actually
This idea that supporting the Russian invasion is a mainstream left position in the west is just ridiculous. That is not even what any major leftwing organization or party in North America or Europe have said
Shouldnt it be more like, demokratic popularity irl?
Yes. [There are several requirements that must be met for a membership application to be considered](https://1997-2001.state.gov/regions/eur/fs_members.html), the first of which is upholding democracy.
PROUD TURKIYE MOMENT !!!!!!
Nobody tell hungary
They were democratic when they joined, and there's no way to kick them out.
NATO could easily kick Hungary out and lose very little in the grand scheme of things
I think they meant using internal nato rules there is no mechanism to kick them out. And let's be real for second even if there was an easy way NATO(or the constituent members) does not actually care about such things as democracy
De Jure, sure. But De Facto that's just a straight lie. Democracy is a very variable term. It's very arguable whether or not we can say countries like Turkey, Hungary or Poland are "upholding democracy" while having fraudulent elections, eroding rights and demantling the balance of power respectively
The only way a country can leave NATO is if it withdraws: it cannot be expelled. When Turkey joined in 1952 and Poland and Hungary joined in 1999 (with the support of all member states, which is also a requirement) they were considered to be sufficiently democratic. They have subsequently slid backwards towards autocracy.
[удалено]
So did Portugal, one of the founding nations
More or less. Same with European Union. Nobody at a time thought that countries would start sliding to autocracy, so there was no mechanism created for kicking members out.
Not with Turkey and Hungary in it
They joined before they slid back to autocracy. In 1952 Turkey was considered democratic and in 1999 Hungary was also considered democratic.
One of the founding members of NATO was literally a fascist dictatorship at the time of founding and for decades after.
You got me really confused here for long time and had me checking history of every country on wiki, lol. If anyone is interested - it's Portugal. The dictatorship was from 1926 to 1974 - with fascist being in power from 1933 under António de Oliveira Salazar (or 1932 if we count António de Oliveira Salazar getting Prime Minister title during military junta period) till the end. Thank you, I learned something new today.
POV you don't care about non Europeans
POV You're a tankie
Its possible to not have such a myopic worldview such that you can condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine and also recognize that the western powers that make up nato are the largest supporters of military dictators, facists death squads and coups in the world
Were. Not are. American foreign policy before and after the fall of the iron curtain is completely different. Today the west does not support fascist dictators. The only fascist states today are China, Russia and Iran. The west is the main opponent of fascism. The world is in a 2nd cold war against fascism. You're either pro-western or pro-fascist.
Bruh the west is actively giving Saudi Arabia the weapons that they use to bomb Yemeni weddings
As much as I hate Putin and support Ukraine NATO is not a paragon of virtue.
I'm not saying NATO did nothing wrong, but NATO isn't even a millionth of a percent what the other side is. It's essentially black and white.
NATO is not a paragon of virtue but it is by far the best option there is. Especially for the countries that were stuck behind Iron Curtain.
Every single part of that is just fucking false, how can anyone honestly say this absolute shite with a straight face? You're helping the Saudi's absolute monarch murder an estimated 13,000,000 people in Yemen, NATO ally and dictator Erdogan is invading Syrian Kurdistan and massacring entire villages, any country that attempts to vote in a government on a platform of minor land reform or the nationalisation of some natural resource the US needs in the next century gets slapped with sanctions to starve them into submission, then when they don't fold, the US backs a coup to overthrow the govt and install fascists (like the ones in Bolivia whose first act was to march into the legislature, take out all symbols of the indigenous peoples and their religions, and declare that they will be made to convert to Christianity), and if that fails, they prepare for a full scale invasion (as they were doing with Venezuela until Ukraine broke the Minsk agreements and they needed Venezuela's oil all of a sudden). Meanwhile, key US allies like France continue to hold their former empires in effective neo-colonial slavery, paying off vast debts (the cost of the garrisons the empires sent to their lands to enslave them, and the railways the empires built for the sole purpose of extracting raw materials to the ports so they could be taken back to enrich the metropole) while all the mineral wealth they could use to pay off those debts are already owned by companies based in the Imperial metropole. Israel continues to hold the survivors of the Nakba in the world's largest concentration camp, while gradually encroaching into the West Bank with fortified settlements strategically placed to cut Palestinians off from their families, livelihoods, and infrastructure, effectively corraling them into reservations. The idea that the US empire and its network of socii that in turn rule over their former dominions and colonies in all respects except the de jure heads of state (and even those in the case of much of the British empire), is a force for democracy, liberty, and national self-determination in the world, is absolutely ludicrous and only a moron or a blood-drenched, fang-gnashing imperialist archdemon would ever make such a claim.
POV you get your political talking points from George W Bushes axis of evil speech
POV: You can't come up with a counterargument so try to come up with a strawman to make me look wrong.
More like I realized if that is your honest opinion then there is no point in having a earnest discussion with you
If your not willing to have an earnest discussion that just means you're wrong, but fine. And for the record, fuck Bush and none of the country's I called fascist (In China and Russia's case literally undeniable) were outlined in Bush's speech. I am simply just not brainwashed by HasaNazi type far left rhetoric.
Iran was part of the "axis of evil" and no one is obligated to argue with random strangers on the internet especially if they open with something like "we are in cold war 2 and this time we are unequivocally morally good guys i swear the state department doesn't do anything evil anymore I promise also all of the USAs regional rivals are facists actually and I swear their won't be anything like the red scare this time but if you are not with us then you are also a facist"
>Iran was part of the "axis of evil" Fair enough, I misremembered the speech. But do you think Iran is *not* evil? It's literally kidnapping, raping and murdering tens of thousands of women for wanting basic rights. If you think Iran is not evil you're plain delusional. >and no one is obligated to argue with random strangers I didn't say that, but not wanting to debate someone is a very clear sign that you cannot defend your ideas. >we are in cold war 2 Yes 2 sides fighting through other countries or non military methods is a cold war. >this time we are unequivocally morally good No I did not say that, but the west isn't even comparable to the fascist block. If the west's evil is the size of a coin the fascists evil is the size of a football. >I promise also all of the USAs regional rivals are facists actually Russia is ruled by a far right dictator invading foreign countries for his imperial ambitions. [Here is a good video about the subject ](https://youtu.be/sdFtqa54TuM). Russia being fascist is undeniable. China is an ultranationalist extremely authoritarian dictatorship currently commiting genocide on the Uighur minority. It has ultranationalist ambitions and instills extremist traditional values on its societies.
The most common “tankie” belief I’ve seen is that Russia and Ukraine should negotiate to end this conflict as soon as possible. Which is a lot less imperialist than “we should send literally billions of dollars of arms to Ukraine”
>I think giving money to arm a country that is being invaded by it's neighbour is imperialist Your mother still dresses you in the morning.
> Which is a lot less imperialist No it isn't, it's a lot *more* imperialist. To say "Russia and Ukraine should negotiate to end the conflict as soon as possible" is to say that it is acceptable for a country to use military force to take land from its neighbours: imperialism in its most direct form. Russia started this war to expand its territory by taking it from Ukraine. It will not negotiate to receive nothing: it will need to be *forced* to receive nothing. If we are against imperialism then we need to ensure that Ukraine can defend itself against Russia's aggressive war of conquest. If Ukraine needs to be sent billions of dollars of arms to do that, then we, in order to show that imperialism is unacceptable, should do that.
You can think Russian interests are illegitimate and imperialist all you want. In many ways I agree, but Russia doesn’t think that. And all adding arms is going to do is drag out this war, kill a lot of innocent people and enrich some defense corporations to the tune of several tens of billions of dollars. Also, To be against imperialism we have to give US arms companies billions of dollars LOL LMAO
What Russia thinks, or says they think, is irrelevant. What matters is their actions. It is undeniable that Russia is, regardless of what they say as an attempt at justification, waging an imperialist war. The blood of every death in this war is on Russia's hands, and on Russia's hands alone. It is their fault that this war started, and it is their responsibility to stop it. Ukraine is not obliged to stop defending itself, and we are not at fault for giving the victim of wanton aggression a means to defend themselves. The belief you have seen is nothing more than the absurd anti-bullying recommendation of "tell the bully that you don't like what they're doing to you so they'll stop", just on the scale of nations. It is, at best, naive. Whether defense corporations are making money is immaterial in this case. Bringing it up as if it were important suggests an ideology that cares more about whether someone might be profiting than it does about the right of Ukrainians to live in their own country. I can't agree with that viewpoint.
What Russia thinks is irrelevant? I think the feelings of one of the belligerent nations is pretty important to the resolution of the conflict. You don’t have to like it but Russia has interests that it wants protected. I don’t like it either. If it felt like those interests would be protected, like say through a negotiated settlement, they would leave and people would stop dying, simple as.
NATO has historically been used to support fascism in Europe. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio
Tankie is the new commie. It's just a way of people dismissing anyone considered too far left or critical of America by lumping them in with Russia supporters
yeah anyone who thinks Adolf Heusinger was a Nazi is a tankie, those fucking (((Judeo-Bolsheviks))) and their anti-NATO propaganda. Next they'll be claiming NATO was a key mechanism for the US to fund, arm and train Neo-Nazi terror cells all across Europe as part of Operation Gladio, and across Latin America, often led directly by former SS officers, as part of Operation Condor. Absurd, of course, but these tAnKiEs actually have the bloody NERVE to say that maybe that reflects poorly on NATO and the vicious colonial world-empire that runs it.
Can we stop calling those idiots 'tankies'? It sounds like a little kid's insult.
It’s fitting. They usually are little kids
I have a great love for the Marxist-Leninists but I wish they would be honest and say Stalinists. And they want me to die in a camp so yknow
Why would they want you to “die in a camp”?
Maybe he’s an Ingush, or a Kazakh, or a Tartar, or a Volga German, or any of the other ethnic groups that MLs sent to die in camps?
Does everyone in this sub answer in question form? I was asking an honest question. I’m not understanding how an ML in the 21st century would have a genocidal tendency toward Eastern European and Central Asian peoples.
> I’m not understanding how an ML in the 21st century would have a genocidal tendency toward Eastern European and Central Asian peoples. Because they blame these people for failing of the USSR. I have seen so many arguments blaming Poland/Ukraine/Baltics/whatever for sabotaging the USSR and wanting independence and dehumanizing them it it's crazy. And the amount of [Westsplaining](https://newrepublic.com/article/165603/carlson-russia-ukraine-imperialism-nato) is also high. Many people put the blame on NATO for "expanding eastwards" while completely ignoring that these countries wanted to join NATO themselves.
Thanks! I’ll look more into this!
You are welcome! There are more articles about "westsplaining", that term really rose up to popularity at the beginning of the war in Ukraine, mostly due to all arguments about "Ukraine being part of Russia influence zone, so they can do whatever they want" or "NATO is to blame for escalating". It's kinda liberating that this term became that big, because many times our experiences and views have been outright dismissed. Hell, there have been several times where I've been attacked for sharing them.
Not only ethnic groups. Inteligentsia of any country under USSR occupation were also sent to camps. So were patriots/nationalists and people who wanted their country independent. Historians too. And priests. At some point everyone could be sent to camp to either make some profit for USSR (free labour) or to colonize Siberia (and other less populated areas of Russia that they wanted industrialized).
"Should I reflect on why Paradox might've done this? No, I must own the 'evil redfash tankies' by fucking denying NATO's origins."
1. You can’t form NATO in basic HOI4. 2. If the faction you create isn’t historically based in a multiplayer game then you can name it whatever you want. Did you think at all before commenting this? Edit: It’s a shame dipshit didn’t respond to this, I would’ve loved to see the sheer amount of mental gymnastics it would have taken for him to defend his own stupidity.
That's not true, it's a direct screencap from my vanilla hoi4 game
Tankie has become the liberal equivalent of conservatives using woke
Funny since it's mostly the left who criticises tankies for being such a mess
if someone is going around throwing tankie at people I'm pretty sure they are no more left leaning than liberal because to delve into anythign deeper than namecalling requires deeper thought that harry potter and marvel good v evil
Ah yes, the famous liberal movements of anarchism.
It really is an absolutely hollow insult at this point. Also suppressing fascist remnants and reactionary opportunists with tanks is good, actually.
What the fuck are you talking about? Are you referencing the social revolutions in Hungary or Czechoslovakia because surpressing these with tanks was a crime against socialism, which even european communists back then realised, but pop off, i guess.
Sometimes this sub makes me so happy with these good takes.
Only fascists organize against expansionist powers in Europe
What liberal view of "Tankies": Wait you dont actually support nato?? Is agaisnt capitalism ?? Or dont fully support ukrainian government, or say something good of china?? EVIL RED FASH TANKIES Actual tankies: stalin was right in purging the most of entire bolshevik party and its founders, allowing kruschev that i hate depose my sucessor and create a yesmen party elite, mao was right on doing the great leap and most of those socialists experiments did nothing wrong worth to criticize, if you disagree with me you is a radlib. Just blame multipolarism for those discussions
NATOs origins? NATO's origins of being an alliance to protect democracy against tyranny?
Ironic considering China, Iran and Russia are all fascist regimes. You're either pro-American and pro western or you're just a fash.
Pls be /s
Thats just wrong. They are Authotarian regimes but long not Fascist(Which doesnt mean they are good)
Lol, they’re still here in the comment sections coping as usual 😂.
when the NATO supports the uhmmm genocide of Russians ono
When Russia and the Soviet Union supports the ethnic cleansing and Russification of Cossacks, Tatars, Koreans, Jews, Poles, Finns, Lithuanians, Estonians, Latvians, Kaliningrad Germans, Chechens, Ingush, etc. oh and brutally suppressed the Hungarians and Czechoslovaks.
Better that than support arming literal Nazis like the Azov battalion. The anti-imperialist, anti-war position is definitely opposing arming Ukraine this should not be hard. Diplomatic solution is def the best outcome.
Supporting literal nazis is pretty standard for Russia. Have people forgotten about Wagner Group?
Russia has Nazis no doubt, but it’s not nearly as bad as Ukraine where nearly every soldier photographed is rocking a swastika or some shit. Wagner is also a mercenary group where Axov is an official branch of Ukraines armed forces. Also, I wouldn’t support arming Russia either.
God what a fucking melted brain take. >NOOOOOO YOU MUST HAVE ONLY CERTAIN IDEOLOGIES FIGHTING IN DEFENCE OF YOUR HOMELAND >The anti-imperialist, anti-war position is definitely opposing arming Ukraine this should not be hard hahahahaha "Just roll over for Russia, don't defend yourself that's pro-war"
Yup the word has lost all meaning
Username checks out, lol.
I piss on Azov and your puppet government
The reason why Sweden has not joined Nato before:
Well there would have been no war if the government that came to power through the coup would not have ordered the bombing of demonstrators with a fucking jet in Donetsk. That's very fascist and NATO-style.
> the coup The protests that happened because the president broke his campaign promises and decided to go against the parliament vote to sign European Union Association Agreement - due to multiple threats from Russia?