My apparently unpopular opinion is that if the term 'tankie' could be directed at leftists equivocating over the USSR sending tanks into Hungary it should apply just as much to people who justify, say, the IDF sending tanks into Gaza
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That’s not part of interminable leftist infighting though (I’d hope)
sep 1, 2025, 11:38 am • 0 0 • view
I don't think I've ever heard a leftist use the term unironically. Centrists and liberals, on the other hand...
sep 1, 2025, 11:42 am • 3 0 • view
I’m too steeped in family lore of the CPGB, some who left in 56, others in 68 … ‘Tankie’ definitely used unironically and bitterly. Along with arguments about Kronstadt, kulaks, and the betrayal of the Spanish left.
sep 1, 2025, 12:18 pm • 3 0 • view
Ya I used to use it in quite a tongue in cheek manner, but also to mean, “I’m not gonna work with this bloke because he’s probably going to fuck it up, even if he doesn’t mean to” (and yes it was 99% a bloke)
sep 1, 2025, 12:22 pm • 1 0 • view
Being of the ultra left (🤪) I used to use to describe a certain type of socialist man you would meet here - 60+ who had a hankering for the Soviet Union way over its best-before date Stopped using it when morons thought it meant “something socialism something Russia something gulags in Kent”
sep 1, 2025, 11:45 am • 5 0 • view